Transactions in Taste: The Collaborative Lives of Everyday Bengali Food 9780415553742, 9780415726313

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Transactions in Taste

Transactions in Taste
The Collaborative Lives of

Everyday Bengali

Food

Manpreet K. Janeja

First published 2010 by Routledge
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Advance Praise for the Book This is the book that food specialists have been waiting for: Manpreet K. Janeja has produced a detailed ethnography of everyday food practices among Bengalis. Not since Adrian Mayer’s pathbreaking study of a north Indian village (1960) have we had such a rich study of a South Asian food system. The added bonus for readers and researchers is that Janeja covers both Hindu and Muslim (halal) practices. Of special interest to people who teach food-related courses is Janeja’s investigations of shopping, preparation, consumption, and gifting. There is much scope here for teaching and for comparative ethnographic analysis. The chapter on kitchens and kitchen-life stands out as a model of clarity and insight. Janeja’s book is an excellent example of the new anthropology of everyday life, written in a conscious mode of opposition to an all-too-common preoccupation with the exotic and the extraordinary. Here we have a study of everyday, ordinary food consumed by ordinary people in mundane, unremarkable settings. The author has done a great service for the growing field of food studies. James L. Watson

Professor of Social Anthropology and Fairbank Professor of Chinese Society, Harvard University Manpreet K. Janeja takes us on a fascinating exploration of everyday life in two of Asia’s largest cities: Kolkata (India) and Dhaka (Bangladesh). Evoking the tastes, smells, sights, textures, and sounds of middle-class life through home cooking, she demonstrates how food is absolutely central to notions of hospitality, belonging, authenticity, comfort, and pride. But food also divides and unsettles because it is linked to specific ideas of religious community, class, and place of origin. It is as much about recreating lost homes in new surroundings as it is about asserting dominance and respectability. This path-breaking and sensitive study reveals food’s agency in a daily affirmation of distinctions between Muslim and Hindu, East and West Bengal, and many more, within a transnational Bengali-ness. Willem van Schendel Chair in Modern Asian History, and Professor of Sociology and Anthropology, University of Amsterdam

Transactions in Taste In Transactions in Taste, Manpreet K. Janeja slides us into the very oils, spices, and grains of everyday food on both sides of the split soul of Bengal — the Muslim Bengal of Dhaka in Bangladesh and the Hindu Bengal of Calcutta in India. She traces the vicissitudes of an endlessly negotiable but internally contested normality through its culinary incarnations in religious identities that have responded both to present-day internal class dynamics and to the historical crises of Partition and its complex, all-pervading aftermath. With an acute ear, eye, and (especially) nose and tongue, she sensuously explores ramifications and regularities through a range of spoken and eaten ordinariness, from gossip through platitudes and from snacks through family meals. In short, she takes us into the very guts of the self-consciously fractured but richly tasty worlds she has studied. In the seeming trivialities of an employer’s pique at excessively spicy food and the disappointment engendered by two little piles of a rejected vegetable dish, she evokes an impassioned and engaging world of ongoing social transaction and intensely present taste. This is an anthropology that is both about sensory experience and redolent of it — food for thought that also engages the physical senses through a captivating excitation of the taste buds. Michael Herzfeld Professor of Social Anthropology, Harvard University

intellectual

This is an excellent anthropological study of cuisine and culture in Bengal (both in West Bengal and Bangladesh). Bengal is wellknown for its complex culinary practices which underwent changes in recent times. The author has described the problem within a specific theoretical and conceptual framework. The everyday engagement of food with other things, people, and places opens up the world of ‘foodscape’. From the world of normal ‘foodscape’ the author enters into the arena of food in everyday life. This eventually leads to the Hindu and Muslim conventions of pure/impure, auspicious/inauspicious, lawful/unlawful and other similar binary oppositions. Indeed, this is an important contribution to South Asian studies.

considerable

Abhijit Dasgupta Professor of Sociology, Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi

For my parents

Contents List

of Platesxi

Foreword by Marilyn Strathern Preface and Acknowledgements Note on

xv

Language, Transliteration,

and Translation

of Bengali

Words

1.

Food

2.

The Actants of

3.

"Like

4.

The

5.

Of Seducing and Respectable, Hospitable and Stingy Foods: Subjectivities of Normal Food

6.

xiii

as

xx

Agency: Introducing Normality 1

Foodscape

16

Everyday": Creating Normality

43

a

Normal

Everyday Normal

Sacred Kitchen

68

89

Cha (tea), Gan

(song), aar (and) Adda ('idle'/'care-less' talk): Making and Consuming Normal Food 'Identities'

103

7.

Normal Food and

127

8.

Postprandial

Ownership in Contemporary Bengal

Ruminations

161

Bibliography

167

Index

182

List of Plates Plates 1 and 2:

k.achcha bazaar in Dhaka set up The kachcha tracks

Plate 3:

A

fishmonger, selling fresh

in front of his bonti

Plate 4: !;

a

railway

bazaar,

seated

blade)) (curved blade

A street food vendor water

fish in

the

on

selling puchkas puchk.as (tamarind

balloons) mudi (puffed rice)

Plate 5:

A street food vendor

selling

Plate 6:

A

Bengali

sitting

room

in

a

middle middleclass middle-class

house in Dhaka Plate 7:

Haggling

in bazaars as part of

a

normal

everyday

foodscape Plate 8:

A domestic

help buying vegetables for her employer

Plate 9:

The 'classic' presentation of a 'traditional Bengali meal' (read here Bengali Hindu meal, marked beef ) (© The Tloe Bengal Cookbook by the absence of beef)

(1st edn) Plate 10:

sketch, of a Bengali Hindu middle-class man returning from the bazaar with fish, that inaugurates the section on fish recipes in The Tloe Bengal Cookbook Cookbook. and to seeks the (1st edn), centrality of fish capture to pi revived (here Hindu) (C The identity (© pi'revived Bengali 1st Cookbook Cookbook([ ([1st edn]) Bengal

Plate 11:

A

Bengali Hindu cook using a bonti in Hindu middle-class kitchen in Calcutta

a

Bengali

Plate 12:

A

Bengali Muslim cook using a bonti in Muslim middle-class kitchen in Dhaka

a

Bengali

Plate 13: 13:

Part of the

Plate 14:

Promod da's dds canteen in

Plate 15:

An adda in Promod da's canteen

A

fare laid out for tea (Dhakai poneer and (JDhakaiponeer in described 5.2.1 singaras)

Presidency College,

Calcutta

Plate 16-, 16:

Food served at at a Dhaka dawat (invitation)

Plate 17:

A dawat adda in

home in Dhaka,

a Bengali middle middle-class accompanied by songs and music

Plate 18:

The Hilsa fish preparations © © Tide (1st edn)

Plate 19:

© thor, and kanchkola @e Mocha, mochar gbonto, ghonto, tbor, The Bengal Cookbook (1st edn)

Plate 20:

The section of the menu card listing the vegetarian dishes served at Aaheli CM (© The Peerless Inn,

Bengal

Cookbook

Kolkata) Plate 21:

The kulo (rice winnowef)-shaped. winnower)-shaped restaurant menu card with the name Aaheli written in "alpona alpona style" "

(© The Peerless Inn, Kolkata) (© bazaar

Plate 22:

Fresh fish sold in

Plate 23:

Dried fish (sbulki machch) sold in (shutki macbch) Dhaka

a

in Calcutta a

bazaar in

Foreword This is a book that can be read at many levels. To say that parts have the aroma of a novel is to point at once to the vividness of some of the descriptions, and to the fact that the framework for this writing — which the author makes deliberately evident — leads her to a plot as remarkable as any work of the imagination. In fact the plot elicits a certain kind of understanding, or sensibility, one that illuminates the imagination in translation. Manpreet K. Janeja joins many English-language authors writing about their native India, but for all the immediacy of experience that rises from these pages also makes a case for translation. To do that is to mediate what is being conveyed, so we have here the intervention of an style of thinking, and one that at first sight seems an almost unnecessary intrusion, so effective is her own art of description. It is the anthropology, however, that gives this book its plot. And I am sure I shall not be the only reader who will return to novels set in modern India with some insight into the work of the imagination, if no more that encountering afresh the overpowering effect of those time-preserving pickle vats where food and memory fuse together. I wrote ‘relish’ out of the previous sentence. Once on the topic, it is hard in English not to have the senses that foods evoke flavour almost every sentence. By contrast, Manpreet K. Janeja introduces a restraint in her use of metaphor precisely because she wants to show the power of a specific Bengali imagination. By turning food into a character in her plot, she is able to convey the salience of its presence in the everyday lives of the urban middle classes, Hindu and Muslim alike, living in West Bengal and Bangladesh. She does this by showing just how much agency it exerts through the demands it makes on people for its purchase, preparation, serving, marketing; how it mobilises those around itself in all kinds of roles, as vendors, cooks, mistresses and servants; how it at once forces and seduces the body into registering its sensory power, and how it compels to defend styles of mixing spices, eating fish, having meat on the menu, all in the name of national authenticity. Social anthropology gives the author a way of pressing this sense of agency into the service of analysis, and it is an animated one,

anthropological

advocates

Transactions in Taste providing her with a framework that will bring into a single coherent account multitudinous scenes from the mixed and medley life of the everyday. She sets up the framework first, at the outset of the book, and explains among other things why one might want to talk of collaboration. It draws on, and then outreaches, ‘actor-network theory’ so-called. Indeed, she is uncompromising in the demand that she wants her words to make on the reader. So she gives it straight, resting her words on the words of others, while at the same time carrying the possibilities of this particular framework into an extraordinary arena. What is in turn made extraordinary by this move is the ordinariness or everyday-ness of middle class life. Taking the meal as the centre of much daily activity, she shows how this life is assembled, held together, and acted upon by the preparation and consumption of food. The theoretical discussion is there for the purpose of translation — and small reminders are given throughout that this is an exercise in translating the Bengali imagination — although its language in no way prepares for the reader for the stuff of that imagination. What a world to bring back home to one’s own everyday! Dr Janeja learned her anthropology under the guidance of Prasanta Ray at Presidency College, Professor André Béteille, Drs Rabindra Ray and Deepak Mehta at the Delhi School of Economics, and Professor Caroline Humphrey at the University of Cambridge. However, while anthropologists might have some fore-knowledge of actor-network theory that they would not expect to be shared among the majority of her readership, my own enjoyment of this book does not rest on that. It rests on how she has put the theorisation into action, and how she brings alive these people’s sense of what it is normal to do and expect and think. Only she would no doubt correct me and say it is the food and the meals that make this world alive.

Professor

June 2009

Marilyn Strathern Girton College, Cambridge

Preface and Acknowledgements Food and cuisine remain a contested terrain amongst likely readers of this book themselves. We live now with continually changing fashions in marriage and festival foods, national and regional with foods as commodities in restaurants and celebrity chefs, with foods as claims to authenticity and multicultural cosmopolitan identities, with the ethical global production and consumption of fair-trade foods. Given its uncanny ability to raise its head in domains both deeply intimate and intensely public, it is rather surprising that food has been largely under-explored as the explicit focus of anthropological studies. Western attempts to cross-cultural understanding have tended to treat food mainly through the of: forms of food abstinence such as taboos (Whitehead 2000), eating disorders (Counihan 1999), and religious fasts (Buitelaar 1993); feasts (Toomey 1994); food insecurity (Pottier 1999) and food-provisioning processes (Flynn 2005); food history (Mintz 1985); gendered food allocation (Counihan and Kaplan 1998); sometimes food-risk (Caplan 2000); and food-centred memory (Sutton 2001). By focusing on food as the key that unlocks the complexities of what is mundane yet profound — the everyday — this book seeks to address this prejudice against food. It does so through a detailed comparative ethnography. Food emerges as the pivotal medium of agency in eliciting Bengali Hindu and Muslim socialities on both sides of the Bengal international border: Calcutta in the Indian state of West Bengal and Dhaka in Bangladesh. My love affair with food began as a child in Calcutta. Growing up in the only Punjabi Sikh family in a predominantly Bengali neighbourhood in north Calcutta,1 I delighted in the rich plethora of smells, tastes, sights, sounds, and touches that seemed to enfold

cuisines,

vectors

1 There is a divide between the northern and southern parts of the city. North Calcutta, with its older, sometimes dilapidated buildings, remains of palaces and zamindar houses, and narrow by-lanes is perceived as the more ‘traditional’ part of the city. The south, with its often swanky, high rise buildings, broader streets, and more expensive shops, is broadly characterised as the ‘newer’ part of the city.

Transactions in Taste me. Always. The mishtir dokan (sweet shop) round the corner beckoned everyday, with its tantalising display of sweets in wondrous shapes and colours. The buzzing local machcher bazaar (fish bazaar) was where Billoo, the fishmonger, would set aside fresh fish every morning for me and my father to collect. Then there was the mudir dokan (grocer’s shop), where the fragrant spices would be weighed and packed into a thonga (small bag) made of old crackling newspapers. Not far from the grocer’s was a tiny shop where I watched in fascination as the lone grinding machine hungrily guzzled down the wheat grains and magically deposited the warm and aromatic flour into the waiting stainless steel container. There was the charming by-lane too where many an evening I would stand round thepuchkawala’s stand with my friends and bite into crisp puchkas2 heavy with their delicious load of spicy potatoes and tamarind water. At home, from our live-in Bengali Hindu cook Shikha, I learnt to sit on my haunches and cut vegetables with a bonti 3 that arose proudly in an elegant curve from its wooden platform on the floor. I grew up eating Shikha’s ‘Bengali lunch’ of fish, rice, lentils, and fried bitters and vegetables. This was ‘normal’ for me. When I walked out of the house, down the boulevard onto the pavements on either side of the main road, 4 what confronted me were small patches marked off by rows of single bricks. These patches displayed makeshift tents and small wood fires atop which sat earthern pots. In these brown pots cooked rice, with potatoes/fish bones/vegetable peels, ‘normal meals’ of the street dwellers, indifferent to the flurry of passing feet and the snarling traffic. And when I went out of my classroom, into the school lunchroom, my eyes met scores of ‘Bengali mothers’ bearing ‘Bengali lunchboxes’ with their variegated West and East Bengali5 genealogies that were discussed so often. That was ‘normal’ too. I left Calcutta years ago but the puzzle haunted me. Why was food so important to my ‘Bengali’ classmates? Why was it so important to 2 Tamarind water and spicy potato-filled balloons made of flour. A puchkawala is a street vendor who sells puchkas. 3 A curved blade rising out of a narrow, flat, and rectangular wooden base. 4 The Grand Trunk Road (GT Road). 5 East Bengal refers to contemporary Bangladesh. For a further discussion of these terms, see chapter 2 fn. 4.

Preface and Acknowledgements

their East and West Bengali genealogies? What was ‘Bengali’ about so much of the food in Calcutta? And what was ‘normality’ after all? The puzzle brought me to Cambridge: this book is based on my doctoral thesis here, The Agency of Normal Food: Performing Normality in Contemporary Calcutta and Dhaka.6 I am very grateful to my funding bodies for supporting my efforts to treat food ‘seriously’: the Cambridge Commonwealth Trust, Committee of Vice-Chancellors of the Universities of the UK, Radclifte-Brown Trust, the William Wyse, Smuts Memorial, and Henry Ling Roth Research Funds, Board of Graduate Studies, Department of Social Anthropology, and Queens’ College, Cambridge, the British Federation of Women Graduates and Harold Hyam Wingate Foundations. The writing of this avatar of my book has been made possible by the Eugénie Strong Research Fellowship at Girton College, Cambridge, for which I am immensely thankful. I am profoundly indebted to my doctoral supervisor, Caroline Humphrey, for her unremitting support, invaluable guidance, and ‘sandwich’ criticisms that have been critical to my work. I am deeply grateful to Marilyn Strathern for her unwavering encouragement; that her work has been a great source of intellectual inspiration is evidenced in this book. My thanks to Christopher Pinney, Piers Vitebsky, Rabindra Ray, Deepak Mehta, and Francois Farah for their incisive comments on the thesis version of this book. Thanks are also due to Martin Jones who read the manuscript with his usual blend of good humour and perspicuity. My special gratitude to my mentors at the Delhi School of Economics and Presidency College, Calcutta — Prasanta Ray, André Béteille, Rabindra Ray, Deepak Mehta, Anand Chakravarti, and J. P. S. Uberoi — for nurturing my curiosity during my undergraduate and postgraduate years, and for the countless discussions that never ceased to encourage me to explore beyond. I would like to thank my colleagues at Cambridge with whom I have thoroughly enjoyed many stimulating discussions, especially Andrew Moutu, Vera Skvirskaja, and Magnus Marsden. Thank you to Su Ford and Miranda Stock in the Department for always easing matters beyond the academic. I thank the Centre for Studies in

6 My doctoral thesis was completed in January 2004 though I have made periodic visits to Calcutta since.

Social Sciences (Calcutta), Haddon, Social and Political Science, Geography, and Cambridge University library staff, especially Jane Rabinson, the late Barbara Murray, and Paul Hudson for their willingness to help me track down references. My thanks to Bruce Godfrey at the University Computing Service for helping me solve digital puzzles and for all those encouraging chats. My thanks also to Omita Goyal, Nilanjan Sarkar, and Pallavi Narayan at Routledge for patiently enabling me to actualize this book. Many thanks go to my ‘adoptive’ parents, Muhammad Sunnah and Kishwar Kamal in Dhaka, and Jyotiprakash and Parameshwari Sil in Calcutta who opened their homes to me, and included me in their everyday lives. I would like to offer my special thanks to Mridula Bhattacharya, Bitopi Das, Abhijit Choudhury, Nipu and Khurshid aapa in Dhaka, Shipra, Pratipranjan, Pranabranjan, and Tapati Ray, and Abeda Razziq in Calcutta, and Sadia Khan in Cambridge. I wish to thank P. K. Dasgupta and Rakhi Purnima Dasgupta for granting me the permissin to use pictures from the first edition of The Bengal Cookbook authored by the late Minakshie Dasgupta. I thank S. K. Roy and Tarun Maity at The Peeless Inn, Calcutta, for granting me the permission to use pictures of the Aaheli menu card, and Debasree Roy and Rukmini Sen for making this possible. To the many others, who also extended their warm hospitality and engaged in addas over endless cups of tea with me, my heartfelt gratitude.

constant

I thank my friends in India and Cambridge, who have helped

me traverse this seemingly long and winding road: especially Ruby Bose, Debjani Mitra, Anjali Nayyar, Mahua Basu, Arpita Chakrabarty, Pia Chatterjee, Pramita Bhaumik, Avishek Ghosh, Arun de Souza, Reshmi Dutta Sarkar, Kaushik Roy, Jessica Sellin, Frances Ryan, Florian Hoffmann, Kostas Vlassopoulas, Casilda Garcia de la Maza, Guido Speiser, Marian Pla, Friedrich Germelmann, Cara Owens, James Keith, Nicholas Kessler, Welf Klingsch, Raphael Koch, Jonathan Ong, Seniz Greenhalgh, Edwina Rushworth, Laura Allan, Amir Mansour and Will Matthews. For that decisive sprint to the finishing line, I thank Pedro Luis Rodriguez and Brendan O’Brien. To Wendy Phillips-Rodriguez, Felix Steffek, Maria Psoinos, Roberta Borghero, and Renata Pieragostini, my utmost gratitude for those innumerable skype chats, conversations, and coffees that kept me going. I also thank them all for being willing companions in my countless, often not-so-brief, gastronomic wanderings. For sharing

‘that slice’ of normality with me, and for some singularly memorable culinary explorations together, I thank Alex Frenzel Baudisch. To Rudolf and Ethel Speiser my warm gratitude for giving me another home in Schwäbisch Hall. Finally, this journey has been made possible by the unconditional support of my parents, my sisters, and my brother. To them: thank you. Manjit Janeja, Mandeep Janeja, and Mairi Hurrell will know why they are acknowledged here: that is beyond words.

Note on Language, Transliteration, and Translation of Bengali Words I have omitted diacritical marks. All translations of Bengali direct speech into English are my own, unless otherwise noted. All such translations are literal, that is, are faithful to the exact words used by my ‘consultants’ or respondents; this sometimes results in the translated sentences and phrases sounding somewhat ‘stilted’ in English. Italicised Bengali words and sentences have been transliterated in the following manner: words with a clear Sanskritic origin have been written according to the standard Sanskritic pronunciation. Bengali colloquial words have been written in a way that Bengali pronunciation, often reflecting distinctive local forms. I use italics within quotation marks for Bengali speech transliterated in English. I have not italicised the smattering of English words that my various respondents frequently used, even when speaking in Bengali, which is one index of their class and class aspirations. Most of my fieldwork was conducted in Bengali, and only some of my respondents spoke to me primarily in English. Hence, the book contains several words, phrases, and sentences in Bengali, which also give a sense of the normal soundscape of Bengali everyday life. It also evidences the particular ‘identities’ of my respondents, indexed by specific shifts in food linguistic terms or linguistic registers.

approximates

1

Food as Agency: Introducing Normality 1.1 Foretaste Bengal. Deltaic abundance. Football. Fish. Communism. Adda.1 Rivers. Strikes and hartals.2 Partition. Cricket. ‘Islamic fundamentalism’. Rice. Taslima Nasreen. ‘Teeming’ millions. Poverty. Ray, Tagore, and Teresa. Famine. Tea (cha) … There are, no doubt, numerous ways of telling the story of Bengal.3 Here, the story unfolds by focusing on the process of preparation, storage, distribution, and consumption of ‘normal’ food at the beginning of this century in Calcutta, India, and Dhaka, Bangladesh. It investigates the hypothesis that food is critical to the manner in which middle-class4 Bengali Hindus and Muslims in contemporary Calcutta5 and Dhaka bring forth their relational worlds as normal. 1 ‘Idle-talk’. See chapter 6. 2 ‘Hartal’ (lit. locking of shops’) is a closure of shops and offices as a protest or a mark of sorrow (The Concise Oxford Dictionary 1999: 650). 3 Bengal is the anglicised name for Banga that refers to the area comprising Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal together to mark it off from the rest of the Indian subcontinent. As Ray (2002: 52–53) puts it, ‘To ascribe to Bengal the character of a society may seem somewhat questionable ... (for) (u)nlike nation-states Bengal is neither a self-sufficient economic entity nor a sovereign polity. It does, however, occupy a definite region, uses a particular language and, most significantly, there is a distinctive culture common to Bengalis ... (T)here are peculiarities that permit one to consider it more than merely an Indian [sub-continental] sub-culture, and allow one, if only tentatively, to call it a society.’ I use ‘Bengal’ in the sense delineated also guided by my ‘consultants’ (Battaglia 1995: 78) or respondents. 4 While I did interview respondents drawn from the poor classes as well, the focus is not on them. They have been discussed only insofar as they are implicated in middle-class normal food practices. 5 The city’s official English name was changed from ‘Calcutta’ to ‘Kolkata’ in 2001, reflecting the Bengali pronounciation. I have referred to the city as ‘Calcutta’ instead of ‘Kolkata’, in tune with many of my respondents, who continued to use the former, certainly when speaking in English, and also when using a mix of Bengali and English in most interviews that I conducted. Also see Chatterjee (2004) and Donner (2008) on the use of the name ‘Calcutta’.

Transactions in Taste It describes the transactional ‘agency’ that food acquires in its work of generating perceived normality. Agency is defined as the capacities, to act and be acted upon simultaneously (cf. Gell 1998; Latour 1993, 2005),6 that food gains in everyday and hospitality transactions. Perceived normality refers to the specific form of relations that food engenders in such agentive capacities. Food evinces normality constantly vis-à-vis what is evoked as notnormality.7 It is in this continuous, ongoing work of eliciting that food reveals the particularities and specificities of Bengali social relationships. That is, it illuminates the character of sociality itself, and perceptions of relatedness as Bengaliness (Bangalitto). The unfolding life of food in the following chapters shows the manner in which the immediate practical activities of making, and circulation define or depend upon the scope and meaning of social relationships among Bengali Hindus and Muslims. It makes visible the multiple modalities of engagement 8 with persons, places, and things that create ‘desh’ as normal ‘foodscape’.9 That is food, in its temporal, spatial, corporeal, sensual, affective, discursive, and moral transactions with all kinds of others evokes a sense of place, that I term foodscape. A foodscape perceived as normal acquires a particular relational form called desh.10 The focus, then, is on the specific attributes of the collaborative work of food. This dynamic view, therefore, attempts to develop an anthropology that is not merely about food, but from food. The description of normal food transactions in the household, and beyond (for example restaurants), evokes a range of practices and debates associated with a wider social biography.11 The reveals the ways in which food generates forms of sacredness,

relational

normality

consumption,

ethnography

6 I explain the theoretical orientations encompassed by the term ‘agency’ in greater detail in the next chapter. 7 I distinguish ‘not-normality’ from ‘ab-normality’ that implies an absence of

norms. I have explained ‘not-normality’ at length later on in the following chapters, in particular chapter 3. 8 I use the word ‘engagement’ because it implies reciprocal interaction (Weiss 1996), and therefore fits in with the focus of this study on food as agency,

defined as the simultaneous capacity to act and be acted upon. This has been dealt with further in Chapter 2, section 2.2. 9 See especially chapters 2 and 3. 10 ‘Desh’ literally refers to ‘native birthplace’, ‘local homeland’ (Gardner 1995)

or ‘motherland’, and the networks that are associated with it. See especially chapter 3. 11 Cf. Bourdieu (1984: 177–200); Weiss (1996).

Food as Agency

personhood, discursive intimacy defined as adda (‘idle-talk’), and ownership. The transactional agency of food, then, enables an entry into the enactment of a specific configuration of relationships, of creative, effective social action to which power (existential and political) and ‘identity’ are integral. It is germane to the argument of the book that discordances, dissonances, and ruptures are intrinsic to the constant work of food in eliciting normality. That is, food orchestrates the forever precarious balance between normality and not-normality as a notoriously shifting nexus of convergences and divergences. Thus, food works creatively in moments of crisis such as famine. It innovates in of everyday disturbances such as rising food prices. It strategises in the face of perceived threats of cosmopolitanisms, with their potential to blur and dissolve discrete indigenous of emplaced belonging. Food’s conjoined capacity to connect and capacity to divide12 are further highlighted in negotiations with newer forms of property regimes, and migration, accompanied by varying notions of scarcity and abundance. East and West Bengali conflicts and debates over contentious claims of owning and appropriating certain culinary practices are heightened by the process of commoditisation of ‘normal Bengali home food’, as indexed by the emergence of ‘Bengali restaurants’ claiming to serve such food. The commoditisation of home food tends to homogenise distinct senses of desh, and cuts out potential extensions and by essentialising Bengaliness. This generates a discourse of loss of culture and nostalgia for past distinctiveness and authenticity, which engenders anxiety and creates taut ambivalent relations between these collectivities.

relations

perceptions

variations

1.2 Missing Ingredients: Gaps in the Existing Literature On the one hand, there are no ethnographic studies of Bengal in English which concentrate on food. This lacuna is surprising, given the privileged place that food occupies in the lives of Bengalis and the potential of such a study to illuminate the character of everyday life in Bengal. On the other hand, there is a wealth of 12 This has been described throughout the ethnography but see particularly chapters 2 and 7.

Bengali cookbooks in the vernacular that offer, together with recipes, descriptions of elements of the normal Bengali foodscape.13 These socio-historical texts, however, do not provide an explicitly anthropological rendering of the collaborative work of food in eliciting normality that this book seeks to offer. The anthropology of food in English of course has a long history, beginning in the nineteenth century with the writings of Mallery (1888) and Robertson-Smith (1889), followed by Boas’s (1921) treatment of Kwakiutl salmon recipes and Radcliffe-Brown’s (1948 [1922]) rendition of food and ‘social sentiments’ among the Andaman Islanders. Malinowski’s (1935) concern with the of food among the Trobriand Islanders, Richard’s (1939) description of food transactions and symbolism among the Bemba in Northern Rhodesia, and Evans-Pritchard’s (1940) analysis of cow-time in his ethnography on the Nuer appeared thereafter. The recent spate of textbooks, anthologies, and university courses on food in anthropology and sociology14 testifies to the continued recognition of the significance of food in providing penetrating insights into the study of social relationships. Here, I do not purport to present an exhaustive literature review of the anthropology of food; rather, I attempt to locate my work vis-à-vis relevant terrains of this vast body of literature.15 My own approach is explained as the book unfolds. Structuralists like Lévi-Strauss (1966, 1970), Douglas (1984 [1966], 1971), and Barthes (1967, 1972) have examined the practices of cooking and eating as encoding implicit messages that are to be interpreted in relation to their contexts, and in which cultural puzzles, and paradoxes may achieve a symbolic The transformation of ‘natural’ foodstuffs into ‘cultural’ products of the table mediates relations between nature and culture. Between Lévi-Strauss, for whom ‘natural species are chosen not because they are good to eat but because they are good to think’, and Fortes (1966), for whom ‘animals are good to prohibit because

production

oppositions, resolution.

13 Basu (1997) offers an insightful account of these cookbooks. Also see chapter 2, section 2.2. 14 See Mintz and Du Bois (2002) for a brief review of such textbooks and courses on food. Also see Counihan and Van Esterik (2008).

15 I also refer to pertinent works on food that I draw upon or critique to clarify my argument as the account unravels.

they are good to eat’, is Tambiah’s (1969) position. For Tambiah, ‘animals are effective vehicles for embodying highly emotionally charged ideas in respect to which intellectuality and affectivity cannot be rigidly separated as representing human and animal modes of conduct ... (for) cultures ... are ... not only thought but also lived’ (Tambiah 1969: 457). Emphasising the existential form of everyday embodied including food practices, Bourdieu (1977, 1979, 1990 [1980]) points to the temporal character of such activities, lacking in accounts of food.16 However, for Bourdieu, this quality of created and creative practical temporality characterises only an ‘enchanted’ pre-capitalist world; embodied temporal consciousness, and being as temporal engagement with the lived world are severed under conditions of capitalism (Weiss 1996; Battaglia 1992). Moreover, the practical temporal dispositions that he addresses — in his treatment of the rhythms of different production processes such as agricultural practices, and time as a resource manipulated strategically by transactors engaged in gift exchange (Bourdieu 1977, 1990) — in effect result in a ‘strictly repetitive and static’ (Weiss 1996: 221) notion of temporality subsumed in a general ‘logic of practice’ that ‘obscures temporality’ (Munn 1992: 108). Munn (1986), Gell (1986), and Weiss (1996)17 go beyond Bourdieu in that the temporal relations that food mediates in their works are dynamic, and this dynamism is firmly entrenched in the simultaneity of past–present– future18 relations. Furthermore, while Bourdieu’s work would seem to address spatial as well as temporal qualities of embodied practical activities (for instance, in his example of the ball player [1990]), it tends to postulate ‘an implicit opposition of space and time’. Such an opposition contradicts ‘the unified spatiotemporal framework his

practices, structuralist

16 Though Douglas in her later work on meals (1982) does develop a more temporal perspective: ‘To treat food in its ritual aspect is to take account of

its long spun out temporal processes. It is an evolving system that can be a metaphor for any other evolution, great or small, the evolution of just one marriage, and even of the whole human species’ (ibid.:115). 17 The treatment of temporality in these works also differs from that of

historico-materialist approaches to food exemplified in various forms by Mintz (1985), Goody (1982), and Mennell (1995), and general histories of food habits such as Toussaint-Samat (1992), Flandarin and Montanari (1999). 18 For the neglect of futurity in anthropological studies see Munn (1992: 115).

theory of practice requires’ (Munn 1992: 108). Munn’s (1986) on Gawan space–time and Weiss’s (1996) study on the Haya lived world describe food practices as constituted by, and constitutive of, spatio-temporal relations. Munn analyses Gawan practices such as acts of food transmission and food consumption as ‘symbolic’ (meaningful and meaning-forming) processes ‘in which people ongoingly produce both themselves as spatiotemporal beings and the space–time of their wider world’ (1992: 106). Weiss (1996), building on Merleau-Ponty’s (1962) phenomenological of consciousness and being, and Munn’s development of such concepts in Gawan transactions, describes everyday of cooking and feeding among the Haya as objectifications ( Miller 1987) of spatio-temporal orientations, and their that emerge through the embodied process of inhabiting a world. He argues that such ‘socio-cultural activity is making and unmaking dimensions of this lived world’ (Weiss 1996: 7; emphasis in original). While drawing on such approaches, this study seeks to describe the manner in which the everyday and hospitality transactions of middle-class Bengali Hindus and Muslims assemble their relations as normal in their spatial, temporal, corporeal, sensual, affective, discursive, and moral modes. The aforementioned works do not concentrate on normality nor do they explicitly problematise the character of everydayness of everyday life. Normal food, as in this ethnography, is also not addressed, for example, in the variegated literature on food in transactions of purity and pollution, sacred and profane (Durkheim 1915 [1912]; Douglas 1984 [1966]; Dumont 1970 [1966]), personhood and identity (Marriott 1976; Parry 1985; Kahn 1986; Ohnuki-Tierney 1993; Becker 1995; Carsten 1997; Lamb 2000), gender (Munn 1986; Weismantel 1989; Counihan 1999; Whitehead 2000), and class (Sahlins 1976; Goody 1982; Bourdieu 1984). There are other works that deal with perceptions of food that are neither ‘taboo’ nor ‘prohibition’. Brandes (1992) examines maize avoidance and fear of pellagra in Europe. Humphrey (1995), in her study of consumption in Moscow after the Soviet period in the early 1990s, describes food as imbued with certain value-laden perceptions such as deception. Leach (2001) offers how a good herb can acquire a bad reputation. However, they do not describe what food perceived as normal entails, as highlighted in this study. This also holds for anthropological and sociological works on India that have treated food in transactions of caste (Srinivas

ethnography

descriptions activities transformations, continuously

delineated

1965 [1952]; Marriott 1968; Marriott and Inden 1974; Khare 1976a, 1976b; Dumont 1970 [1966]; Selwyn 1980; Khare and Rao 1986; Mayer 1996), religious ritual (Babb 1975; Appadurai 1981a; Fuller 1992; Toomey 1992), life-cycle rituals (Bennett 1983; Parry 1985; Fruzzetti and Östör 1984), and the domestic hearth (Khare 1976a). The anthropology of Bengal too does not focus on the work of food in generating normality, and also takes for granted ‘everyday life’. Cases in point are Inden and Nicholas (1977), Östör (1980), Fruzzetti (1982), Fruzzetti and Östör (1984), White (1992), Gardner (1995), Lamb (2000), R. Ray (2002), Nicholas (2003), and Donner (2008). By focusing on the agency of food, this book gives us access to the anxious and collaborative work that goes into producing everyday life in hitherto unexplored ways. It is also to be noted that almost all the aforementioned works have been on Hindu and practices of food, Fruzzetti and Östör’s (1984) study of kinship and ritual in Bengal being one of the few notable exceptions.19 This study, on the other hand, examines the work of food in eliciting Hindu and Muslim socialities. While these approaches have contributed immensely to understandings of food they do not focus on the performance of food as described here. There is an extensive literature in anthropology, sociology, and material culture studies that has variously addressed the work of ‘objects’ in the constitution of social relations, such as Mauss (1954), Bourdieu (1977), Munn (1986), Gell (1986, 1998), Appadurai (1986), Douglas (1987), Miller (1987, 1995a, 1995b), Strathern (1988), Küchler (1992), Weiner (1992), Latour (1993, 2005), Weiss (1996), and Pinney (2003). Informed by such literature, this ethnographic study shows that it is in the very eliciting of a specific configuration of social relations that food acquires a particular form. Both food and the specific form of sociality are emergent in each other’s becoming (cf. Latour 2005; Leach 2002). There is another aspect of the anthropology of food that needs to be addressed: its interface with the anthropology of the senses20 that seeks to overcome the ‘visualist bias in the culture of Western science’ (Fabian 1983), the prejudice of the anthropological ‘gaze’.

considerations

anthropological collaborative

19 Nicholas’s (2003) book addresses Hindu, Muslim, and Vaisnavite religious ritual in rural Bengal though it does not focus on food. 20 For more on the anthropology of the senses see, for instance Stoller (1989), Howes (1991), and Classen (1997).

Culinary renderings that are sensitive to the interplay of the senses are hard to find, exceptions being Kanafani (1983), Stoller (1989), 21 Seremetakis (1994), Weiss (1996),22 and Sutton (2001). This study is a ‘sensuous ethnography’23 (Stoller 1997) that explores, throughout, the engagement of the different sensory modes of food 24 in its work of evoking normality. Finally, it is also pertinent to draw attention to the fact that the branch of the economic anthropology of consumption that focuses on the strategies adopted by households to meet varying forms of demand continues to predominantly emphasise the work of household relations in production rather than consumption (Miller 1995a). Notable exceptions in this regard include Gullestad (1992), Weiss (1996), and Carsten (1997). This ethnography focuses on of food preparation, storage, distribution, consumption, and disposal,25 and seeks to show the articulation of these quotidian household practices with the wider biography of social relations. It endeavours to contribute to what Miller describes as ‘(t)he study

processes

21 Though Stoller’s (1989) work does not strictly focus on food per se (despite his penetrating analysis of sauce as social relations), his is a remarkable attempt to place the combined work of the various senses at the heart of doing ethnography that ‘give(s) ... a sense of what it is like to live in other worlds, a taste of ethnographic things’ (ibid.: 156; emphasis in original). 22 Though Weiss’s (1996) ethnography on Haya food practices treats sound and vision to the neglect of the other senses. 23 Defined by Stoller (1997) as ethnography that rejects the Cartesian separation of mind and body. 24 Embodiment through sound, for example, is under-explored in literature (though see Feld 1990). This study attempts to redress this neglect by describing the agency of soundscape as an aspect of the everyday normal foodscape (see chapter 3). 25 Comprehensive anthropological works on food that address food or making, exchange, and consumption, amongst other interests, include Richard’s (1939) study of the Bemba in northern Rhodesia, Moore and Vaughan’s (1994) work on the northern province of Zambia (the same region as Richard’s), Khare’s (1976a) work on north Indian Hindu households, Trankell’s (1995) ethnography of the Thai Yong of Thailand, and Weiss’s (1996) work on the Haya of Tanzania (though he also deals with disposal of waste/garbage). However, they do not explicitly examine the ramifications of food storage processes that occupy a significant position in my ethnography (Khare’s [1976a] ethnography is an exception).

anthropological

production

of consumption as mundane practice’ (1995a: 144). 26 It also has for the study of the process of commoditisation (Weiss 1996; Heyman 1991), ‘home as commodity’ (Gullestad 1984, 1992; Gell 1986; Miller 1988), and concomitant notions of ownership. 27 Through a subtle rendering of everyday economies of food, this ethnography negotiates such issues of transactions of production, consumption, exchange, and ownership. The description offered here seeks to address the unlooked-for connections in existing anthropological renditions of food. It to formulate newer ways of examining older issues: agency, place, hospitality, and ownership. Transcending its own parochialism in its South Asian ethnographic material, it aims to generate a new theoretical focus for the anthropology of food, everyday life, and material culture: the collaboration of materiality and affect.

implications

attempts

1.3 Consuming ′the Field′ and Being Consumed by It: A Note on Methods I followed food on its journeys, rather like Malinowski’s kula, through a wide range of locations in Calcutta and Dhaka during my fieldwork from September 2000 to September 2001, and again briefly from December 2001 to January 2002.28 This, together with the use of a multi-stranded methodology (Gupta and Ferguson 1997), provided various entry points into the lives of Bengali Hindus and Muslims. I conducted participant observation in Bengali households, which included my ‘adoptive’ Bengali Hindu and Muslim households in Calcutta and Dhaka respectively. Apart from such households, I undertook participant observation in kachcha and pukka bazaars, restaurants, tea shops, college canteens, and street food outlets, in order to examine everyday and hospitality food transactions in the home–restaurant–bazaar continuum. I also

middleclass

26 For the transformational implications of the study of consumption for

anthropology see Miller (1995b).

27 The study of food in terms of ownership is a relatively under-explored arena though see, for example Heldke (2008). 28 Included in these periods are moments of immense upheaval, including times of sectarian conflict and the violent months leading up to the national elections in Bangladesh in 2001. I have also made brief visits to Calcutta in subsequent years that have seen its rapid ‘economic liberalisation’.

carried out such observation at weddings and festivals, such as the Durga Puja festival in Calcutta and the Bengali New Year in Dhaka, to study the normal everyday, hospitality, and ‘ritual’ food practices as a continuum. These continua of culinary transactions in richly variegated ‘locations’ have compelled my study of normality. There were various ways in which I was drawn into the relational worlds of middle-class Bengalis as a participant.29 I engaged in obtaining food from the bazaar, and in the making, serving, storing, consumption, and disposal of food in the kitchen. My participation as a woman in such transactions was perceived as normal because of the ‘female’ character of such practical activities.30 It also facilitated my access to the kitchen, 31 and to the cooks and domestic helps who normally prepared food everyday in such households. Talking to them, while engaging in such acts, was one of the principal ways in which I obtained valuable insights into various forms of food relations. Other practical sensuous acts, that constituted important avenues for obtaining entry into the lives of my respondents or consultants included consuming food at the innumerable lunches and dinners I inevitably32 got invited to. These invitations not only provided me with occasions to appreciate the delightful subtleties of Bengali cuisine but also drew my attention to the significance of hospitality in Bengali sociality. The constant entreaties to eat “more” because I was “too thin” drew me to examine the extent to which social relationships in Bengal are mediated through eating and feeding others.33 The addas (‘idle-talk’) that are an inextricable part of such gatherings, as indeed of almost any culinary occasion in a host of places, reveal the centrality of adda in normality.34 Hence, my in addas was another method that figured prominently

celebrations

engagement

29 Cf. Jackson (1996). 30 See chapter 3. 31 Cf. Khare (1976a), who talks of problems in obtaining access to kitchens in his ethnography on food in north Indian Hindu households vis-à-vis caste restrictions. 32 ‘Inevitably’ because I was told that unless I sampled the gastronomic delights they had to offer, I would not be able to write about their “culture and food”. 33 Cf. Becker (1995) who describes an analogous situation in Fiji. 34 This has been dealt with further in chapter 6.

in my fieldwork. Furthermore, given “the Bengali predilection for talk”, interviews, especially long, in-depth, unstructured interviews,35 also furnished some of the most richly variegated accounts of food practices that shape this ethnography. Additional insights into the wider networks of normality by food were provided by watching television cookery shows, often in the company of my consultants or my research assistant.36 The consultation of cookbooks such as The Bengal Cookbook, Baumakey Harano (Defeating Your Daughter-in-Law), Aamish O Niramish Aahar (Vegetarian and Non-vegetarian Foods),37 food columns in newspapers like The Statesman, The Telegraph, The Daily Star, and magazines such as Sananda,38 short stories and poems by poets such as Rabindranath Tagore and Jibananda Das in the vernacular also shed light on normal Bengali food. Finally, in my gastronomic wanderings through Calcutta and Dhaka I was frequently accompanied by my still camera and camcorder that became prosthetic extensions of me. The data I recorded on them enabled me to ‘capture’ a kaleidoscopic plethora of sights and sounds (in the case of the camcorder) evocative of the aroma, taste, and touch of a captivating range of food transactions. Studying my videotapes especially illuminated the multiple facets of normal food as agency, such as its affective form in the overwhelmingly traumatic moments of the suicide bombing at Ramna Park in Dhaka on 14 April 2001, Bengali New Year’s Day, which killed seven people, a few yards from where I was seated. The camcorder in that moment embodied normality, and enabled me to ‘record’ others’

generated

35 Most interviews and addas were conducted in Bengali though many of my consultants or respondents frequently used a smattering of English words, even when speaking in Bengali. 36 My research assistant in Calcutta was a Bengali Muslim woman in her early 20s. In Dhaka, it was my Bengali Muslim ‘adoptive’ mother who accompanied me on most occasions. A research assistant was necessitated by the fact that partaking meals in restaurants and observing bazaar transactions in South Asia (generally) is an oddity for a young unaccompanied woman. Moreover, my research assistants also provided valuable contacts and points of entry into networks in both cities. 37 Also see chapter 2, section 2.2. 38 This “women’s” bi-monthly magazine, which contains food recipes, in addition to articles and advertisements on kitchenware, spices, and fashion, is published in Calcutta but is also widely circulated and read even in Dhaka.

attempts to reassemble normality. Again, there were moments when filming on the camcorder was, itself, transformed into a form of recognition and appreciation of a cook’s culinary skills, perceived as such by him/her. Always obtaining the informed consent of my consultants, I also took care to ensure that they felt empowered by letting them see what I had filmed, and by deleting parts they sometimes found wanting in some way. Finally, there is another aspect of my fieldwork I would like to touch upon. There were some reservations about the choice of Calcutta as one of my fieldwork ‘sites’ in that, having lived in Calcutta in the early years of my life, the social distance I was travelling was not long enough. But then ‘“objectivity” is not a function of “distance”; “otherness” is not a geographical given but a theoretical stance’ (Passaro 1996: 153). Ethnographic knowledge is both ‘about somewhere’ and ‘from somewhere’, argue Gupta and Ferguson (1997), and, therefore, entails ‘situated knowledges’ ( Haraway 1988). I could not ignore the locations I came from, partly because my respondents or consultants often did not let me. There were constant refrains of “tumi to jano ...” (you, however, know ...) that had its advantages. For instance, I was “just like” one of them. It also had its disadvantages: the assumption that I was “knowledgeable” about certain facets of their “culture” when the contrary was true. However, I constantly strategised, shifting back and forth between my ascriptive (Indian, Punjabi, 39 “non-Bengali”, middle-class female born in Calcutta) and tactically worked upon (Cambridge who looked and spoke Bengali, the “adopted” daughter of the families I lived with in Calcutta and Dhaka that opened several doors for me) locations. 40 Interestingly, one of my consultants or respondents perceived me as “mediating between two countries and cultures and contributing towards mutual understanding between communities”. This book resonates with a multiplicity of voices that have portrayed their worlds to me; these voices have elicited the contours of this study. It attempts to describe heterogeneities, contradictions, and paradoxes rather than rationalising them (Wagner 1981) or incorporating them into ‘the more singular and synthetic voice of anthropological authorship’ (Appadurai 1988). It could hardly be any

anthropologist

39 My name indexed my ‘Punjabi identity’.

40 Cf. Gupta and Ferguson (1997).

other way, given that the book seeks to explore the collaborative, protean, and ambiguous taken-for-granted character of everyday life and normality.

1.4 Servings of Normality: The Plan of the Book In the next chapter, I make a brief pertinent foray into some of the ‘critical events’ connected with this culinary ethnography. I then describe the respondents of this study — the poor and middle classes. By problematising the various usages of these terms and the middle-ness of the middle classes, I argue that the two should be seen as relational and perceptual configurations. The reader is then presented with the other components of what is called a ‘foodscape’ — things and places. That is, the everyday engagement of food with other things, people, and places that evokes a sense of place defined as foodscape. This brings us to description of the nature of a normal foodscape in chapter 3. It starts out with a sensuous rendering of kitchens in Bengali middle-class households, with their designated ingredients, storage, and disposal spots. The argument then examines the everyday work of the poor cook, employed and instructed by the mistress in such households, in continuously replicating what is perceived as food belonging to the mistress’ desh.41 The dis-capacity of both the cook and the mistress to engage in such ongoing replication is defined as not-normality, for food that is “too hot”. The everyday negotiation and of normality is fraught with anxieties such as poverty or rising food prices in the bazaar. Normality, as a perpetual performance of a hazardous balancing act with not-normality, then emerges as a measure of the everyday. Thus, a foodscape emerges as normal when the temporal, spatial, and affective transactions of food with the other elements of the foodscape acquire a specific relational form called desh. What one finds in chapter 4 is the ways in which such food also emerges as ‘ordinarily sacred’. Examining the minutiae of everyday

implements,

example management

41 Literally, ‘the local homeland’ to which one belongs, and which belongs to

one. See also fn.10.

practices of poor cooks in characteristically middle-class kitchens, the description reveals the ceaseless precarious negotiations that food engages in with Bengali Hindu and Muslim conventions of pure/impure, auspicious/inauspicious, lawful/unlawful (halal/haram), and sacrifice. Thus the argument takes a critical look at anthropological understandings of the sacred and profane, of purity and pollution. Delineated in chapter 5 is the manner in which food comes to have subjectivity in everyday and hospitality transactions in the very process of performing normality. In this are emergent the of the other things, people, and places that food gathers within its fold. In doing so, it provides an understanding of of regional, communal, class, and gendered personhoods in urban Bengal. Chapter 6 elucidates the profound relation between food and locution. It explores the manner in which middle-class Bengalis engage in a specific form of sociality defined as adda (‘idle’/‘careless' talk), emergent in the consumption of the smells, touches, tastes, sights, and sounds integral to a normal foodscape. Through a series of vignettes of addas in a Calcutta college canteen and at dawats (invitations) in Dhaka homes, it describes the ways in which such sensuous engagement in adda evokes Bengaliness (Bangalitto). Chapter 7 leads to a foray into intellectual and cultural property through a description of what gets divided and disowned through food. It provides a rendering of how the ongoing assembling of everyday food brings forth certain modalities of ownership. These modes of ownership make visible contentious claims to Bengaliness (Bangalitto) indexed in ways of ‘belonging’, and notions of property recognised or disputed within this field of relationships. Thus, competing claims of access to superior ways of cooking certain dishes on either side of the border reveal forms of essentialisation that generate distinct personhoods and perceived social Focusing on ‘normal Bengali home food’ prepared and consumed in ‘Bengali’ restaurants, it illuminates the impact of the commoditisation of food on modes of ownership. It examines the wider networks of authenticity and historical associations that such forms of ownership are attached to. In the process it reveals the flux of contemporary power relations between Bengali Hindus and Muslims in urban Bengal.

conventional subjectivities perceptions

differences.

The final chapter draws the threads of the book together by offering two suggestions. The first is how a study of the everyday can be broached through a description of the collaborative agency of food. In doing so, it delineates the beginnings of an alternative theoretical vision. The other touches upon directions for future research. It shows how an understanding of the character of agency through food in a particular ethnographic setting can inform food policy initiatives and crises interventions that are more attuned to the assembled worlds of the people they address.

2

The Actants of a Normal Foodscape An obvious place to begin this story is to locate some of the ‘critical events’ that are implicated in the preparation, consumption, and circulation of normal food in contemporary Bengal. I then go on to explain the ‘partial connections’ encapsulated in the terms ‘agency’ and ‘actants’, the rest becoming visible as the story unfolds. Following this, I define the respondents or consultants of this ethnography: person-, place-, and thing-actants that comprise what I call a normal foodscape.

2.1 Bengal: 'Partial Connections' 1 The terms ‘East Bengal’ and ‘West Bengal’ compress ‘critical events’ (Das 1995) that need to be unpacked.2 The partition of Bengal, under British colonial rule,3 in October 19054 created two provinces: East Bengal that was preponderantly Muslim, and the western half 1 From Strathern (1991: xv) where she states: ‘Each single element that appears

to make up the plurality of elements seen from a distance on close inspection turns out to be composed of a similar plurality that demands a comprehensive treatment.’ See also fn. 17. 2 This section is keyed to a number of emphases relevant to the argument

of the book and does not attempt to present an exhaustive history of Bengal. For some penetrating analyses of the history of Bengal from the colonial period onwards see Chatterjee (1993), Chatterji (1995, 1999), and Jalal (1995). 3 The story of the British colonisation of Bengal begins with the trading

practices of the East India Company in the 17th century but it was firmly established

with the defeat of the Nawab of Bengal in the Battle of Plassey in 1757. Parts of Bengal also came under French, Dutch, and Danish colonial rule. 4 This was revoked in 1911 though it was a precursor to the partition of India

in 1947. In 1947, the eastern part of the region of Bengal (‘East Bengal’) joined Pakistan as its eastern wing, while the western part joined India as ‘West Bengal’. ‘East Bengal’, however, was officially renamed as ‘East Pakistan’ in 1954. In 1971, the area attained independence from Pakistan, and was renamed Bangladesh.

Thus, ‘East Bengal’, ‘East Pakistan’, and ‘Bangladesh’ refer to the same territory (Rahman and van Schendel 2003). ‘East Bengal’ and Bangladesh’ were often

Actants of a Normal Foodscape

of Bengal where the predominantly Hindu Bengalis of Calcutta were outnumbered by other ethnic groups of Bihar, Orissa, and Chotanagpur that remained attached to it. The Bengal Famine of 1943–44 and the 1947 Partition of India, experienced differently by Hindus and Muslims, further ruptured existing relations and identities, and constituted newer modes of thinking and acting as a renegotiation of old categories of thought and action. 5 This has also been true of further defining moments for East Bengal, now Bangladesh: the Language Movement of 19526 and the 1971 Freedom War (Mukti Judhho). Bangladesh now has 89.6 per cent Muslims and 9.3 per cent Hindus (2001)7 while the Indian state of West Bengal, which now excludes Bihar, Orissa, and Chotanagpur, has 77.7 per cent Hindus and 20.3 per cent Muslims (2001).8 Traffic between Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh with about 12.6 million people (2007), and Calcutta, the capital of West Bengal with about 15.7 million people (2007) 9 ranges from buses, trains, and planes to kin groups, used interchangeably by many of my consultants or respondents, though they tended to prefer one over the other, depending on whether they were Hindu or Muslim, Indian or Bangladeshi Bengalis. In tune with my respondents, I have used the terms interchangeably as well, unless specified. 5 This has been elaborated upon in later chapters, especially chapters 6 and 7. 6 This movement against the imposition of Urdu as the only state language of Pakistan (West and East) marks an important turning point. By demanding that Bangla (Bengali) be recognised as a state language, it prioritised language over religion in defining nationalism and Bengali identity: Bengali Muslim (Bangali Musalman) as opposed to Muslim Bengali (Musalman Bangali). The debate over language or religion as the privileged determinant of Bangladeshi national identity, however, continues in contemporary Bangladesh (the land of the language Bangla). 98 per cent of the Bangladeshi population (2008) is described as Bengali (Bureau of South and Cenral Asian Affairs, March 2008, at http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/3452.htm ) compared to 85.3 per cent of the population (2001) of West Bengal (Statement 7, Part A, Data on Language, Census of India 2001 at http://www.censusindia.net). This study excludes Urduspeaking Muslims in Dhaka and Calcutta. For more on the Language Movement in Bangladesh see, for example Zaheer (1994) and Islam (1986). 7 Census Report 2001, Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, Dhaka: http://www.bbs.gov.bd. 8 Census of India 2001, Office of the Registrar General: http://www.censusindia.net. 9 Brinkhoff, http://www.citypopulation.de, 30 September 2007. These are figures for the urban agglomerations of Dhaka and Calcutta (including Haora).

Transactions in Taste trade to Tagore’s10 poetry and music, fish to language (Bangla), “cultural festivals” to cross-border migrants.11 A number of factors (Jalal 1995; O’Donnell 1984) have contributed to the current taut relations between Calcutta and Dhaka with broader implications for the two countries: the Farakka Barrage,12 border disputes, 13 and the existence of enclaves, 14 and the continuing influx of ‘refugees’ into India.15 The biography of Bengali food relationships has to be described in the flux of such spatio-temporal–affective-discursive relations of rootedness, uprootedness, or transrootedness. In what follows, some of the further participants whose biographies interact with that of food are delineated. 10 The national anthems of both India and Bangladesh were composed by Rabindranath Tagore. He is also the national poet of India. 11 Most studies on cross-border migrants in Bengal have focused on Partition and post-Partition migration from East Bengal/East Pakistan/Bangladesh into West Bengal, for example Chatterji (1995, 1999) and Chakrabarti (1999). Rahman and van Schendel’s (2003) study seeks to correct this lopsided picture by addressing the reverse flow of migrants into East Pakistan/Bangladesh. 12 The Farakka Barrage (250 km. north of Calcutta), designed to improve the flow of the river Ganga through the city of Calcutta, has been a bone of contention between India and Bangladesh since it affects the river (called Padma in Bangladesh), one of the principal sources of water for both (see Crow et al. 1994). The barrage is also held by Bangladesh as an important factor accounting for the dwindling numbers of thehilsa fish, conventionally an index of East Bengali identity. During the breeding season, the fish travel upstream from the Bay of Bengal, and lay eggs in Indian waters. By the time the fish have grown and are ready to be eaten, the sluice gates are shut, causing most of the fish to remain on the Indian side. 13 Examples of disputed border areas include Khudipara and Berubari. 14 ‘An enclave is a portion of one state completely surrounded by the territory of another state’ ( van Schendel 2002: 116). There are 123 Indian enclaves surrounded by Bangladesh, and 74 Bangladeshi enclaves surrounded by India. They differ from West European enclaves, for instance the German territory of Busingen in northern Switzerland, in that ‘they are modern enclaves: they came into existence in 1947 when British India disintegrated and the states of India and Pakistan were formed’ (ibid.: 117; emphasis in original). 15 Nearly 6 million ‘refugees’ came to West Bengal in different numbers up to 1971 from Bangladesh (Som 1987). But as Rahman and van Schendel (2003: 21) point out, all estimates of cross-border migrants ‘should be considered unreliable. On the one hand, there was under-enumeration because neither the Indian nor the Pakistani authorities had the capacity to monitor cross-border population movement. For example, the Government of East Bengal (East Pakistan) did not maintain any figures till April 1950. At the same time, however, political pressures in both countries led to an inflation of figures on refugees.’

2.2 The Consultants: Person-, Thing-, and Place-Actants/Patients The conventional respondents or consultants of anthropological research have been persons. This ethnography is also shaped by ‘agents’ other than persons: things and places. Gell (1998), in his book Art and Agency. An Anthropological Theory, defines an agent as ‘the source, the origin, of causal events, independently of the state of the physical universe’, and describes agency as ‘attributable to those persons (and things ...) who/which are seen as initiating causal sequences of a particular type, that is, events caused by acts of mind or will or intention, rather than a mere concatenation of physical events .... The idea of agency is a culturally prescribed framework for thinking about causation, when what happens is (in some vague sense) supposed to be intended in advance by some person-agent or thing-agent’ (ibid.: 16–17). He, however, distinguishes between ‘primary’ agents as ‘intentional beings who are categorically from “mere” things or artefacts’ and ‘secondary’ agents ‘which are artefacts, dolls, cars, works of art, etc. through which primary agents distribute their agency in the causal milieu, and thus render their agency effective ... [They] are not (primary) agents who initiate happenings through acts of will for which they are morally responsible, granted, but they are objective embodiments of the power or capacity to will their use, and hence moral entities in themselves. I describe artefacts as “social agents” ... only in view of the fact that objectification in artefact-form is how social agency manifests and realizes itself, via the proliferation of fragments of “primary” intentional agents in their “secondary” artefactual forms’ (ibid.: 20–21; emphasis in original). Thus, in the example of the Gawan Kula operator, who possesses a superior capacity to engage in strategic action (grounded in accumulated experience and memory), it is the Kula-arm shells and necklaces, associated with his name, that effect his extended intentional agency. It isthe named and recognised Kula valuables that, through their continuous circulation, constitute a spatio-temporally distributed field of transactions that transform his strategic intentions and into fame, wealth, and influence. But Gell points out that while artefacts are necessary to the exercise of agency, the ultimate agents and patients ‘at the points of origin and termination of art [efact]-mediated chains of transactions’ (ibid.: 38) are only humans, for the ‘core of agency’ lies in strategic intentions.

distinguished

successful individually

calculations

He further argues that the concept of agency is ‘relational and context-dependent, not classificatory and context free ... (I)n any given transaction in which agency is manifested, there is a “patient” who or which is another “potential” agent, capable of acting as an agent or being a locus of agency. This “agent” is momentarily in the “patient” position ... “patients” in agent/patient interactions are not entirely passive; they may resist ... (Moreover), agent/patient relations form nested hierarchies. The concept of the “patient” is not, therefore, a simple one, in that being a “patient” may be a form of (derivative) agency’ (Gell 1998: 22–23; emphasis in original). Thus, ‘it does not matter, in ascribing “social agent” status, what a thing (or person) “is” in itself; what matters is where it stands in a network of social relations.’ (ibid.: 123; emphasis mine) Thus, Gell draws attention to the mixed or hybrid character of human intentional agency in that he describes the networks of relations that make visible the conjoined work that distributed things or artefacts do in transforming or translating intentions into effective action through circulation. He describes the work they do in motivating abductive16 inferences, enabling attributions of such agency as events that create effective human and artefactual agents and patients as potential agents. Thus, he highlights the collective nature of the work done by humans and artefacts assembled together to perform a particular emergent form of agency or mixing: human strategic action with its goals and calculations. However, trust seems fundamental to his understanding of such agency: artefacts are trusted to faithfully translate intentions into effective action. They act as loyal intermediaries in the act of mediation: they are ‘pure’. But things have the capacity to ‘betray’ (Latour 1993) as do humans: neither are pure. They have ‘partial similarities’ (Callon and Law 1995).17 Human- and thing-agents and patients, therefore, 16 Gell (1998) defines abduction as covering ‘the grey area where semiotic inference (of meanings from signs) merges with hypothetical inferences of a non-semiotic (or not conventionally semiotic) kind, such as Kepler’s inference

from the apparent motion of Mars in the night sky, that the planet travelled in an elliptical path’ (ibid.: 14; emphasis in original). The abduction of agency as a particular cognitive operation is permitted by an index defined as a material entity (the visible, physical, ‘thing’) that allows it: ‘the index is itself seen as the outcome of, and/or the instrument of, social agency’ (ibid.: 13–15; emphasis in original). 17 Callon and Law (1995: 496) note that a focus on connections that are partial and multiple allows engagement with conflicting identities and decentredness or distributedness; they refer to Strathern’s Partial Connections (1991) and Keith and Pile’s Place and Politics of Identity (1993) as instantiations (ibid .: 507; fn. 25).

collaborate.18 That is, agency acquires ‘unexpected’ forms and is not-pure. A further description of the collaborative agency of things reveals that there are diverse modes of mixing mixtures, generated in the collective process of circulation. Latour (1993, 2005) and Callon and Law (1995) 19 also emphasise the collective and multi-variegated character of agency, by an understanding of agency that encompasses humans and non-humans. Tracing the Modern Euro-American tendency to separate ontologies for ‘thing’ and ‘person’, Nature and Society as rooted in the history of the Enlightenment project,20 Latour (1993) suggests that there is no such thing as pure-nature or puresociety, just ‘mixtures’. There are only ‘nature–culture hybrids’ or ‘quasi-objects, quasi-subjects’ which are in constant circulation, engaged in the work of translation, mediation, or negotiation in the ‘Middle Kingdom’ between the two modern poles of nature and society. In this Kingdom, humans and non-humans produce ‘artifactual nature’ through their collective ‘associations’ or ‘attachments' known as ‘networks’, ‘assemblages’ (Latour 1993, 2005) or ‘hybrid collectifs’ (Callon and Law 1995). This process of production of hybrids in translation is continuous because it is hazardous; a mediatory network is fragile, and therefore in a constant state of renewal — dynamic — because it acts unpredictably 21 to transform what it brings together, and itself. Agency thus emerges as the of such creative fragile relations of negotiation between these heterogeneous material elements continuously assembled and as networks. It is the very process, and product, of the

advocating construct

effects reassembled

18 I understand ‘collaboration’ to include both senses: ‘Collaborate = (1) work jointly on an activity or project; (2) cooperate traitorously with an enemy.’ (The Concise Oxford Dictionary 1999: 280) 19 They are amongst the major proponents of what is called Actor Network Theory (ANT). 20 Latour (1993: 15–35) begins by concentrating on the situation in the middle of the 17th century, when the natural philosopher Robert Boyle and political philosopher Thomas Hobbes were arguing over the distribution of ‘scientific’ and ‘political’ power. He shows how Hobbes’ mathematical theories were foundational to his invention of the Leviathan but he speaks only of the representation of ‘naked citizens’; he describes the manner in which Boyle’s political theories were fundamental to his construction of the air pump but he represents his scientific invention as excluding politics. 21 Mediators are ‘actors endowed with the capacity to translate what they transport, to redefine it, redeploy it, and also to betray it.’ ( Latour 1993: 81; emphasis mine)

ceaseless eliciting of various hybrid collectifs or distributed actants22 to perform the work of mediation. These collective delicate networks of translation are of ‘varying lengths’ and of ‘varying kinds’; they differ in their capacity to and their capacity to divide the material entities they recruit. Such varying scales of deployment and redeployment can be distinguished only ‘locally and for certain purposes’ (Callon and Law 1995: 501). That is, distinguishing particular modes of agency and forms of distributed actants are ‘events’: the specific effects of the simultaneous historical acts of ‘purification’ of provisionally ‘stabilised essences’ in the very process of mediation (Latour 1993). Hence, the unpredictable character of hybrid colllectifs or networks is reigned in by their simultaneous purification into relatively stabilised forms: Nature/Society, Object/Subject, 23and, as I show in this ethnography, ‘normality/not-normality’. Thus is the Euro-American tendency, rooted in the Enlightenment, to endow one part of the hybrid collectif with the status of the prime mover, to attribute or localise agency (‘usually’) as singularity in the form of the human actor engaged in strategic action with its goals and discretionary spaces (Callon and Law 1995: 502, 1997), 24 and to efface or relegate to a secondary status the work of quasi-objects/ non-humans in translating intentions into effective action. The Moderns tend not to make explicit the relation between the practices of hybridisation and purification (Latour 1993: 79) and thus tend to assume or trust the purity of quasi-objects. But there are other descriptive renderings that make visible myriad actants simultaneously performing variegated forms of agency, emergent in each other’s becoming. The ethnographic description offered here focuses on the collaborative work of food in Bengal as an event, a thing-actant and patient that reveals multiple networks of mixing as becoming, strategic mixing of mixtures being one of them.

connect dispersed

explained

conjoined

22 As Latour (1999: 303) points out, the term ‘actant’ permits the inclusion of humans and non-humans, unlike ‘actor’ in English that is often limited to humans. 23 Thus, Latour (1993) characterises purification as ‘a useful work’ (79). The ‘non-modern’ amalgam he is looking for ‘consists in using the pre-modern categories to conceptualise the hybrids, while retaining the moderns’ final outcome of the work of purification — that is, as external Nature distinct from subjects.’ (ibid.: 134) 24 As Callon and Law (1995: 490) put it, ‘All actants are created equal. But actors have distributions thrust upon them.’

Entangled in networks of European Enlightenment through colonial rule,25 the 19th century Bengali middle classes orbhadralok (respectable people)26 engaged in fraught negotiations with the ‘traditional’ and the ‘modern’, as is evidenced by contemporary cookbooks. These cookbooks are hybrid texts, written in a form of ‘chaste’ or pure Bengali that emerged from the middle of the 19th century, characterised by its adoption of a ‘modern European discursive framework’ (Chatterjee 1993: 52–53).27 Such cookbooks range from Bipradas Mukherjee’s Paak-Pranali (1885) and Pragyasundari Debi’s Aamish O Niraamish Aahar (1900), to Neeharmala Debi’s Aadarsha Randhan Shikha (1914), and the genealogy of current publications like Leela Majumdar and Kamala Chatterjee’s Rannar Boi (1979) and Sadhana Mukherjee’s Bacchadeyr Tiffin (1988). These cookbooks, devoted to paribarik ranna (family cooking),28 have emerged as hybrids mediating the perceived threat of ‘the West/bidesh’29 and ‘modernisation’ as attacking the boundaries of the most intimate domain of sociality — the ‘ideal family’ — and thus serve to regenerate it (Basu 1997).30 Hence, they make visible a concern with delineating normal everyday Bengali

particular

constitute

25 See section 2.1. 26 The middle classes or bhadralok have been described in greater detail in the next section. 27 As Chatterjee (1993: 52–53) puts it, this ‘chaste’ Bengali was distinctive

in that it was marked by ‘its adoption of a wholly different, that is modern European, discursive framework. Recent studies have identified the ways in which grammatical models borrowed from the modern European languages shaped the “standard” syntactic forms of modern Bengali prose; other studies

have shown similar “modular” influences of rhetorical forms borrowed from English in particular.’ 28 Basu (1997: 22) points out that, unlike western cookbooks, Bengali cookbooks, since Bipradas Mukherjee’s Paak-Pranali (Cooking Methods)

(1885), focus only on ‘family cooking’, that is cooking at home for the family; there are no Bengali cookbooks written for hotel chefs. 29 Desh literally refers to one’s ‘native birthplace’, ‘local homeland’ (Gardner 1995), or ‘motherland’, and the spatio-temporal and affective attachments, amongst others, associated with it; bidesh or not-desh is associated with ‘foreign’ or not-belonging in the aforementioned ways. See especially chapter 3 for a detailed definition of desh. 30 Thus Bipradas Mukherjee, writing in 1885, describes women’s declining

interest in cooking as a ‘lamentable state of society’, and Baishnabcharan Basak, writing in 1916, comments on the recent tendency to employ salaried cooks as a worrying change from the earlier engagement of house wives in practices

cooking practices as fundamental to the familial domain, with the housewife as a ‘good cook and mistress’ as its fulcrum. Thus, Bipradas’ cookbook begins with a description of the normal Bengali rannar ghor (cooking room/kitchen) 31 with its utensils, the stove, and the control of its flame,32 moving onto the character of different types of foods and spices, the presentation of the normal meal and arrangements, and proper/improper diets for convalescents.33 It also highlights the need for planning everyday meals to prevent waste and conflict but simultaneously cautions against potential monotony, and calls for an incorporation of ‘changing tastes’ by ‘foreign/bideshi’ foods, and the use of the ‘new’/ ‘modern’ form of the menu printed on paper or on a handkerchief. Pragyasundari’s Aamish O Niraamish Aahar (Vegetarian and Nonvegetarian Food) (1900) evidences a similar concern with ordering normal Bengali food practices on the one hand.34 On the other, it reveals the need to activate the capacity of Bengali cooking to monotony by incorporating bideshi/western non-vegetarian

hospitality

embodied address

of cooking themselves since they regarded the kitchen then as ‘sacrosanct’ (as cited in Basu 1997: 24). This recalled the practices of British colonial employers in employing salaried domestic helps and cooks, in keeping with such practices in Victorian England. It is also interesting to note that not long after Bipradas’ cookbook was published, it was introduced as a domestic science examination textbook for women. 31 It also describes a normal bhadar ghor (storage room) as an adjunct of the kitchen. 32 Given that the stoves then were clay furnaces that were fuelled by wood which needed to be appropriately measured when added to the flame to control it, and thereby the heat generated. 33 These recipes for convalescent diets were in accordance with the that emerged from the interaction between indigenous Ayurvedic and western medical practices, given that he was an avid reader of various health and medical journals which contained discussions on the benefits and of different deshi and bideshi foods with the desh’s water and air. Neeharmala Debi’s cookbook Aadarsha Randhan Shikha (Ideal Cooking Education) (1914) reveals a greater presence of ‘scientific’ methods of cooking that preserve ‘various vitamins, carbohydrates, fats, salts, and proteins’, and suggests ways of translating them into effective menus. 34 Also concerned with order, Neeharmala Debi’s aforementioned cookbook links orderliness and economy with ‘discipline’ and ‘regularity’, and therefore provides ‘model menus’ for morning and evening meals seven days a week for the four seasons of the year: summer, monsoon, autumn, and winter.

predominantly

principles

compatibility

recipes, thereby encompassing the threat of the latter networks in the process as well. Thus, declaring at the very outset that its aim is to introduce ‘order’35 into indigenous Bengali cooking, her book emphasises the spotless, well-managed, and well-displayed kitchen as indexical of the good housewife, and presents ‘completely Bengali menus’, while also offering Anglo-French non-vegetarian ones. 36 Current cookbooks, following the descriptive form of Bipradas’ Paak-Pranali (1885), continue to highlight the collaborative work of the well-ordered kitchen and the ‘good housewife/mistress’ as critical to normal Bengali life. Thus, Leela Mazumdar’s Rannar Boi (Cook Books) (1979) points out that ‘the fulcrum of human life is the family, and the lynchpin of the family is the rannar ghor (cooking room)’. 37 They contain recipes for everyday Bengali food as well as ‘innovative’ recipes that enable the good housewife to address the demands of potential monotony and the threat of the ever ‘modernising outside’ in the form of dynamic economic and temporal networks, purchased foods, and illnesses. For instance, Sadhana Mukherjee’s Bacchadeyr Tiffin (Children’s Tiffin) (1988) provides more than 250 school tiffin (lunchbox) recipes that are nutritious, filling, tasteful, quick,38 and fight the risk of both dangerous disease-carrying ‘outside foods’ and of monotony by bringing in variety.

potentially

These cookbooks thus assemble the material food practices

that constitute the mundane/normal/deshi vis-à-vis the modern/ innovative/not-normal/bideshi; the former attempts to translate or encompass the latter as ‘novel’, thereby seeking to delimit and

35 In keeping with this aim, the book begins by delineating measures of ingredients for cooking in terms of spoonfuls, perceiving such measures to be convenient. However, after publishing a few recipes, and upon further Pragyasundari goes back to providing ‘approximate/habitual measures of

reflection,

amounts’, given that not many knew how to use the spoon then. The second edition of her book, published in 1995, lists the various ingredients in current metric ratios. 36 It is to be noted that in these cookbooks bideshi meals are associated with ‘non-vegetarian foods’ (various meats), whereas deshi meals are predominantly vegetarian but include indigenous types of fish. 37 As cited in Basu (1997: 23). 38 Since mothers working outside the house do not have much time now on

their hands, and mornings are rushed.

reinforce the boundaries of both. What is made visible is the process of purification of normality/not-normality in the very flux of everyday life in Bengal, an anxious fragile engagement with ‘ordering’ various churnings of mixtures. Food, and its heterogeneous enlistments of the house, kitchen, utensils, and housewives/cooks, amongst others, is deployed to negotiate a sense of lostness amidst these mixings.39 Thus the agency of the ‘normal’ Bengali foodscape,40 in a constant threat of collapse into ‘not-normality’, is integral to forms of Bengali identity, to the ‘middleness’ of the middle classes. 41

continuous

collaborative

Inspired by such indigenous concerns with the collaborative

work of food in everyday life in Bengal, the richly variegated descriptions that unfold in this book reveal the ways in which Bengali Hindus and Muslims attend to food. The elucidate the manner in which food as a thing-actant/patient mediates between other thing-, person-, and place-actants/patients. Thus, for example, in the process of cooking everyday normal food described in chapter 3, food exercises patienthood vis-à-vis the person preparing it, by allowing the latter to act upon it. It simultaneously exercises agency vis-à-vis the place in which it is prepared by making the latter assume a particular relational form I term foodscape. In the rest of the chapter, I attempt to reassemble42 the person- and place-actants/patients that shape this ethnography. These assemblages, however, become clearer as the argument proceeds, and the last chapter draws the threads of these emergent assemblages together. Furthermore, the section on thing-actants/ patients has been dealt with later on in the study, though it is anticipated below.

ethnographic descriptions

39 I describe this further in chapters 6 and 7. 40 I introduce the notion of foodscape to capture a sense of place constitutive of, and constituted by, the engagement of food with other thing- and personactants/patients in creating normality. See especially chapters 3 and 4 for a fuller description. 41 Cf. Chatterjee (1993: 35), who problematises the ‘middleness’ of the middle classes in his study of the history of the middle classes as ‘the principal agents of nationalism in colonial Bengal’, mediating between the British colonial elite on the one had and the indigenous colonised people on the other. 42 Cf. Latour (2005: 8).

2.2.1 Person-Actants/Patients In attempting to reassemble the middle classes, amongst the

various person-actants and patients, the term bhadralok (respectable

people)43 is frequently encountered. The word lok, like bhadra (polite), in the compound word bhadralok, is of Sanskrit origin. ‘Though in Sanskrit [lok] denotes as a suffix a place of the particular kind indicated by a prefix, or a collectivity, or even man, and though Bengalis still retain this sense of the word, the meaning of lok that denotes a person in Bengali is altogether lacking in Sanskrit .... (T)he usage of lok for person, as in the compound bhadralok, is peculiar to Bengali, as is the usage of the word bhadra, and certainly bhadralok has no precise equivalent in other Indian languages. That there is such a close parallel in English, true more current in an earlier time, in the word “gentleman”, is at once revealing and confusingrevealing because of the aspiration to anglicization, or certainly an informed westernism, if only of a bygone age, characteristic of Bengali urban society; and confusing because too heavy a reliance on the English equivalent obscures the native nuances both of the use of the term and its social implications’ (Ray 2002 [1988]: 54; emphasis on ‘person’ mine). Any attempt to gather what the term bhadralok entails is a

difficult task, as pointed out by Ray. To begin with, it indexes multiple

relations, past and present, anticipating the future, which need to be elaborated. The 19th century Calcutta bhadralok, exclusively Hindu Bengali upper- and middle-income groups, landed interests, administrative employees, and professionals, were emergent in Bengal’s dynamic negotiation with networks of colonialism as in the previous section. 44 19th century Calcutta sambhranta or ‘respectable society’ was divided over issues of sati, child marriage, and widow remarriage, which, in turn, were informed by debates over competing perceptions of Hinduism. It gradually came to the various contesting factions: the city’s old abhijata

described accommodate

43 Though ‘(b)hadralok in Bengali society does not refer to a straightforward social class; belonging to it is more a matter of cultural pre-eminence than of income’ (Kaviraj 1997: 109, fn. 28). This has been explained further as this section proceeds. ‘Bhadralok’ encompasses men and women, though the women are referred to as bhadramahila (respectable women). 44 Trans-Bengal relations were, therefore, intrinsic to the formation of the bhadralok.

or aristocratic families, the ‘reformists’ or the original adherents of Rammohan Roy’s Brahmo Samaj, the ‘orthodox’ Hindus (sanatani Hindus), and the new English-educated Bengalis from the middle strata. This was contingent on their acquiring a cluster of and predispositions, created in the process of mediation between the ‘traditional’ and the ‘modern’, ‘normal’ and ‘not-normal' that elicited them as bhadralok (respectable people). This compromise was an engagement between the ‘proselytisation and Anglicisation efforts’ of the networks of colonial rule on the one hand, and the assemblages of ‘brahmanical tradition’45 that had a strong hold on the ‘respectable’ classes on the other (Banerjee 1998). ‘The outward manifestations of the bhadralok (to which members of the group had to rigorously conform), which were made possible by a basic standard of income, were (1) residence in a “pukka” house, either through ownership or renting; (2) attention to one’s sartorial style in public; (3) use of a chaste Bengali that was being shaped from the middle of the 19th century;46 and (4) a noticeable knowledge of English language and manners’ (ibid.: 54). The use of Bengali cookbooks, with their delineations of the normal Bengali foodscape as described earlier, adda (‘idle-talk’),47 the publication of periodicals, and the founding of organisations for different purposes were integral attachments as well of ‘bhadralok culture’,48 which was greatly influenced by the ‘Persianized nawabi culture’ (Roychoudhuri 1990).49 The bhadralok also formulated new forms of political mobilisation that metamorphosed the political history of 20th century Bengal (Chatterjee 1993). The dynamic networks that constituted the English educated, forward caste (Brahmin, Kayasth, Baidya) bhadralok by definition

dispositions

45 Chatterji (1995: 42), however, rightly points out that the emergence of heterodox sects, such as the Vaishnavas and the Saktas, in 19th and early 20th century Bengal, ‘made for a rich variety of competing religious traditions which undermined the hegemonising efforts of orthodox Brahmanic Hinduism in Bengal’. 46 See fn. 27. 47 I describe adda at length in chapter 6. 48 For more on the emergence of ‘bhadralok culture’, see Broomfield (1968); Borthwick (1990); Mukherjee (1993). 49 Roychoudhuri (1990: 71) notes that ‘up to the beginning of the 19th century, Hindus and Muslims participated in a common elite culture; but they diverged in their response to British rule and Western education’.

excluded the garib lok (poor people) or chotolok (small people), belonging to lower castes such as the Doms, Chamars, Muchis, Patnis, and Tiyars, who were perceived as beyond the pale of ‘bhadra (polite) society’ (Chatterji 1995). The ‘ashikkhita chashabhuah50 kooli-majur’ (unlettered peasants and labourers) emerged as the necessary relational other that elicited the boundaries of social ‘respectability’, new measures of aesthetic and moral (Bourdieu 1984), and a ‘modern vernacular’ that shaped new forms of public discourse (Chatterjee 1993). Therefore, ‘bhadralok’ and ‘garib lok’/‘chotolok’ are to be delineated as relational and perceptual configurations emergent in the networks of transformations in colonial Bengal.51 Thus, in this ethnographic study the garib lok are described as integral to the normal foodscape of the bhadralok, emerging simultaneously as actants and patients in the taut interactions of such food with other things, persons, and places in everyday life in contemporary Bengal. Before discussing this further, however, a few more points need to be made. My fieldwork revealed that ‘bhadralok ’ is associated with Bengali Hindus of the upper and middle classes by all classes of Hindus52 and Muslims in Calcutta. As a term referring to a third person (one is not well-acquainted with), belonging to Bengali Hindu and Muslim upper and middle classes, in informal chats and formal conversations, it is used by such classes in Calcutta. In Dhaka it is used in the latter sense but mostly in formal conversations

judgement

collaborative

50‘Chasha-bhusha’ literally translates as ‘peasant-soot’, that is, the ‘dregs of society’. 51 The existing socio-historical literature on Bengal tends not to explicitly address this. For instance, B. B. Misra’s (1968) work traces the growth of the middle classes in Bengal from about the middle of the 18th century to the 1950s; Mukherjee’s (1970) study addresses the different types of bhadralok vis-à-vis bhadralok politics in Calcutta in the 1820s and 1830s; Banerjee (1998) discusses the socio-political factors contributing to the schism between ‘bhadralok and chotolok culture’ in Calcutta, and the marginalisation of the latter. However, Rabindra Ray’s (2002 [1988]) sociological analysis of the bhadralok and garib lok, in his study of the Naxalites and their ideology, and Raka Ray’s (2000) discussion of the gendered identities of domestic workers in late 20th century Calcutta vis-à-vis the hegemonic bhadralok notions of femininity and masculinity, are exceptions to this tendency. 52 Unless specified, Hindus and Muslims in this study refer toBengali Hindus and Muslims.

between Muslims,53 and also in informal chats between Muslims and Hindus, and amongst Hindus. However, ‘bhai’ (brother) and ‘aapa’ (sister),54 and ‘middle classes’ are used more frequently than the term ‘bhadralok’ by Muslims in Dhaka. The contemporary Calcutta and Dhaka Bengali Hindu and Muslim bhadralok or middle classes are perceived to eschew manual labour or ‘working with their hands’,55 take pride in their education,56 cuisine, “secular” political consciousness and “culture”, and aspire towards a “refined” lifestyle. Thus, it is a style of life, defined by the degree of access to a certain measure of wealth, education, and cuisine on the one hand, and ‘subscription to a value-system on the other’ (Ray 2002 [1988]: 55) that are the necessary indexes of the bhadralok,57 who constitute a Weberian status group rather than a class in a Marxian sense. However, the associations of bhadralok would broadly be encompassed by the term ‘middle classes’ (madhyabitta), in Dhaka as in Calcutta too. As Ray (2002 [1988]: 70–71) succinctly describes the situation: ‘The

particular

53 As one consultant or respondent put it, “It is used more at the Secretariat/

political level.” Another said, “The most formal use is in meetings while

addressing the audience, that is, bhadramahila abong bhadramahudaygan (ladies

and gentlemen). However, in public meetings the politicians prefer to usebhaiO-banera (brothers and sisters). The lower classes mostly use the local dialect

and, therefore, the expression varies from place to place. And as for the upper class, we do not have a real upper class in Bangladesh.” The ramifications of this last statement become clearer later in this section. 54 These would be described as terms taken from Musulmani Bangla

(Muslim Bengali [language]), which consists of Arabised and Persianised Bangla words. It is interesting to note that I had to switch from ‘bhai’ and ‘aapa’ to ‘dada’ (brother) and ‘didi’ (sister) depending on whether the interviewees were Muslim or Hindu respectively.

055 Though as Ray (2002 [1988]: 61–62) points out, while popular discourse incorporates this ‘distinction of the analyst’, it is not determined by it. It does, however, draw attention ‘to what is, nevertheless, a distinguishing feature of the bhadralok sensibility, its system of values. And that is the inordinately high

status ascribed to purely intellectual occupations (which) ... constitutes an element of the effeminacy ascribed to Bengalis by non-Bengalis’. 56 It is to be noted that ‘(t)he proliferation of private education in English has been a feature of Bengali life since the early 19th century and continues to

be so today’ (Ray 2002 [1988]: 73). And English education continues to be an important marker of ‘middle-class status’ in both contemporary urban Dhaka and Calcutta. 57 Cf. Bourdieu (1984) and Le Wita 1994 (1988) for an analogous description

vis-à-vis the French bourgeoisie.

explicitly Marxist discourse58... shuns this terminology of bhadralok and chotolok and seeks rather to explain Bengali society in terms of “classes”59 as construed in a Marxist fashion [which] ... poses problems. The definitional problem can be traced back to Marx’s unfinished manuscript of vol. III of Capital, which ends without defining a principle of class. What makes it particularly urgent in the Bengali case is that it is not a vocabulary current in Bengali society itself. In their attempt to popularize the terminology, the Marxists have translated the term into Bengali — sreni. But in Bengali this term has a direct denotation of “rank” that is lacking in the English word “class”. The full range of the class categories is restricted to the Marxists, but a loose usage of the word is current in the “middle classes”, of whatever degree of anglicization, in referring to themselves. In this loose sense madhyabitta is often used for the whole body of the bhadralok as well’ (emphasis on the last two sentences mine). The bhadralok in contemporary Bengal are divided into the boniyadi or the abhijat, the sahebi, and the madhyabitta. The first, the boniyadi or the abhijat, ‘the traditionally propertied, . . . would cringe from including in their number the assorted owners of petty property, the tradesmen. And yet both of these constitute in a way similar classes in that both are owners of traditional forms of property. The second, constituting the greater bulk of the bhadralok and, as a minority, its admired successes, the sahebi bhadralok are owners of cultural property, intellectual skills as it were, that guarantees them their livelihood.60 There is no local lexicon that

definitional

58 This refers to the discourse of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI (M)]-led Left–Front government of West Bengal that has been in power since 1977. The CPI (M), argues Kohli (1990), is communist in name only, and is essentially social-democratic in its ideology, social programme, and policies. It should be noted that the CPI (M)’s ‘local leaders’ are mostly upper-caste, bhadralok who have been party members for several decades. Although the CPI (M) draws crucial support from among industrial labourers and ‘refugees’ from the bustees (slums), its cadres within the city are generally white-collar workers, segments of the educated Bengali middle class, and university students and professors. This gives the CPI(M) more of a middle-class character. For an analysis of the CPI(M)’s rise to power and its government of West Bengal, see Kohli (1990: 139–53, 267–96). 59 ‘Bengali urban society thus seems to be composed of the bourgeoisie, the petty bourgeoisie and the proletariat’ (Ray 2002 [1988]: 71). 60 They are the English-speaking bhadralok ‘who attempt to gain distinction through channels of activities related to the European world’ (Sarma 1980: 104).

educated

distinguishes between these two types of property within the bhadralok, but as differing frameworks of aspiration they are clearly distinguished. The sahebi, with its prospect of mobility and westernization, and the boniyadi with its orthodoxy and stability, are contrasting points of reference for the madhya-bitta’ (Ray 2002 [1988]: 70). ‘The madhya-bitta people, as the words signify, are the undistinguished middle classes. They are the clerks, shopkeepers, teachers, or in general, all the salaried workers’ (Sarma 1980: 106). Thus, if one were to answer the question — who constitute the bhadralok or middle classes — one would have to include higher salaried officers of various trade and educational bodies, the main body of civil and public servants, currently employed (and retired) schoolteachers and university professors, lawyers, doctors, engineers, upper and middle range writers, musicians and art critics. Also included would be clerks,61 owners of small businesses such as relatively prosperous restaurateurs,62 leaders of various political parties, and university students.63 The broad spectrum of the bhadralok makes for diffuse boundaries: the managing director of a large Dhaka firm, who revealed that he also owned a bank and a school,64 and the peon at a research centre in Calcutta, who lived in a bustee or slum,65 and struggled to his “bhadralok” façade in terms of dress, language, and food,

managers,

maintain

61 Sarkar (1989: 6) distinguishes between ‘high’ and ‘low’ ‘culture’ within the bhadralok as it facilitates focus upon ‘an intermediate world of poor rustic Brahmins as well as their city counterparts, the clerks’.

62 I have discussed the significance of restaurateurs in perceptions of normal food in contemporary Calcutta and Dhaka in chapter 7. 63 Most of the consultants or respondents of this study, in the age-group of 23–28 and 50–80, were drawn from such middle classes, and had either lived

through or had some memory (even if handed down) of the critical events mentioned in section 2.1. 64 In the words of an upper middle-class art critic in Calcutta, “The middle classes in Dhaka have various hidden sources of income which makes for a distinctive

lifestyle, different from that of the Calcutta middle classes.” Another consultant or respondent, a Dhaka University student, pointed out: “Everyone claims to be middle class because they want to lay claims to middle class respectability.” I have examined middle-class respectability further in chapters 3 and 5.

65 The bustees or semi-permanent dwellings (slums), in which the poor live, are distinguished from what used to be called kothabari (brick-built houses) areas, in which many of the lower middle-class families live. For more on kothabari and busteebari, see Siddiqui (1982). See also chapter 3 for more on

houses of the middle classes and of the poor.

claimed they were “middle class”! The various divisions within the bhadralok emerge, for example, in the normal Bengali food of the mistress of the Dhaka household, who was a university lecturer, in chapters 3, 4, and 5, or those of the restaurateurs in the Calcutta and Dhaka ‘Bengali restaurants’ discussed in chapter 7. On the other hand, ‘daridra jati’ or ‘garib lok’ (the poor), ‘chotolok’ 66 and the misnomer ‘illiterate working class’ are used to refer to the not-bhadralok.67 I describe these actants and patients as ‘not-bhadralok’ 68 to emphasise their partial emergent character vis-à-vis the bhadralok as described earlier. As (Ray 2002 [1988]: 55) puts it, ‘(t)hough counterposed as, in principle, classes of the same kind, the chotolok or garib lok do not in fact constitute such classes, for they refer not to an internal principle of coherence but to a difference from the bhadralok in terms of which they define themselves .... Whereas the bhadralok recognize amongst themselves types of bhadralok, the types in terms of which the chotolok and garib lok are differentiated refer outside the bhadralok–chotolok dichotomy to considerations of caste, locality and the jal-chal and jal-achal divisions of Brahmin hierarchy. 69 These considerations indicate .... the location of the bhadralok– chotolok/garib lok as centered on the bhadralok’ (emphasis on the last sentence mine). It is also important to note that the Hindu bhadralok or middle classes no longer exclusively consist of members of the three highest castes,70 who can now also belong to the daridra jati or garib lok.

practices

interchangeably

66 ‘Chotolok’ is now used in an abusive sense, often in heated exchanges. 67 ‘(T)he distinction between chotolok and garib lok, perhaps a mere nicety to an outside observer, indicates a sharp dichotomy in the awareness of people of the way in which they construe their difference from the bhadralok. Beyond this, however, neither the garib lok nor the chotolok are internally differentiated on the lines of the principle that sets them off from the bhadralok’ (Ray 2002 [1988]: 55). 68 Cf. Mody-Spencer (2000: 5–6) who examines the creation of ‘not in her study of love marriage in Delhi. ‘As a theoretical device ..., the notion of not-community serves to delineate a hypothetical social space of moral ambivalence. It is the testing ground of the limits of community.’ 69 Such divisions refer to the categorisation of castes in terms of those from whom Brahmins will accept water and those from whom they will not. 70 As far as my Muslim consultants or respondents are concerned, almost all of them denied the existence of ‘Muslim castes’. However, residues of hierarchical

terminological community’

Now, the blurring of lines of demarcation between the bottom end of the range of middle classes and the classes below (the poor), particularly, calls for a detailed description for a variety of reasons. Commenting on the softening of dividing differences between clerks (kerani babus) and skilled manual workers in Calcutta, Béteille (1972) notes that compared to the situation until the Second World War, there are now more ‘non-Bengalis’71 among clerks, and more Bengalis, including members of the three highest castes of Brahmins, Baidya, and Kayastha, among skilled manual workers.72 Sometimes the divide between ‘clerk’ and ‘skilled manual worker’ collapses, as in the case of a Brahmin respondent or consultant in Calcutta, who cooked the prasad or bhog during the Durga Puja festival, and worked in the “office” the rest of the year every year. Furthermore, an increasingly large number of Bengali middle-class households in Calcutta and Dhaka employ either part-time cooks (called rannar lok in Calcutta or bhuas in Dhaka) or full-time domestic helps (called kajer lok or bhuas who also cook, in addition to doing other household work). These cooks and domestic helps are drawn from the daridra jati or garib lok (the poor). 73 Finally, many of the street food vendors such as puchkawalas and aloo chatwalas,74 and fishmongers, and roadside bhaat–machch (rice–fish) hoteliers,75 and tea/coffee stall operators, whose food activities are

vegetable

divisions and ritual ranking recalling caste are to be found among Bengali

Muslims (Vatuk 1996; Chatterjee 1993; Prindle 1988; Sinha 1972). This is because Bengal has a rather unique caste structure attributed to Muslim conversion (many of the lowest castes embraced Islam in earlier times) (Chatterjee 1989), and the emergence of heterodox sects, such as the Vaishnavas and the Saktas,

in the 19th and early 20th centuries, which ‘obscured many of the rigidities of the caste system, giving rise to a uniquely complex pattern of caste practices and relations’ (Chatterji 1995: 42). 71 This is the term used to encompass all ethnic collectivities other than Bengalis.

See chapter 7. 72 ‘The concept of “worker” or of the “working class” is by no means clear. It has different connotations in different cultures: for instance, in France, clerks as well as manual workers often regard themselves as belonging to the working

class, whereas in the United States, manual workers as well as clerks frequently describe themselves as being of the middle class’ (Béteille 1972: 83). 73 I have discussed them at length in chapter 3. 74 Puchkawalas are vendors who sell puchkas, tamarind water and spicy potato-filled balloons made of flour. Aloo chatwalas are vendors who sell aloo chat, a boiled potato mix with spices and tamarind paste. 75 Bhaat–machch hotels differ from the Bengali restaurants, as discussed in chapter 7.

woven into the fabric of everyday middle-class life, also belong to the daridra jati or garib lok (the poor). The poor, belonging to such occupational groups, live in bustees or semi-permanent dwellings (slums),76 as opposed to the paper/rag pickers, casual and daily labour, and beggars, who are homeless and destitute street dwellers. Other perceived differences that mark them off from the middle and upper classes include education, wealth, food, dress, verbal violence and speech (often dialect too), content of marriage, 77 and ‘by general extension the character of eroticism ascribed to (them)’ (Ray 2002 [1988]: 69), bhadrata (the perceived quality of cultivatedness or gentility), and general demeanour (aacharan).78 ‘Poor’, therefore, emerges as a hybrid term, encompassing a plurality of elements. The term ‘marginals’ is not used because the concept of marginality is too broad (see Nugent 1997). Nor is the term ‘subalterns’ preferred because resistance studies (Guha 1983; Scott 1985, 1990; Comaroff 1985; Ong 1987) examine politics from ‘below’, and in everyday forms, but often suffer from essentialism, romanticism, and lack of thick description (Day et al. 1999). The terms ‘working classes’ or ‘labour’ are not favoured because they connote mainly ‘organised, formal sector industrial workers’. ‘Poor’ also avoids suggesting ‘the existence of urban workers or labour as a distinct social class arising from a particular set of production relations as the term “working class” often implies. “Poor” here also does not refer to any particular economic measure of poverty nor does it denote only the “casual poor” or a residual underclass, supposedly existing on the margins of the industrial labour force, which has been the common use of the term in many other especially when discussing Victorian Britain. The term “poor” then is deployed in a largely descriptive sense to encompass various urban occupational groups’ (Gooptu 2001: 3). Here, the term ‘poor’ is deployed as a descriptive relational form as highlighted earlier. They, then, are the person-actants/patients of this ethnography. The chapters that follow describe the emergent differences between what, and how, the middle classes and the poor cook, store, and eat, insofar as it sheds light on what is assembled as normality by the bhadralok or middle classes. Thus, the bhadralok describe the

contexts,

76 Out of about 4.5 million people in the Calcutta Municipal Corporation (CMC), about 1.5 million live in slums (Census of India 2001, Paper 1 of 2001).

77 For more on perceived differences in the concept of marriage between the bhadralok and garib lok, see also Sengupta (1979). 78 See especially chapter 5.

poor as having a “predilection” for consuming “very” hot (chilli hot) food, and “too much” of it, which “prevents them from appreciating the finer nuances of good food”, and also makes them “prone to rage”.79 The poor, on the other hand, associate the consumption of such food with their lack of access to “proper” food that “tastes good” (jar shadta bhalo), for such food is “expensive”.80 As some of the poor respondents or consultants put it, “The chilli helps disguise the taste of the food we eat”: it deadens their taste buds, making them, unlike the bhadralok, “insensitive” to the subtleties of “proper” food.

2.2.2. Place-Actants/Patients Now I turn to some of the places that acquire agency in collaborating with everyday Bengali food. Thus, the cities81 of Calcutta and Dhaka emerge as artefacts entangled in the person–place–food nexus as actants and patients. In the process of assembling and reassembling the normal foodscape, persons, food, and the city are constituted by, and constitutive of, each other: each making the other acquire a relational form. The description that follows makes this visible.

particular

Calcutta, sprawling north–south along the eastern bank of the

Bhagirathi-Hooghly, a distributary of the river Ganga, dates back 300 years when the three settlements of Sutanuti, Gobindopur, and Kalikata were combined by Job Charnock, of the British East India Company, to form the city and came to be known as the ‘gateway to the East’. Dhaka, with its journey from a small 4th century town to an important Mughal82 commercial and provincial capital (till 1704) to British district headquarters in the 18th century to subsidiary capital of East Pakistan to the capital of Bangladesh in 1971, is far 79 This has been described in chapter 3, sections 3.4 and 3.5, and chapter 5, section 5.1. Also cf. homoural theories of gustation that deal with ‘heating’ and ‘cooling’ food transactions entangled in classical Hindu cosmological of relations between humours, strands or qualities, elements, and human aims, e.g., Mureno and Marriott (1989). 80 Cf. Bourdieu (1984: 178) who, in describing the food patterns of the working classes in France, points out that ‘(t)aste is amor fati, the choice of destiny, but a forced choice, produced by conditions of existence which rule out all alternatives as mere daydreams and leave no choice but the taste for the necessary’. 81 I also discuss other place-actants such as the house and kitchen, in the following chapters. 82 Bengal, with a long history that predates the Aryan invasions of India, came under Muslim rule at the end of the 12th century.

understandings

older than Calcutta. The ‘city of thousand mosques’, 240 km. from Calcutta ‘as the crow flies’, is oriented south–north, with the river Buriganga marking it off in the south. “The Buriganga is so called because the Ganga here has become old; it is like an old lady flowing slowly,” quipped a Hindu Bengali 55-year-old, as he pointed out the river from the terrace of his house in old Dhaka. “The Buriganga is not the Ganga at all. But the Hindus do consider the Buriganga to be a sacred river and perform pinda dan83 in the river after the of their near and dear ones,” claimed a 26-year-old Hindu Bengali Dhaka bank employee. “The Bhagirathi-Hooghly is part of the Ganga; you must know that from your geography text books in school. Bhagiratha, you know, was the sage who brought the Ganga down. Lorenzo, there … he works for this Italian waterworks firm which is helping out with dams in West Bengal. He says the Bhagirati-Hooghly is not a part of the Ganga! There are some other people who say that too. They’ve got their geographical facts all wrong!” exclaimed a 30-year-old in Calcutta. These conversations allude to the controversy over where the Ganga flows, and which is the “original” or “real” Ganga, called the Padma in Bangladesh, which spills over into the debate over the quality of hilsa fish caught in the Ganga and Padma. The Ganga, which has changed (and to change) its course several times, is believed by Hindus to have been brought down to earth by the ‘ascetic Bhagiratha, who performed austerities for thousands of years’ (Eck 1981: 43), and is ‘the archetype of sacred waters’, and revered as ‘goddess and mother’ (ibid.: 212–14).84 It deposits alluvial soil85 every year during

cremation

continues

83 Refers to one of the two kinds of offerings made by Hindus to their

ancestors as part of mortuary rites collectively called sraddha (lit. faith). ‘(P)indadan,

the “gift of pindas’’ ... as a first approximation may be taken to mean balls of rice, barley flour or khoa (a thick paste made by boiling milk).’ (Parry 1985: 615) 84 The ‘Triple-Pathed Ganga — flowing in heaven, on earth, and in the

netherworlds’ (Eck 1981: 43) ‘is seen as the active energy through which the lofty and the indescribable Supreme Shiva is present and moving in the world. ... The Ganges is the liquid essence of the scriptures, the gods, and the wisdom of the Hindu tradition. She is the liquid essence, in sum, of Shakti — the

energy and power of the Supreme, flowing in the life of the world’ (ibid.: 219). The Ganga, however, is one aniconic image amongst other elements of nature that are embodiments of divinity such as the tulsi (basil) plant and the sun (ibid.: 36).

85 The constant presence and immediacy of the landscape is woven into poems and songs that resonate with images of the fertile soil and sweet water

the monsoon floods, which accounts for the agricultural abundance (especially of rice) of this deltaic region as much as its seasonal scarcities and misery. The regional riverscape is deeply attached to the intertwined foodscape and cityscape in Calcutta and Dhaka. The foodscape in both cities is constituted by regular supplies of fresh foods like fish, milk, vegetables, fruits, poultry from their hinterland, as well as rice, pulses, cooking oils like mustard, rice bran and rapeseed oils, and fuel such as wood and coal. 86 This is supplemented by food, raw and cooked, that is gifted by kin who come from other regions, districts, towns, or villages associated as desh. The food travels by bullock carts, boats, buses, trains, and sometimes planes from various places at different times of the day. Fresh food is often sold in temporary makeshift (kachcha) roadside stalls and bazaars near bus and train stations and the banks of the river. One kachcha bazaar in Dhaka was set up on the railway tracks; a whistle heralded an approaching train that made the customers and the vendors scramble off the tracks, and then back on to them after the train was gone! (Plates 1 and 2) Within the city, almost every middle-class neighbourhood has its own local kachcha and pukka bazaars where fresh food and groceries are sold,87 with the pukka bazaars often consisting of a large complex of proper shops and food vendors who display their wares on the floor. Haggling with fishmongers (Plate 3), fruit, vegetable, and flower sellers is a daily ritual that is part of these bazaar Meat sold in most of these bazaars in Hindu neighbour-hoods in Calcutta is mainly either chicken (murgi) or goat’s meat (pathar mangsho), with beef (gorur mangsho) and other kinds of

relations

transactions.

of Bengal (‘Banglar mati, Banglar jal’ ). Bangladesh’s national anthem, Amar Shonar Bangla (My Golden Bengal), for example, sings of Bengal’s autumnal ‘full-blossomed paddy fields’ and the ‘quilt’ she spreads ‘at the feet of banyan trees and along the banks of rivers’ (original in Bengali composed by Rabindranath Tagore, translated by Syed Ali Ahsan, available at http://www.-

world.virtualbangladesh.com). 86 Though most households have switched to cooking gas, many of the poor households, pavement dwellers, and roadside machch–bhaat (fish–rice) hotels and chayer dokan (tea stalls/shops) use wood, and sometimes peat, as fuel. Ironically, even some ‘traditional’ Bengali gourmet food (such asilish machcher paturi), to which a smoky flavour is intrinsic and which can be afforded only by the higher echelons of society, and the food served at most wedding, birth, funerary, and religious feasts is also cooked using coal and wood.

87 This has also been discussed in chapter 3.

meat sold either in Muslim dominated areas, like Park Circus, or in very large markets, for example New Market. In Dhaka, beef (gorur mangsho) is by far the most common halal meat available, in addition to castrated goat meat (khashir mangsho) and chicken (murgir mangsho). Shops in middle-and upper-class neighbourhoods are often stocked with Kellogg’s cornflakes, Tang, Kraft cheese, Nescafé, Nestle’s dried milk food for babies, Horlicks, Coke and Pepsi, Cadbury’s chocolates and Kit Kats, and now with Twinings, Heinz ketchup, After Eight dinner mints, Ferrero Rocher and Toblerone chocolates, and Hershey’s chocolate syrup. There are some shops in Dhaka where Mövenpick ice cream, olive oil, and French brie jostled side by side with “Indian” pickles and ghee (clarified butter)! There are fewer shops organised on the lines of departmental stores with packaged and frozen meats and vegetables, like the food store in Charnock City, a swanky high rise shopping mall in a particularly “posh” or upmarket ‘block’88 in Salt Lake City, 89 or Food Bazaar, a two-storey food hall on the Eastern Metropolitan Bypass. Depending on the neighbourhood, prices, particularly of fresh food items, vary tremendously. There are mobile food sellers, 90 shouting out the virtues and variety of their wares, sometimes in the form of limericks, as they either walk (with a basket on their heads) or cycle past the houses. Very often they have fixed routes, through the lanes and by-lanes in middle- and upper-class areas into adjacent slums, that they cover every day at a fixed hour, so that the fishmonger shouting out the freshness of the different fish in his basket or the sweet seller singing ‘Aamar moa khabey jey, Shorgey choley jabey shey’ (One who eats my moa [a sweet] will go to paradise) announces to the inhabitants the hour of the day. There are also mobile specialists who sharpen kitchen implements such as knives and grinding stones (shil), right outside the house,91 and street food vendors,

88 Refers to a block or group of houses bounded by four main streets. 89 Salt Lake City is a well planned middle- and upper-class extension of Calcutta to the north-east. 90 Interestingly, all such mobile food sellers were men in both Dhaka and Calcutta. 91 The extension of the street, part of the ‘outside’, into the inward-turning house has ramifications for the redefinition of the public–private continuum. This argument has been further developed in chapters 3 and 4. 92 A kora is a bowl-shaped frying pan with two handles.

clanging their ladles against their koras92, who constitute the calibration of this soundscape too. Such street food vendors are often to be found also outside/within the market in the by the riverside, railway stations,93 bus stops and in moving trains (“local”), 94 trams (in Calcutta)95 and buses. Amidst discussions of football, cricket, politics, and food, passengers are constantly being persuaded to purchase salted peanuts, Bengali recipe books, and herbal remedies for indigestion, after trying out samples of the last though! Such persuasions need to be loudly voiced, for they are in competition with the bus conductors, between “aastey, ladies”96 and ‘inviting’ passengers to BBD Bagh or Dalhousie,97 to the accompaniment of loud beating of the body of the bus with their hands while leaning precariously half outside it, as the drivers race each other to pick up more passengers. Those travelling in cars, taxis, three-wheeled auto-rickshaws (called “baby taxis” 98 or simply “baby” in Dhaka), and hand-pulled (Calcutta)

temporal neighbourhood,

alternating

93 They are, however, not to be found at the tube (called the Metro) stations in Calcutta. The only food and drink stalls there sell Mother Dairy yogurt and ice cream, Coke, Pepsi, and Swiss coffee (!), though stepping outside most tube stations one is greeted by them. 94 Suburban trains to be distinguished from “long-distance” inter-city and inter-state trains. 95 The slow meandering trams seem to reinforce the stereotype of the slow and sluggish inhabitants of the “dying city” of Calcutta who love their rice, fish, and siesta. 96 “Slow down, ladies”, implying that the driver should slow down the bus or stop it because women are alighting; for the men, it is quite all right to alight from running buses! 97 BBD Bagh in Calcutta, formerly Dalhousie Square, is named after Binaykrishna Basu, Badal Gupta, and Dineshchandra Gupta, three revolutionaries who raided the Secretariat or Writers’ Building in Dalhousie Square in 1930 during the Civil Disobedience Movement in British India. Not only neighbourhoods but also streets, and the city, itself have been renamed for strategic and historical reasons. Thus ‘Calcutta’, with its British Raj era connotations, has been replaced by ‘Kolkata’, though most of my consultants continued to use ‘Calcutta’, at least when speaking in English (also see chapter 1, fn. 5). An interesting example of a renamed street is No. 1, Ho Chi Minh Sarani on which stands the American consulate, the changed name indexing a protest against the US attack on Vietnam. 98 The Dhaka City Corporation (DCC) banned the old two-stroke auto-rickshaws on 1 September 2002 because they were believed to be one of the largest contributors to the city’s air pollution. They were replaced by new fourstroke engine models from India and Thailand. This caused widespread protests. For more on this see http://news.bbc.co.uk.

or bicycle-driven (Dhaka) 99 rickshaws, are constantly subjected to entreaties to buy anything ranging from coconut slices and sweets to kitchen towels and flowers at the traffic lights at almost all major crossings in both cities, in addition to people begging for money and food. This phenomenon is encountered throughout the day but especially during the rush hour traffic jams,100 from about 9 a.m. to 12 noon and then again from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. The traffic snarls are not just due to too many buses, taxis, cars on the main thoroughfares, together with colourfully festooned auto-rickshaws and rickshaws rashly threading their way between them in the case of Dhaka. These snarls are also due to jaywalking which is part of one’s everyday navigation of most streets in either city. All that one has to do is raise a hand with palm pointing outwards. The frequent screeching of brakes and squealing of tyres add to the city soundscape. This jaywalking is in part accounted for by the fact that zigzagging through pavements crowded with hawkers selling anything ranging from nimbu pani (lemonade) and mudi (puffed rice) to slippers and jute dolls, wayside tea stalls and machch–bhaat (fish and rice) hotels, office goers perpetually rushing to “office” no matter what time of the day, people abruptly halting to greet each other with “asalaam walaikhum’ ’ and “walaikhum asalaam” or “nomoskar" 101, and beggars and dwellings of displaced families is an art indeed! The street tea shops (chayer dokan), where tea is often served with ‘local teacakes’ and ‘Britannia English Mairi’ arrowroot biscuits,

99 In October 2002, the police in Bangladesh launched a campaign to remove unlicensed cycle rickshaws. The long-term plan was to halve the city’s estimated 400,000 cycle rickshaws accused of slowing down traffic (http://bbc.co.uk). Furthermore, the Dhaka City Corporation, backed by the World Bank, planned to eliminate cycle rickshaws from eight major roads to ease the way for motorised transport in December 2004. This led to a rickshaw movement protesting the ban. The ban on pedal-powered rickshaws is still a vexed issue. See, for example, Efroymson and Rahman (2005). 100 Clogged traffic is a particular menace that has earned both cities a reputation of being icons of “chaos and disorder”, though the inhabitants of Dhaka claim that “things” in Calcutta are far more “organised”, not just in terms of traffic but in myriad other ways. This ties up with relational perceptions of “inferiority” and “superiority” that people in Dhaka hold vis-à-vis Calcuttans. 101 Muslims greet each other with “asalaam walaikhum” (peace be unto you) and the response, "walaikhum asalaam" (unto you, also peace) in Urdu, while Hindus do so with "nomoskar" in Bengali. "Nomoskar" is usually understood in Bengali as a form of greeting others with folded palms touching one’s forehead.

and sometimes coffee too, have groups of men 102 huddled together, on benches but often standing around, engaged in adda (‘idle-talk’) or merely watching passers by, so that one finds ‘[a] public realm filled with moving and spectating individuals’ (Sennett 1994: 347). Such tea shops are often set against street walls sporting graffiti, most of which consists of the aggressive assertion of political parties on the walls. Often assistants (usually boys aged six upwards) of these tea shops in Calcutta take the kettle around high-rise office buildings at appointed hours for the mid-morning and mid-afternoon tea breaks.103 Such tea shops are particularly crowded in the evenings as most people prepare to go home at the end of a day’s work. When the aazan (call to prayer), the clanging of shandhya aarati puja (evening prayer) cymbals and bells, the perfume of flowers and incense offered to the gods, the sizzling aroma of begunis (fried aubergines with gram flour) and singaras,104 the loud invitations of the puchka (tamarind water and spicy potato-filled balloons made of flour) (Plate 4), mudi (puffed rice) (Plate 5), chow mein, and roll sellers, the smell wafting out of open-door restaurants with well-lit signboards, the clanging of koras,105 and the fragrance of food being prepared by the cooks at home vie with each other for a slice of the auditory, olfactory, visual, tactile, and gustatory landscape. The cooks, that is the rannar lok and the bhuas, and the street food vendors, residing in slums, are significant absences or invisible, veiled presences that are crucial to the collaboration of presences and absences that is constitutive of, and constituted by, the foodscape in middle- and upper-class neighbourhoods in the city, a theme to which I return in the following chapter.

102 Women are almost always absent from such tea shopaddas on the street, which dominate the bustling pavements in Calcutta far more than in Dhaka. The ratio of males to females on the streets is higher in both cities, though it is more so for Dhaka than for Calcutta, and more so for Calcutta than for a city like Delhi. For more on adda, see chapter 6. 103 Some of these makeshift tea shops supply tea or coffee to adjoining cyber cafes in Calcutta, a relatively recent phenomenon. 104 These are triangular fried pastries containing spiced vegetables, mashed potatoes, or minced meat (in Dhaka). 105 Bowl-shaped frying pans with two handles.

predominantly

3

"Like Everyday": Creating Normality Here I highlight in greater detail the actants/patients that comprise a middle-class normal everyday foodscape introduced in the last chapter. I describe the live-in domestic helps, who cook, in addition to doing other household work, and the part-time cooks, who only cook everyday in an increasingly large number of Bengali households. My rendering here makes visible the transactions between them and their mistresses, and various other actants. Starting out with a description of kitchens in Bengali middle-class houses, it then moves on to reveal how the mundane cooking and consumption of everyday food elicits relations perceived as normal, and aberrations from the normal, that is, not-normal. In doing so, it shows the collaborative agency of food in the work of normality. It seeks to describe the recurring phrase “rojkar moton’’ (like everyday). One of the tantalising attributes of normality is that, on the one hand, it has a quiet taken-for-granted quality that has a lulling effect. People are not always aware of everyday experience, the normality of normal that has to be worked upon to be achieved. And yet, as perceiving actants engaged in the everyday, they do possess a certain degree of awareness of the temperament of everyday. Hence, a study of normality invites pointed questions: “Describe the kitchen?”; 1 “What are the implements used in the kitchen everyday?”; “Where does the fish come from everyday?”

middleclass

3.1 The House, Everyday Kitchen, Utensils, and Implements: Place- and Thing-Actants/Patients Locating the everyday kitchen within the house raised some

interesting issues concerning the description and ownership of houses.

“Oder nijeder badi aachey! Do tala badi! Ora teen purush dhorey

1 Every middle-class Bengali house I visited had a kitchen. This contrasts with the situation of those belonging to the daridra jati or garib lok (the poor) who live on the streets. See section 3.1.

44

Transactions in Taste

ekhaney aachey!”2 (They have their own house! Two-storeyed3 house! They have been here [gathered ] 4 since three generations!) “Tomader ki nijeder badi? Kota ghor? ’’ (Do you [your family] own the house5 (you live in)? How many rooms (does it have)?) In Calcutta these questions are often asked of persons across age groups, frequently within minutes of being introduced to strangers. In Dhaka the questions are phrased as: “Tomar basha kothai? Tomar badi kothai? ’’ (Where is your basha [lit. nest], that is, house in the city? Where is your badi or house in the “country”, that is, where is your desh or ‘native’ place or place of ‘origin’?) Ownership of a house objectifies not only a certain status and sense of aspiration and achievement but also the degree of rootedness (indexed by the number of floors or rooms in a house) in a region whose biography is entangled in historical ruptures,6 associated with large-scale migrations and displacements across borders. The kitchen, and its locatedness within a house, then, invoke questions pertaining to ownership of a house, distinctions of badi and basha, that reveal an historically informed genealogy of a person and his (her) desh. Many houses, as also apartment complexes, have names, names which can be, and are, names of persons as well, for instance Shanti Kutir (peaceful cottage), Puja (worship), Neelanchal (blue region) Apartments, Kusum (flower) Apartments in Calcutta, and Baliadi Bhavan (house of the Baliadis), and Niloy (blue) Apartments in Dhaka.7 The inward turning middle- or upper-class house contrasts markedly with that of the poor. The outward turning houses of the cooks and domestic helps, who live in slums, require that the

2 Snippets of verbal exchanges in Bengali recur throughout since they are integral to the normal everyday soundscapes and foodscapes described in this chapter. 3 What is peculiar to Bangladeshi and West Bengali, as opposed to other Indian, descriptions of houses is that the ground floor is counted as the first floor. 4 Cf. Carsten and Hugh-Jones (1995) following Lévi-Strauss. 5 ‘House’ normally refers to a whole building. ‘House’ is used even though increasingly significant sections of the middle and upper classes, especially in Calcutta, live in blocks of apartments. Sometimes, the word ‘flat’ is used but only after the question of ‘badi’ (and ‘basha’) has been raised. 6 See chapter 2, section 2.1. 7 Shanti (peace), Puja (worship), Neelanchal (blue region), Kusum (flower), and Niloy (blue) could all be names of persons as well. ‘With their names, kin connections, land, and properties as architectural spaces, houses are much more

Creating Normality

washing of dirty utensils, the filling of drinking water, defecating, and bathing are done outside the house in communal areas with taps, tube wells, and toilets. The cooking, however, is still done inside the house. This is not so for the poor living on the streets whose attempts at ‘house’-building with bricks, sticks, and cloth or tarpaulin requires the cooking to be done on the streets outside the ‘house’.8 Almost every middle-class house requires one to take off one’s shoes near the door, since shoes carry with them dirt9 from the outside. Stepping over the clearly demarcated threshold of the house, one is greeted by a sitting room (Plate 6) with curtained windows,10 a sofa, a rug or a carpet, a coffee table in the centre, a television set and a tape recorder.11 Monet, da Vinci, M. F. Hussain, and Jamini Roy prints acknowledging each other in mutual admiration on the walls of these houses, in the company of embroidered wall hangings of the Mother Goddess (Durga) and peacocks is not an uncommon sight. Portraits of ancestors often adorn the staircases of such houses as well, though not of apartments. In most lower and middle houses the sitting room leads into the dining area demarcated by a dining table, chairs, not-everyday crockery displayed in glass showcases, a refrigerator,12 a toaster, and often a washing machine. Upper middle- and upper-class houses, on the other hand, often have separate dining rooms minus washing machines but with toasters

middleclass

than either buildings or families’ (Day et al. 1999: 23; also cf. Carsten and Hugh-Jones 1995; Gell 1998). Also, see Daniel (1984: 149–53) for the centrality of the house and its person-like qualities in Tamil Nadu. 8 Children from middle- and upper-class houses playing cricket and football in the lanes and by-lanes of Calcutta, especially on a Sunday, and standing at street corners engaging in addas (‘idle-talk’, see chapter 6) makes this contrast fuzzy at times. 9 See chapter 4 for a further discussion of dirt. 10 Most houses in the slums have tiny, mostly uncurtained, windows barred with wooden or iron rods. 11 Sony, LPG, BPL are now familiar branded occupants of middle- and upper-class sitting rooms. 12 The refrigerator as a significant actant/patient in the everyday making, consumption, and storage of food is dealt with in chapter 4.

and the now increasingly familiar microwave, grill, and oven.13 Houses of the poor, in contrast, with mostly a single room, have no sofas, chairs, dining tables, displayed crockery, or the aforementioned kitchen gadgets but may have a television set, tape recorder, and only rarely a refrigerator. The dining area or room in middle-class houses usually has a bathroom with a toilet attached at one end, marked by the visible presence of separate mugs for bathing14 and for washing oneself after defecating,15 and many have a washbasin outside the bathroom necessitated by the compulsory washing of hands before and after a meal. Most houses have at least another bathroom-cum-toilet tucked away, with its clutter of shampoos, soaps, hair oils, and detergents, only for the members of the family living in the house. Sometimes a corridor, with a washing machine, or other rooms have to be traversed before it can be reached. The dining area usually leads into the kitchen which may have a storeroom, and a tiny bathroom behind it where the part-time cook performs her (his) ablutions before cooking. If this bathroom is absent, the cook uses the one that is earmarked for the members of the family living in the house. 16 The typical lower and middle middle-class kitchen has smoke- and oil-stained17 walls, cobwebbed corners, and a single bulb hanging from a wire that bathes it in

13 It is worth noting that none of the consultants claimed that they used these gadgets in the preparation of normal everyday Bengali food. They either used them to prepare “western” foods such as baking cakes, or hardly ever used them. The presence of these devices, then, would seem to index conspicuous consumption (Veblen 1970 [1899]). 14 A few houses have bathtubs that index ‘Westernisation’ (Srinivas 1995 [1966]: 49–56). Most houses do have showers but despite that, buckets and mugs are ubiquitous. 15 Most middle and upper middle-class houses in Calcutta and Dhaka now also have toilet paper. The relevance of these details will become apparent in chapters 4 and 5. 16 The live-in cook-cum-domestic help has a separate room and bathroom, as also a separate bucket, mug, and utensils. The part-time cook and/domestic help too eats and drinks in separate utensils earmarked for him (her). 17 When chopped, washed, and wet foods, for instance vegetables, marinated fish, grated onions, ginger and garlic paste, are fried in pre-heated oil on the stove, the oil sprays outwards onto the walls, creating a food–house interface, as it were.

yellow light. It has cemented racks for storing utensils, and ready-to-use provisions such as oil, rice, flour, lentils, spices, tea, sugar in unlabelled containers such as empty baby food tins and jam bottles. The water stains, corrugations, and scratches on the racks, and the kitchen walls with spots of scrapped paint index the normal everyday resting place of these containers, utensils, and implements of various shapes, sizes, and materials that are necessitated by the cutting and cooking of particular foods. The cemented corrugated worktop, which contrasts with the smoother well-tiled worktop of the upper middle- and upper-class kitchen is where food is fried or boiled, and sometimes roasted,18 on an LPG19 stove. On the other hand, the kitchen of the poor cooks and helps, if it is separated from the single room they normally dwell in, contains no cemented storage racks or countertops, and almost never an LPG stove. Cooking in such kitchens is done in clay furnaces, and by the poor pavement dwellers in makeshift ovens lit with bamboo strips and discarded wood, anything that will burn and help them cook. Though most middle-class kitchens are now equipped with exhaust fans, the hours spent standing at the stove, and cutting, grinding, cleaning, and washing20 on the haunches on the floor cause the sweat to pour down the cook’s brow. Most of these kitchens are now also equipped with electric water purifiers manufactured by Eureka Forbes and called Aquaguard21 so that the blinking red, yellow, and green lights and music wafting out of kitchens as the machine purifies the water constitute an important and integral element of the visual landscape and soundscape connecting such households, especially at particular times of the day.

predominantly domestic

18 Boiling and frying are, by far, the most important techniques of cooking Bengali food; roasting is less important. 19 A red butane gas cylinder attached to a stove. 20 None of these are done on the worktop. 21 ‘Aquaguard’ has now come to stand for water purifier. See also chapter 4.

The kitchen of course is incomplete without its cook, to whom we now turn. Plan of a Lower Middle — Middle Middle-Class Bengali House in Calcutta and Dhaka

3.2 The Cooks and Desh: Person- and Place-Actants/Patients Most of the part-time cooks22 are called rannar lok in Calcutta and bhuas in Dhaka who only cook everyday in middle- and upper-class homes.23 There are also the live-in domestic helps, called kajer lok in Calcutta and bhuas in Dhaka,24 who cook, in addition to doing other household work. Both types of cooks are either migrants or at least children of migrants, compelled to move to the cities by

22 It was difficult to interview these cooks because if they worked part-time in several houses, they were always rushing off to the next house to cook, and if they were live-in domestic helps, they only had between one–three hours off in the afternoon when they showered, had their lunch, or had a siesta. At night they were not free before 10.30 or 11, this being the time when most Bengali middle-class households finish dinner. All such interviews were conducted entirely in Bengali, even though English words were sometimes thrown in. 23 A house without people is not a ‘home’ in English. Bengalis, like many other people, ‘do not distinguish house from home; they take it for granted that a house contains people’ (Carsten and Hugh-Jones 1995: 44). 24 Also see chapter 2.

the lack of employment in the villages or the 1943–44 Famine, 25 Partition, and the 1971 War. Women significantly outnumber men as cooks, especially in Calcutta,26 and as far as part-time cooks are concerned, there are few, if any, men employed as such.27 Most of these women have been abandoned by their husbands, are widows or orphans,28 or come from very poor households. All such cooks employed in these houses are Bengalis, that is, speak some Bengali dialect, dress predominantly in dhotis/lungis29 and saris (though the younger unmarried women often wear salwar kameez),30 and were born on either side of the border. They also, most importantly, “know how to cook Bengali food" (Bangali khabaar randhtey janey) or "know how to do Bengali cuisine" (Bangali ranna janey). Almost all the cooks I interviewed claimed that they were self-taught cooks: "Shob nijey nijey, dekhey dekhey shikhechi" (I have learnt everything myself, by observing [others cook], that is, by copying or mimicking others cooking).31 Amongst Bengali Hindus, though caste is often another stated or implicit consideration: most households seek to employ Brahmins or at least professed Brahmins as cooks.32 As for Bengali Muslims, caste is not a criterion of employment though it is assumed that all 25 Famines are still frequent in Bangladesh, causing continued migrations, but this particular famine is a critical event whose significance will become apparent in section 3.7 and in chapter 7. 26 The tendency to employ predominantly female domestic workers, rather than male, is a relatively recent phenomenon in Calcutta. The general movement towards smaller apartments and families has caused middle-class households to consider women as a safer option around their daughters. Moreover, most middle-class households cannot afford ‘the more expensive male workers’. Additionally, men have far more employment opportunities than women (Ray 2000: 694). 27 This is also true, for example, of the West, Latin America, and East Asia, where most paid domestic workers (including cooks) are women, whereas in Africa they have historically been men (Ray 2000: 693, 716 fn. 9). 28 One of the live-in domestic helps who cooked for my adopted family in Dhaka was an orphan, widowed at 15. 29 A dhoti is a loincloth worn by Hindu men. A lungi is a length of cotton cloth worn as a loincloth by Hindu and Muslim men. 30 A pair of light, loose pleated trousers worn with a long tunic. 31 Only one out of all the cooks I interviewed claimed that she had been trained at a cooking school run by a women’s shelter in Calcutta after her husband had abandoned her. 32 See chapter 4.

are Sunni Muslims because the Bengali Muslim population in this region is significantly Sunni. It is interesting to note, however, that Lisa, one of the two Bengali Muslim live-in domestic helps who cooked for my adopted family in Dhaka, did not know whether she was Sunni at all. Moreover, she claimed her family was "Boddi-Mandal, a Hindu caste".33 A Bengali Hindu household employs a Bengali Hindu cook, and

a Bengali Muslim household a Bengali Muslim cook.34 Often, an East Bengali Hindu family in Calcutta or Dhaka employs an East Bengali Hindu cook whose desh is, or was, "originally" East Bengal (now Bangladesh). But now many families will also accept a West Bengali Hindu cook (that is, whose desh is, or was, "originally" West Bengal in India), as long as s/he can cook "food like ours" (aamader moton ranna). Symmetrically different preferences characterise West Bengali Hindu, East and West Bengali Muslim families as well. Desh can be distinguished as narrowly or broadly as the transactions demand, that is, it is relational and fluid. It could refer to the country (Bangladesh or India from the point of view of the migrant living abroad), region (Bengal, including West Bengal in India and Bangladesh), district or zillah, subdistrict, town, or village. It is one’s ‘native birthplace’, one’s ‘local homeland’, 35 the place whose land, soil,36 air, water, trees, food, people, and things (jinish) are one’s own (nijer), that is, to which one belongs, and which belong to one. 33 Roy (1983) has drawn attention to the hybrid character of Hindu and Islamic forms in his study of what he calls a ‘dominant tradition of syncretistic Islam’ in Bengal that emerged from the corpus of early (16th century) Muslim Bengali literature. 34 Though one consultant in Dhaka pointed out that due to the dwindling numbers of available Hindu cooks in Dhaka, Hindu households there may now end up employing Muslim cooks, and poor Hindus seeking employment may end up cooking in Muslim households. During my fieldwork though I did not find such instances. 35 Also see chapter 2, fn. 29. ‘Local’ in that ‘(a)lthough people acquire status through their association with anotherdesh, for example Britain or Saudi Arabia, their own desh remains the same. Regardless of how long they have been away, migrants always belong to their home village, or rather, to the social group which is located in the village’ (Gardner 1993: 5). 36 See Inden (1976: 59–61) for the influence of territory on personal in Bengal. Cf. Daniel (1984) for a similar argument for Tamil Nadu. Also see Gardner (1993: 6), for a brief discussion of the food grown on the soil of desh perceived as ‘more satisfying, more nutritious and altogether better’

substance

One cares for one’s desh, and one’s desh cares for one. Desh is ‘personified’ (Strathern 1988: 180) as female,37 and is itself endowed with emotions38 which are concomitant with its spatial and associations. What is revealed is not only people’s affection for desh but also that desh has affection for its people, that is, desh as place is emotionally involved with people. The emotions are bound up with a sense of belonging enacted in the nature of the perceived attachments they have. It is food that gathers for the recipient in most immediate, and continuous ways the forms of relating and relatedness that are assembled as desh in everyday life. I develop the term ‘foodscape’ further 39 in an attempt to describe the capacity of food, its depth, reach, and scale, to bring forth a sense of place as a configuration of relations40 or form of engagement, desh. Desh as foodscape,41 then, is an event. It captures the ‘interanimation’ (Basso 1996: 55) of food, and other thing-, person-, and place-actants. It emerges as a hybrid entity that is a ‘condensed network’ (Strathern 1996: 523) of multiple and spatio-temporally distributed humans and non-humans. The ‘good cook’ is one who canreplicate for the recipient continuously (everyday) the foodscape that is normal for the latter: the way food is normally cooked in desh or the ways in which food normally deploys and redeploys the various actants that are associated as desh.42 In other words, the good cook is one

temporal

intimate,

particular

because such food absorbs ‘the nature of the village, or rather, the nature of the social group which inhabits it’. Similar preoccupations in 19th century Bengali cookbooks have already been highlighted in chapter 2, fn. 33. 37 It is perceived as having female parts (such as the womb) and as a

configuration of ‘mothering’ and nurturing relations. It is also sometimes described as a beautiful bride. For poetic and musical renditions of desh, see chapters 6 and 7. It is interesting to note that ‘(t)he world (prithibi) and the earth are female’ (Fruzzetti 1982: 24) as well. 38 The language used to describe and talk of desh evokes affective attachments. 39 I have already delineated the actants that comprise a normal foodscape in chapter 2. 40 Cf. Casey (1996) for places as events. 41 Desh as foodscape contrasts with other conventional anthropological treatments of desh (cf. Gardner 1993, 1995). 42 Also see section 3.4 and chapter 4.

who has the ‘hand’43 or continuous (everyday) capacity to prepare food that has the ceaseless capacity to recall and project the the manner of existing and coexisting as desh, of being-with-other (Moutu 2003), 44 all kinds of others. The dis-capacity (which implies potential capacity) 45 of the cook to continuously replicate the normal foodscape for the household that employs her/him, that is, ‘not-normality’, can manifest itself in myriad ways that help to elicit what normality is for such households. Desh as foodscape then becomes a trope for perceiving normality.

relations,

3.3 "Aajkey eto deri?" (Today you are so late?): 'Domestic' Time and 'Work': Person- and Thing-Actants/Patients Almost all households have time routines that are calibrated by cooking, cleaning, washing, and consumption of meals. Two of neighbouring houses chatting by the window or the door leading into the house or the verandah, and exchanging notes on the positive and negative attributes of their respective cooks and domestic helps, is not an unusual sight. On one of many such that I witnessed, Shipra and Shimanti, two mistresses of adjacent houses in south Calcutta, stood at their respective verandahs

mistresses occasions

43 For more on ‘hand’ see below. Jackson’s (1998: 124) objection to anthropological studies of the body in which ‘it is dismembered so that the symbolic value of its various parts in indigenous discourse can be enumerated’

is well taken, but following Weiss (1996: 155), I would nevertheless argue that the experience of cooking ‘frequently entails ... a condensation of meanings in discrete forms’. 44 Moutu (2003: 2) points out: ‘This is an anthropological rendition of

Heidegger and may run contrary to Heidegger’s intentions to reconcile the meaning of “Being” in its unity and totality (Heidegger 1962). In a critical response to Sartre’s psychological theory of imagination, Heidegger wrote that his conception of Being in terms of “being with and being one-self ” (1962: Section IV

to Section V) was never intended to be “an incidental contribution to sociology” (see Heidegger 1978: 221). I am however proposing that Heidegger’s concern with the essence of “being” may be approached through the anthropological notion of the “relation” (Strathern 1995).’

45 This echoes Gell’s point that ‘a disability implies a potential ability’ (1998: 118–20).

discussing such matters. Shipra says: “Bimalar hat ta bhalo; eto bochor dhorey kaj korchey, ore hat ta boshey gechey! Kintu aajkal deri korey aashey!" (Bimala’s [the cook’s] hand is good [that is, she can cook well]; she has been working for so many years, her hand has ‘settled down’. But these days she comes late!) Shimanti, on the other hand, says: "Aamartakey kintu dekhtey hoi!" (My cook has to be overseen [I have to oversee her cooking].) Shimanti’s doorbell rings and Shipra says, "Oi dekho! Tomar rannar lok choley elo, aamarta ekhono aashey ni!" (Look at that! Your cook has come, mine hasn’t arrived yet!) About 20 minutes later, Shipra’s doorbell rings and her cook enters the house. Raised voices engaged in an argument follow quickly in the footsteps of the ringing doorbell. "Aajkey eto deritey dhukcho? Eta ki ranna korar shomoi holo?!" (Today you are entering [the house] so late? Is this the time to cook?) Bimala, the cook, retorts: "Aajkey deri hoye gelo!" (Today it has become late!) to which Shipra remarks: "Aajkey shudhu to noi! Kichu din dhorey dekchi tumi roj deri korey aashcho! Eto taka nichho, tao ... Tomar ki aamader proti kono kortobbo nei?" (It is not just today! For the past few days I have been observing that you have been coming late everyday! You are taking so much money, even then ... Do you have no sense of duty/responsibility towards us?) Bimala enters the kitchen after washing her hands and feet in the bathroom, and seeing the fish on the worktop, asks her mistress: "Aajkey machch ki bhabey ranna korbo?" (How do I cook the fish today?) Shipra: "Jey bhabey roj koro! Aar shono! Ei dikey dekho. Aloogulo ei bhabey katbey! Aar shono! Fridgejey torkari aachey; bar korey niye jey bhabey roj koro, oi bhabei korbey!" (The way you cook it everyday. And listen. Look here. Dice the potatoes this way [gesticulating with her hand she shows her the approximate size of the diced pieces]. And listen! The vegetables are in the fridge; taking them out, do [cook] them the way you do them everyday, in that way [only, and no other way]). Bimala drags the shil bata (grinding stone and pestle) from its normal resting place and, sitting on her haunches, begins to grind the spices laid out for the fish. The grinding of spices, and all the cutting and washing of vegetables, fish, and meat, with the bonti46 by the cook and domestic

46 A curved blade rising out of a narrow, flat, and rectangular wooden base. Also see chapter 4, section 4.1.

help are always done sitting on the haunches. Only the actual cooking of the food on the gas stove necessitates standing. Dirty utensils, with rice grains and traces of curry still clinging on to them, 47 are always wetted and placed on the kitchen floor, and never at par with the cooking area. These utensils are normally hand-washed in a small courtyard or verandah with a tap, or a small area below the kitchen sink, using either coal ash48 or, increasingly, soap bars, by the domestic helps (and not by those who only cook) always on their haunches. The wetness of Bengali cooking — the constant use of water, a major actant in almost all cooking, the almost obsessive concern with washing hands, with rinsing even clean utensils and implements with water before use — necessitates the sweeping and mopping of the kitchen several times everyday. This is done by the domestic helps yet again sitting on their haunches and dipping a rag into a bucketful of water, mixed with disinfectant at least once a day, wiping the floor, and then repeating the process until the entire kitchen is done.49 "Shukno korey muchey dao" (Wipe it dry) is a constant instruction issued by the mistress of the house everyday across households, this being an index of the efficiency of the help in doing everyday work. The mistress is almost never seen on her haunches. 50 Now, the cleanliness of the everyday kitchen and cooking of normal food demands a facet that has been briefly alluded to above: the washing of utensils with coal ash and dried leaves or soap bars

domestic

47 Fish and meat bones are sometimes emptied by the person consuming

the food into the kitchen bin; sometimes it is the domestic help who has to do it. The food waste and other rubbish generated by households necessitates the coming of a “garbage man” (moilawala) everyday at an appointed hour, beating his cart, and blowing a whistle, to announce his arrival. The domestic help, but not the rannar lok or bhuas who only cook, take the garbage out to the cart. See also chapter 4. 48 Normally brought by the domestic help from her home. 49 In the almost complete absence of vacuum cleaners, this process is repeated

for the entire house everyday. During the mopping the fans, that are switched off while sweeping the floor to prevent the dust and dirt from flying, are switched back on again to dry the wet floor. 50 As Kaviraj (1997: 108) points out, ‘Sitting on one’s haunches is so firmly

associated with peasant life that it is almost inconceivable to find any

middleclass

person in that posture. It is the mark of an ultimate violation of code, a fall from the graces of corporeal modernity.’

and scrubbers. How long the soap bar should last is often a bone of contention between the mistress and the domestic help. Not only does a soap bar cost money (while coal ash is for free), the pace at which it finishes indexes the time invested by the domestic help in cleaning the utensils, that is, ‘timed labour’ (Thompson 1967). The noise that everyday utensils, which are almost always made of metals such as stainless steel or aluminium, generate when they are washed and stacked on the racks in their normally assigned place, also notates timed labour. For higher levels of sound indicate a quicker pace (of the hands) which in turn means less time spent, that is, ‘time as currency’ (ibid.) that is hurriedly spent. 51 Besides the clanging and banging of utensils above a certain “normal” (acceptable to the mistress, and defined as such by her) level, that is, not-normal, is also an audible index of the cook or domestic help’s dissatisfaction and anger, which not only annoys the mistress but also embarrasses her. It embarrasses her in that it indexes to the occupants of adjacent houses that she is not a “good mistress”. That is, she is unable to manage the house smoothly and peacefully, 52 and is unable to be a good employer who can keep her employee satisfied and for whom others would like to work. On the other hand, if the noise is below the “normal” level, that is, not-normal, it gives rise to suspicions of theft. The sound generated by the making and consumption of normal food then not only connects neighbouring houses and constitutes the temporally calibrated everyday soundscape,53 integral to the everyday foodscape, but also has a panoptical (Foucault 1979) quality that embraces both the domestic help or cook and the mistress, the employed and the employer. Thus, not-normality is described as the dis-capacity of both the cook and the mistress, who employs her/him, to engage in the ongoing replication of the everyday foodscape perceived as normal. 51 Paradoxically, the good and efficient cook is one who can move her/his hands quickly. 52 The noise emanating from a house indexes the level of “peace” and “happiness” of a household. The mistress who has the capacity to keep the noise level down is a good homemaker. 53 The loud beating of clothes on the bathroom floor and the sound of the water running from the taps as the domestic helps in adjacent houses hand-wash clothes are also an integral part of this everyday soundscape.

3.4 "Today the Food is Too Hot": Normal Food The everyday foodscape also has other measures or axes of

coherence of normality and not-normality.54 Most raw foods like vegetables, fruits, fish, and meat are bought ‘fresh’ everyday from the daily

bazaar, though meat, and sometimes fish, is increasingly bought on a weekly basis and stored in the freezer,55 given the “lack of time”. Normally, men predominate over women shopping in the bazaars, though the bazaarscape is changing rapidly with middle-class women increasingly venturing out of their homes. However, it is the domestic helps who are normally sent on everyday food errands, for instance to buy small quantities of groceries and other foods that may have been forgotten earlier in the day. Given that most foods are still bought loose (that is, not in standardised and packaged form),56 in different quantities, and wrapped in paper packets and plastic bags without printed expiry dates, smell, sight, touch, taste, and sound determine the degree of freshness or rottenness of everyday food. Thus, for example, people in bazaars smelling and feeling tomatoes, knocking on melons and coconuts to determine their degree of ripeness is not an unusual sight. Moreover, these diffuse sensual measures of freshness create room for negotiation of prices and haggling (Plate 7), which are integral to everyday "bazaar kora" (to do bazaar). Diffuse sensual measures also evince the normality of the of cooking normal food. When I asked cooks how they knew the food was ready to be served and eaten or had reached a certain desirable state anticipating the next stage in the cooking process, they used the following expressions. For instance, "jokhon gondho chadtey lagbey" (when it will start releasing a smell/ fragrance57 ), "jokhon kod mod korbey" (when it will [make the sound]

techniques

54 Cf. Gell (1988: 167). 55 See chapter 2. 56 However, some branded standardised packaged foods like flour, tea, oil, and particularly spices, are now becoming a familiar sight, especially in middle middle- to upper-class houses. 57 The work of smell was noted by Malinowski (1929), for example in the efficacy of magic. For other renditions of smell, see, for example Gell (1977), Corbin (1986), Howes (1991), Classen et al. (1994), Seremetakis (1994), Classen (1997), and Sutton (2001). However, my explicit focus is on smell as an actant/ patient in configurations of normality. Also see chapter 5.

kod mod), "jokhon dekhbey ektu lalchey hoye gechey; beshi lal koro na kintu" (when [you] will see that it has become slightly reddish; don’t make it too red though), "moch mochey jeno na hoi" ([make sure] that it does not become moch mochey [that is, crisp to touch]), "jokhon shadta shundor hoye jabey" (when the taste will become beautiful). Thus, the knowing is embodied in the very performance of the techniques and act of cooking itself, in bringing together the food ingredients and the senses into a normal everyday state of relatedness to which temporality is integral, as indexed by the word “when” in the above expressions. Given that there are no exact and fixed quantitative calibrations of smell, touch, taste, sight, and sound in everyday cooking practices, as indicated by words like “slightly”, “reddish”, nor the use of precise measures of ingredients, as indexed by such expressions as "ektu aad"’ (a little ginger),"‘halka moshl"’ (lightly spiced), approximation (aandaj) plays a pivotal role."‘Shob kichu aandajey kor"’ ([I] do everything by approximation) is what most cooks say.58 And memory is significant in approximation, for the good cook with a ‘good hand’ is one who, and whose hand too, has the capacity to retain and project the mode of associating between the myriad actants that defines normal food, and the capacity to approximate, copy, mimic, or protend such relations That is, on an everyday basis."‘Like everyda"’, then, points to a continuous mimetic process that brings forth normality as a ‘temporally extended field’ (Gell 1998: 239). 59 The dis-capacity to do so is not-normality. In a West Bengali north Calcutta household, Anjali, tears coursing down her cheeks, complained to her mother: "Aajkey machchta rojkar moton hoi ni; kijhal diyechey!" (Today the fish is not done [cooked] like everyday; what (quantities of) chillies (she) has added) The mistress reprimanding the East Bengali cook,60 Gauri, tells her: "Tomakey bolechi na eto jhal na ditey?! Tomader deshey ei shob choley; aamra eto jhal khai na!" (Haven’t I told you not to add so much chilli [powder]?! In your desh this is acceptable (normal); we do

continuously.

58 Even though Bengali cookbooks with precise quantifications of

ingredients and time are on the rise, approximation continues to hold court in most

Bengali cooking. For more on this see chapter 7. 59 Cf. Gell (1998: 239). 60 For more on the West Bengali predilection for less hot and more sweet foods, and the East Bengali preference for hot foods, see chapter 5 which delineates such stereotypes in greater detail. Also see chapter 2, fn. 79.

not eat such hot food!) Hence, not-normality here emerges as the dis-capacity of the cook to exclude her desh, or her capacity to replicate her desh, as an unexpected ingredient in her of the desired replication of her patron’s desh. Not-normality here also entails the cook’s dis-capacity to exclude her class since, as pointed out in the previous chapter and in the next section, the poor normally eat “very” hot (chilli hot) food. It is not only the purchasing and making of food that is calibrated as normal and not-normal, but also the of it. "Bhaat boshao ni keno rojkar moton? Bhaater to shomoi hoye gechey!" (Why have you not sat the rice [on the stove, that is, cooked] like everyday? It is time for rice!), queried the rather annoyed mistress of a Bengali Muslim household in central Dhaka. Rice, the staple food for both Bengali Hindus and Muslims on either side of the border,61 is consumed everyday, has time apportioned (that belongs) to it everyday. So, in the words of a domestic help, "Bhaat jotokhon hoi, aami kapod dhuye ni." (While the rice cooks, I wash the clothes [everyday].) Rice, therefore, makes time,62 or is the timemaker here. It sits or presides over normality everyday. To rend its rhythm is not-normal. Moreover, what this highlights further is knowing how to do normal food emanates from the material practices of assembling everyday food. The consumption of food also compels a certain manner of visual presentation (Plate 9), and of the act of eating the food itself. The rice is often packed into everyday normal bowls and then overturned onto the plate with a noisy bang so that it emerges as a compact white cake.63 When asked, most consultants or respondents claimed that this is done so that it “looks beautiful” (dekhtey shundor lagey).64

performance characteristics, intrinsically consumption

61 See also chapter 4. 62 This recalls Thompson’s (1967: 58) remark about how time in Madagascar maybe ‘measured by a “rice-cooking” (about half an hour).’ 63 Skill is measured by the quantity that can be packed into the cake. 64 A great deal of emphasis is certainly placed on the visual presentation of the meal, even amongst Bengali Muslims in Bangladesh and West Bengal, which is paradoxical given that ‘in Islamic society, the repression of sight which results from the prohibition on the visual representation of God or creation, and the fear of being accused of casting the “evil eye”, would seem to be designed to emphasise hearing ...’ (Howes and Classen 1991: 258). For a further analysis of the aural register, in addition to the significance of sound and soundscape described above, see chapter 6.

However, some cynically pointed out that it helps to measure the quantity of rice to be consumed normally, and is more true of West Bengalis.65 Often the different foods that are savoured with the rice, according to their designated sequence, 66 are also already served in bowls, as opposed to the recipients helping themselves to different quantities from large dishes containing those foods. As each bowl pours out67 its occupants over the now broken cake of rice, the caressing fingers of the recipient proceed to mash them together (‘chewing with the fingers’), make small balls of the soaked rice, and then carry them to the waiting mouth. The sticky soaked mash, halfway between solid and liquid, ‘attacks the boundary’ 68 between the recipient and the food. This sensuous dilution of boundaries or “messiness” of eating normal food is described as “very Bengali”. It is also to be noted that the bones of fish, 69 which is an integral of an everyday Bengali middle- and upper-class (also poor, if they can afford it) meal, compel the use of fingers and the non-use of cutlery.70 The everyday consumption of fish (Plate 10) as an intrinsic of a normal Bengali meal71 also raises the issue of the of food as a gendered activity or performance. For one consultant, the fact that women often eat the tail of the fish, which has more bones than the fish head consumed by men, is an effect of their not working outside home while the men do, and therefore, having more time to pick on the bones. The consultant, a medical doctor, continued, almost regretfully, that “these days” things are changing: more and more women are working outside the house,

constituent

component consumption

65 Also see chapter 5 on the “calculativeness” of West Bengalis. 66 A normal Bengali meal in a middle-class household starts with bitters and fries, goes on to lentils (dal ), other vegetables, fish and/or meat, and ends in something sour followed by a sweet. However, East Bengalis consume the lentils after the fish and/or meat, which is perceived as an index of East Bengaliness. 67 Most Bengali foods, except fries, are wet, that is, have at least some jhol (gravy). Thus, wetness is an attribute of a Bengali foodscape. See also the wetness of the kitchen in section 3.2. 68 Sartre (1943: 696 ff), as cited in Douglas (1984 [1966]: 39). 69 Sometimes as fine as hairs. For instance, the bones of thehilsa. 70 Eating normal everyday food with the aid of cutlery, with its connotations of ‘Westernisation’, is ridiculed. Cutlery is, however, used at very formal lunch and dinner parties and marriage feasts but even then not by all. Moreover, there are varying manners regionally on how much of the hand is soiled in normal eating, and jokes about it.

they have less time to cook, and they marry “late” (that is, when they are older as opposed to the past when they married really young), which also creates complications at childbirth because of the “stiffening of the pelvic girdle”. Consumption of normal food then elicits present forms, recalling the past, of ‘domesticity’72 and relations perceived as normal. 73

gendered 3.5 Of Tamarind Sherbat and Lesbianism: Sexuality and Middle-Class Respectability

An episode in a Bengali Muslim household in central Dhaka during my fieldwork further reveals how the everyday foodscape evinces the scope and meaning not only of domesticity and gendered relations,74 but also of sexual relations perceived as normal by middle-class Bengalis. Now, what Ray (2000: 698) points out for middle-class Calcutta also largely holds for middle-class Dhaka: ‘Employers have complex emotions about hiring women and girls .... Uppermost in all employers’ minds when they hire a young woman is the risk of her potential sexuality, because unprotected women are perceived as sexually dangerous and therefore not respectable’.75 However, women are preferred to men as domestic helps because they are “cheaper and more trustworthy". In the Dhaka household concerned, the mistress of the house suspected 76 that

71 So much so that there is a phrase in use on both sides of the border: "machchey–bhaatey bangali" (In [the consumption of] fish–rice is [being] Bengali). 72 For more on ‘domesticity’ in Bengal and Bengali ‘housewives’ see Chatterjee (1992), Walsh (1995), and Kaviraj (1997). See Chakrabarty (1994) for how debates in colonial Bengal on ‘the ideals of the Bengali housewife’ and the issue of ‘domesticity’ had implications for the ‘formation of a modern public life’. 73 The press and electronic media, for instance advertisements of spices, tea, utensils, and cooking gadgets, play a role in evincing such gender relations of normal domesticity. See chapter 7. 74 Also cf. Giard (1998), DeVault (1991), and Counihan (2004), who highlight the gendered character of domestic routines in food transactions 75Islamic theories of female sexuality (see Mernissi [1975] for example) contend that women have a destructive, all-absorbing power that ‘distracts’ men from their ‘social and religious duties’, and leads to fitna (‘disorder or chaos’) provoked by sexual ‘disorder’. For Hindu notions of the potentially ‘dangerous’ nature of female power, see for example, Babb (1975) and Bennett (1983).

the two women she employed as live-in domestic helps, Lisa and Latika, were in a lesbian relationship.77 Latika was an asthmatic widow while Lisa was unmarried. On the other hand, she also suspected Lisa of sexual licentiousness because she spent “far too much time” drying clothes and cleaning rice in the grilled verandah that overlooked the verandah of the adjacent apartment that an unmarried male cook. Lisa also took far more time than was “normal” to return from the shops when she was sent on food-related errands (dokan kora = to do shops, that is, shop). 78

employed

On a warm summer afternoon Lisa and Latika offered to make

tamarind sherbat for me, which they drank in their desh to help tolerate the heat (gorom katabar jonno = to ‘cut’ the heat). Things came to a head when I unwittingly narrated to the mistress, returning home at the end of the day, how they had prepared tamarind sherbat 79 for me that I had never had before. Her immediate response was to call them and remark that they had never made that sherbat for her. She then proceeded to give them instructions for dinner. After their departure for the kitchen, she listed her complaints against them, while her husband maintained silence:80 they did not work efficiently together, spent too much time engaging in idle-talk, were probably lesbians which affronted her sense of respectability (bhadrata),81 and ate very hot (chilli hot) food that did not make her feel safe. When she came to the last of her long list of woes, she elaborated on how the consumption of “too much” chilli hot food causes “blind and irrational rage” in a person. She then went on to add that there had been a few

delicious

76 She confessed that she had tiptoed to their room behind the kitchen when they were asleep but had never witnessed them engaged in sexual intercourse. 77 Bengali middle classes are still predominantly uncomfortable with lesbian and gay relationships. 78 This was a constant refrain across households that employed women as domestic helps. 79 A sweet refreshing drink made with cold water, tamarind, and sugar. 80 This is in keeping with the fact that in many households the husband does not normally interfere in his wife’s management of everyday affairs, rarely speaks to a female domestic help or cook, who in turn seldom addresses him directly, and veils herself around him by adjusting the aanchol (corner) of her sari over her head and ensuring that her chest is properly covered. 81 See chapter 5 for further elaboration of this point.

“incidents” reported in the newspapers over the years on how

domestic helps had physically harmed or murdered their employers

in a fit of rage which she attributed to the hot food.82 The next day culminated in the sudden dismissal of Latika. The exclusion from the affective attachments of desh,83 that acts as a catalyst for Latika’s sudden dismissal, then reveals that in a conflict between the normal and not-normal, food (the sherbat) as an actant asserts its agency in an unexpected form and enables normality’s attempts to defend its depth, reach, and scale in relation to not-normality.

3.6 "Aajkey bazaarey ilish machcher bhishon dam!" (Today the Hilsa Fish in the Bazaar was Very Expensive): Anxieties in Normality P enters the house and hands over the half-full threadbare

shopping bag to his wife, sighing and mopping his brow. After examining

the contents of the bag, his wife asks him, "Aajkey ilish machch aanoni?" (Today [you] have not bought hilsa fish?) A tight-lipped P replies: "Na! Aajkey bazaarey ilish machcher bhishon dam! Tai jonney kena hoi ni. Kal kinbo. Aajkey onno machch niye esheychi." (No! Today the hilsa fish in the bazaar was very expensive. That is why it has not been bought. [I will] buy [it] tomorrow. Today [I] have bought another fish.) L, a clerk at a state government office, echoes a similar sentiment: “People like us cannot afford to eat hilsa everyday; we can only buy it, say, once a month.” For many lower middle-class persons, it is a struggle to maintain their bhadralok façade, as indexed, for instance, by the inability to consume hilsa fish84 “frequently” or as part of their everyday 82 See also chapter 5, section 5.1. 83 It is worth noting that the domestic helps and the mistress came from different regions of Bangladesh, that is, their desh was different. And yet, when compared to my desh, India, their desh was the same, that is, Bangladesh. 84 The hilsa is prized for its sweet taste. The virtuous qualities of thehilsa have been extolled by various literary figures. Thus, Gupta (1989: 37), in an essay entitled ‘Machch aar Bangali’ (Fish and Bengalis), quotes from a lecture on hilsa delivered by Parimol Goswami in which the latter says: ‘In the Gita, Lord Krishna has said that in whatever way one feeds me, I shall satisfy him, and our hilsa says that in whatever way one fries me, I shall satisfy him alone.’

meal when the fish is seasonally available. For the poor slumdwelling cooks and domestic helps, fish is rarely a component of their normal meal. For the pavement dwellers even less so. They sometimes procure fish bones or legs, intestines and other leftovers after the prime poultry meat has been sold by the butchers in the neighbourhood markets, who either give these leftovers to them or throw them away in heaps which are then recovered by them.85 They purchase vegetables from the bazaar a little late in the day at a reduced price because the fresh and best ones are already gone, sitting in the middle-class refrigerators. They buy oil, dal (lentils), and some ‘basic’ spices such as holud (turmeric) on a day-to-day basis in small measures, folded into conical scraps of newspaper sheets, when they can afford to do so. These foods are then cooked in earthern or aluminium pots that sit atop makeshift ovens, lit with bamboo strips and discarded wood, and into a palatable meal together with boiled rice. Leftover rice is soaked in water overnight (panta bhaat)86 and consumed the next day with salt or chillies. Most are able to eat a normal meal once a day.87 The work of food in bringing forth normality, then, is fraught with tensions and is haunted by poverty. Normality emerges as a hazardous negotiation with not-normality.

transformed

3.7 'Disturbances' in Normality: Fasting, Illness, Famine, and Bomb Blast Furthermore, moments of rends and ruptures in the everyday food-scape reveal normality and not-normality as a continuum. Fasting or self-enforced deprivation, for instance, is the intended withdrawal of everyday food to ensure the continuity of the everyday. Thus, Bengali Hindu women fast on certain days of the week to ensure the continued ‘wellbeing’ of their husbands, children, and ‘abundant’

85 The poor in the villages cook, for instance, kochu-ghechu (‘vegetables not normally edible’ or ‘worthless edible roots’) and googli (shell fish) from the rivers. 86 Also see fn. 93. 87 When they are unable to cook they eat, for example, prasad (offerings to the gods) from temples, leftovers from marriage feasts or from houses in the neighbourhood.

homes.88 So here abstinence or not-normality serves normality so as to ensure its continuity. Again, everyday foods are used to prevent or heal illnesses, that is, the not-normal. Thus, for example, when living with my adopted family in a north Calcutta household, I was administered doses of honey and ginger, the latter an ingredient in most everyday cooking, to cure a chest congestion; ginger here crossed domains. Here, then, normal food serves not-normality so as to restore itself to its former continued state. Finally, two critical events bring home the point that normality and not-normality serve each other by working to show their ‘depth-cum-horizon' (Casey 1996: 47; n. 6).89 During the Great Bengal Famine of 1943–44 which killed approximately six million people on both sides of the border, 90 people begged for phen, or the water in which the rice is boiled,91 in the absence of rice, to assuage their hunger. Here, the phen or rice water substitutes for the rice, and works to show normality and not-normality their mutual capacity. The other critical event: On 14 April 2001, Bengali New Year’s Day, celebrated by both Bengali Hindus and Muslims, a suicide bombing at Ramna Park in Dhaka killed seven people near the podium on which sat young men, women, and children singing Rabindrasangeet,92 a few yards from where I was seated. There ensued a frenzied scramble for safer ground and the one exit that led out of the park. Some threw up, some wept, some were stunned

88 For fasting by Bengali Hindu women and their intended withdrawal from non-vegetarian food (‘new vegetarianism’) as related to discourses of fertility and motherhood, see Donner (2008). Bengali Muslims fast during the month of Ramadan. Apart from that, anyone can fast for the fulfillment of a mannat (desire), except on the two days of the year when Id is celebrated. 89 Casey’s argument follows on from Husserl (1973) and Merleau Ponty (1962). 90 The objectified traces of the Famine, followed closely by Partition in 1947, are to be found in contemporary Calcutta in the form of the Public Distribution System or the rationing system under which every registered citizen is entitled to essential provisions, including rice, at subsidised rates. For more on the Famine and its memory, see chapter 7. 91 Many middle-class households normally set aside the water in which the rice is boiled to starch clothes. 92 A genre of music composed by the Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore which is integral to ‘being Bengali’, and Bengaliness, on both sides of the border. See also chapter 6.

into stupefied silence. Then there were people who started selling, buying, and eating food: cut cucumbers, sliced fruits, roasted groundnuts, puffed rice, and panta bhaat,93 all consumed everyday as part of a normal meal or snack. One woman, for shock still writ large on her face, traced with her moist eyes the movements of the fruit seller’s fingers as they dexterously caused the cucumber to emerge from under its green skin, and sprinkled it with salt and spices. She paid for it, and stood munching on it under a tree, gazing towards the spot, now agog with flashing sirens, cameras, media people, and policemen. The people who engaged in preparing, selling, buying, and eating food at this moment of crisis did so to enable them to pick up the threads of normality. This event seems to have become a critical point of reference in the ongoing transformations in which Dhaka, indeed Bangladesh, is caught. As one of my consultants or respondents pointed out on that day: “You are perhaps witnessing history being made here!” The following year she wrote: “This year we did not go to Ramna.” Food, then, reveals that not-normality or the moment of rupture/ unmaking of normality is the moment of remaking normality in transformed ways.

preparing,

example,

Conclusion What has been highlighted here is a description of multiple spatio-temporally dispersed actants, persons, things, and places that food mobilises and works with to create desh as normal foodscape in the everyday lives of middle-class Bengalis. Everyday food is an event that reveals food as a thing-actant and desh as foodscape as a place-actant. The everyday foodscape emerges as a specific hybrid entity containing various axes of coherence of normality and not-normality: temporal–spatial–corporeal–sensual–emotional– moral. Normality thus assembled is a particular capacity or mode

93 Leftover rice soaked overnight in water and consumed the next morning. Panta bhaat is normally eaten by the poor. However, there is an emergent practice, amongst the newer entrants of the middle classes in Dhaka, of celebrating Bengali New Year’s day by consuming panta bhaat, together with the prized hilsa, costing astronomical sums of money, particularly at that time of

the year. Also see chapter 4 for more on leftover rice.

of ‘being-in-the-world’, being-with-others, all kinds of others. It emerges as both inward and outward in its orientation. For everyday food makes the fridge within the house and the cook from outside the house, with the mistress as manager, 94 collaborate together. Food, therefore, emerges as a conductor of an orchestra that conducts the continuous fragile balance between this inwardness and outwardness. The dis-capacity of food to do so is not-normality, that is, shifts this balance in unexpected ways. That is, food, in its everyday form encompasses normality as capacity, and not-normality as dis-capacity. Thus, the event of everyday food evinces normality as the effect of heterogeneous distributed actants engaged in precarious negotiations. Normality emerges as a particular configuration of relations that goes beyond doxa,95 and is elicited through a mimetic process, everyday: this implies a certain degree of cognised or intentional replication of taken-for-granted normality. Given the role of memory, ‘retention’, and ‘protention’, in this however, there is continuous ‘modification’ (Gell 1998 after Husserl); there can be no exact equivalence. Such modification is conjoined with transformations through unanticipated acts of betrayal committed by the everyday normal foodscape: assertions of its capacity for not-normality. The expression "like everyday" then points to an eternal mimetic process that wants to be everyday but can never completely be everyday. It is this unfinished quality or process of continuous becoming that also gives normality its perceived temporally enduring quality, its taken-for-granted property. This makes everyday food emerge as a collaborative relational and transformational field which is evinced in its very Knowing or perceiving normality is, then, the partial effect of the performance of the everyday foodscape. The dynamic of protentions, retentions, and collaborations that ‘cohere’ as normality acquire a cognised objectified and emplaced form in the very practices of everyday food and desh as foodscape. Normality may be imagined metaphorically as the house in which the figure of everyday food resides, and not-normality as the eternally co-present environs of the house, and both as resting

instance,

continuous

process,

performance. networks

94 For the manager as distributed, as a network, see Law (1996). 95 See Bourdieu (1977: 164–71) for an extended analysis of doxa.

on the ground of relationships. The use of the metaphor of the house as normality is elicited by the centrality of the house in the normal everyday lives of Bengalis as explained in section 3.1. 96 The examples of lesbianism, fasting, and illness can then be envisaged as not-normality within the house that everyday food takes to the door and windows and bids farewell. The examples of poverty and suspicion or lack of trust can be seen as not-normality within the house with which everyday food is engaged in an ongoing quarrel or conflict. When everyday food comes outside the house of normality, as in the Famine and bomb blast examples, not-normality normality reveals to it its reach/depth-cum-horizon. The point of this whole metaphoric exercise is to show how food in its specific mode, everyday, gathers normality and not-normality as particular configurations of relationships along a continuum, mutually of each other, each revealing to the other its reach, capacity, and scale. Thus, food in its everyday form mediates between normal and not-normal, engaged in perpetual hazardous negotiations with each other. That is, food makes visible its dynamic capacities to connect and divide assemblages of normal and not-normal in the very flux of everyday mixing as becoming. But what are the properties of this performance? I now turn my attention to this.

constitutive

96 And as Jackson (1996: 9) puts it, ‘metaphors evoke and mediate connections within experience’.

4

The Everyday Normal Sacred Kitchen The descriptive rendering offered here illuminates how everyday food, in its collaborative efforts to replicate itself in the manner described so far, also emerges as ‘sacred’. Through a nexus of flows and containments, movements and stoppages, connections and divides, everyday normal food emerges as an event entangled in networks that are ‘ordinarily sacred’. It, therefore, departs from two dominant and divergent anthropological views that one has to with when defining the quality of ‘sacredness’: (1) as that which is sacralised (set apart or forbidden) by society (Durkheim 1915 [1912]); (2) as that which is transcendental to society (Eliade 1959; Eck 1983; Fuller 1992).

contend

4.1 Cooking Lunch in a Bengali Hindu Everyday Kitchen in Calcutta Wednesday. 9 a.m. The doorbell of the Sens’, house rings, and in walks Bamondi.1 "Baudi, aami esheychi!! Badir ga diye jey rastata jai, shekhaney bhalo potol pawa jachchilo, tai niye elam! Takata diye deo! Snaney dhukchi!" (Bride-sister, 2 I have come! The road that runs adjacent to the body/skin [ga] 3 of the house, there good wax gourd was available, so I bought some! (Plate 8) Give me the money [later/before I go]! I am going to take a bath!). She performs her ablution in a tiny bathroom, right behind the kitchen, puts on the fresh sari that has been laid out for her, and enters the kitchen.

1 Bamon = Brahmin; a Brahmin priest or cook. 2 A common mode of addressing the mistress of the house. 3 It is interesting to note that "ga kora" (lit. to do the body) is a verb that means ‘to set one’s mind (to); to pay heed (to); to take interest (in)’ (Samsad Bengali–English Dictionary [revised and enlarged second edn] 1982: 265; emphasis mine). While "ga kora" is used in Dhaka as well to mean the same thing, the expression "badir ga diye" is not used; instead "bashar pash/dhar

diya" (near, adjacent to, or near the edge of the house) is used.

Everyday Normal Sacred Kitchen

She switches on the Aquaguard4 and waits for its flashing lights to change colour from red to yellow to green, its dulcet notes filling the kitchen. After placing, under the musical purifier, the pitcher that begins to gather the steady, thick thread of water, she turns her attention to the food that awaits her. The sound of the shil,5 being lowered on to the floor from its normal upright rest against the wall in its own private corner that it shares only with the nora,6 rends the air. Body leaning forward between legs folded in a squatting position, she sets herself to the task of grinding the spices her mistress has already laid out on a large plate. The unique aroma of ginger, turmeric, cumin, cloves, cinnamon, cardamom, and dried coriander seeds,7 transformed into smooth pastes on the shil with the nora, held horizontally between the two hands and rubbing against it, pervades the kitchen. She repeats the process for the pathar mangsho (goat’s meat) that will be eaten for dinner, though this time onions and garlic8 join the rest of the spices on the shil. She then drags out the medium-sized bonti 9 (Plate 11) used for cutting vegetables from its everyday resting place next to the shil. Sitting on the floor with one knee raised, while the corresponding foot presses down on the base, she proceeds to slice the eggplants. Then she turns her attention to the fresh dismembered fish, still dripping with blood, wrapped in a plastic bag and contained in a stainless steel bowl, that had been bought earlier that day from the bazaar and had been refrigerated. She removes the fish from the bati (bowl) containing it, washes it, and then scales and cuts it into smaller pieces with the aansh-bonti10 leaning against the wall, 4 See also chapter 3, section 3.1. 5 A large, flat block of stone, found in all Bengali households, that has a deeply

pitted surface almost always displaying a carved fish near its triangular head. 6 Stone pestle that is oblong and rounded. It is never separated from the shil. 7 The last five are collectively called gorom moshla (lit. hot spices). 8 It is to be noted that these are added only to the meat and not to the

vegetables. This is because onions and garlic are perceived as “non-vegetarian” and heat generating foods that heighten sexual desire. For more on this, see chapter 5. 9 A curved blade rising out of a narrow, flat, rectangular wooden base. Despite the advent of knives, peelers, choppers, and graters, thebonti continues to hold fort in most households. 10 Most households have at least two bontis: one for vegetarian foods (niraamish = not-meat), and the other for non-vegetarian foods (aamish). The aansh-bonti

(aansh = scales of the fish) is used to cut fish, and often meat, garlic, and onions, the last two also categorised as aamish, as explained in fn. 8.

Transactions in Taste away from the shil and the vegetable bonti. Next she takes the meat, defrosted earlier, out of its plastic wrapping, and washes it under the running tap. After washing her hands, she walks to the stationed in the dining area outside the kitchen, and with a clean wet nektda (rag) wipes the spot now bereft of the bowl the bloody fish. After washing her hands yet again, she takes out the kora,11 into which she pours Riceol, 12 and fries the eggplants, sprinkling turmeric, salt, and red chilli powder from the assortment of round holders contained in an aluminium spice box. While they are turning a crispy golden brown, she puts a dekchi 13 full of water onto the stove to boil. When the vegetables are done, she fries the fish in another kora, adds the bata moshla (ground spices) and makes the machcher jhol (fish curry), mopping the sweat off her brow all the while with the aanchol14 of her sari. She then turns her attention to the pathar mangsho (goat’s meat): draws out yet another kora, fries the onions, garlic, ginger, and the gorom moshla till they are a rich dark brown,15 and then adds the meat together with some water. Washing her hands, she enters the adjoining bhadar ghor (storeroom)16 and measures two cups of rice onto the kulo.17 She then takes a fistful of rice, using her right hand, and puts it back into the half-full jar. the kitchen, she sits on the floor and cleans the rice of the khud, small, broken, insect-ridden rice grains and tiny black stones. She stores the khud in an empty jam bottle, tucked away in a dark corner of the storeroom, promising herself that she would take the contents that day to the ration shop round the corner. While she is washing the rice under the running tap, the water gradually turning murky with the dusty dirt, her mistress, on her way out to pick up her daughter from school, enters the kitchen. "Shono! Gotokaler dal fridgejey achey. Sheta aar ektu sheddho korey niyo. Dada kal dal khetey parey ni, kacca boley. Aar gotokaler aaloor tarkari aar bhaat o aachey; sheguli tumi niye jeo." (Listen! Yesterday’s dal

refrigerator containing

Reentering

11 A bowl-shaped frying pan with two handles. 12 A brand of rice bran oil popular in Calcutta as a “healthy” cooking medium. 13 A round vessel normally used for boiling milk and rice. 14 Loose end of a sari hanging over the shoulders. 15 Known as koshano. 16 Cooked food is not stored in this room. See also chapter 2. 17 A tray/platter made of bamboo for winnowing grains, especially rice.

[lentil-like pulse curry] is in the fridge. Cook that a bit more. The master of the house could not eat it yesterday because it was crudely cooked/half-cooked. And yesterday’s potato curry and rice are also there; you can take those.) So out comes yesterday’s boiled dal, and Bamondi re-cooks it on the stove next to the boiling rice. She then drains the bhaat (cooked rice) and stores the phen (starch) in a dekchi for Sulata, the live-in domestic help who washes clothes, dirty utensils, cleans the house, and empties the garbage into the moilwala’s (“garbage man’s”) cart18 to use. Having put all the food in the dining room in various thermal containers (“hot cases”), made of plastic on the outside and stainless steel on the inside, she takes her khud bottle, aaloor tarkari, and bhaat with tightened lips, and rings the doorbell next door to start her chores there.

4.2 Cooking Lunch in a Bengali Muslim Everyday Kitchen in Dhaka The mistress of the house, still seated at the breakfast table after her husband’s departure, calls out to Lisa and Latika, her two live-in domestic helps.19 While munching on her hat-ruti20 and shobji,21 she issues instructions as to what is to be served for lunch. "Aajkey jey khashir mangsho aana hoyechey shawkaley, fridgejey rakha aachey ... sheta korba rojkar moton. Shob korba na; aami dekhiye dichchi kotota. Baki freezerre rekhey deba, bhalo plasticey. Aar shei diner machch freezerre aachey, jeta Khushi aapa korechey ratirer dawaater jonno, sheta gorom korba. Aar mushurer dal aar capsicumer shobji korba. Aar Lisa aar ektu cha diya jao, tarpor mangsho dekhachchi." (Today the khashir mangsho [castrated goat 18 See chapter 3, fn. 47.

19 As described in chapter 3, section 3.5. 20 A term sometimes used in Dhaka that literally means hand-bread, that is, flat round bread cooked on a griddle using the hands, as opposed to pao-ruti (lit. feet-bread), which refers to sliced bread that is made using the feet to flatten

the dough and then baked, and that has a rougher texture than machine-made bread. However, most sliced bread now is machine-made. 21 Shobji = vegetable, the same term being used for it in a raw or cooked state. This term is used by Bengali Muslims, as opposed to "tarkari", used by

Bengali Hindus, which too refers to vegetables in a raw or cooked state. Raw refers to both uncooked and crudely cooked food. See section 4.4.

meat]22 that has been bought this morning, that has been kept in the fridge ... do [cook] that like everyday. Don’t cook all of it; I will show you how much. Put the rest in the freezer in a good [fresh] plastic [bag]. And that day’s fish is there in the freezer, that Khushi aapa had cooked for the dawat at night [dinner party or invitation],23 heat that. And make mushur dal 24 and capsicum [peppers]. And Lisa bring me some more tea, then I will show you the meat [that is, how much is to be cooked].) After the mistress’s departure from the apartment, and as the day proceeds, the kitchen bustles with activity like everyday. Lisa drags on to the floor the shil, similar to the one used by Bamondi, with its carved fish and pitted surface, from its normal cosy corner. Then, sitting on her haunches, she grinds the onions, garlic, and gorom moshla, their enchanting fragrance inviting the odorous khashir mangsho, being diced by Latika on the by now bloody bonti in the neighbourhood on the floor. While the dal bubbles in a handi 25 on the stove, Latika, with washed hands, stirs the thoroughly washed meat,26 next to it, dancing a merry dance in a blackened kora, to the tune of the khunti.27 She next drags the vegetable bonti (Plate 12) out of its safe corner and begins dicing the peppers. Then, she adds

22 One finds only castrated goat’s meat in Dhaka. Various consultants had interesting views to offer on this. Most said that castrated meat is “tastier”, and “easier to cook”; some said that the goats are castrated because they are easier

to “manage”. 23 Khushi was a divorcee who catered to private dinner parties in middle- and upper-class homes. 24 Red lentils.

25 An urn-shaped pot. 26 "Ghoshey ghoshey dhuye", that is, washed thoroughly to remove all traces of blood since blood is impure (see section 4.3). This is equally true for fish. 27 A metallic ladle with a flat, pitcher-shaped stirring end that has a horizontal

edge. It is also widely used in Bengali households in Calcutta. The clanging of the khunti against the walls of a kora is such an intrinsic part of the everyday foodcape that it figures in a song by Suman Chatterji (‘Chena Dukhkho, Chena Shukh’— The Familiar Sadness, The Familiar Happiness): Chena dukhkho, chena shukh; Chena chena hashi mukh; Chena aalo, chena ondhokar; Chena mati, chena para; Chena pothey kora nara .... (The familiar sadness, the familiar happiness; The familiar familiar smiling face; The familiar light, the familiar darkness; The familiar soil, the familiar neighbourhood; The familiar path [with its] stirring kora ....)

them to some pre-heated mustard oil awaiting them in yet another kora. Lisa, in the meanwhile, wipes the refrigerator clean of the drops of blood that had dripped from the plastic bag containing the meat and had stained its interior. She then sits on her haunches and rummages through the various plastic bags in the freezer until she comes to the one containing Khushi’s fish. The aazan28 on the loudspeaker makes them halt their activities; Lisa covers her head with her dupatta,29 and Latika with the aanchol of her sari, and both do so using their right hands. When the aazan stops, the plastic bags resume their crackling, and the kora and khunti their clanging. The by now sweaty Latika lowers the flame, and asking Lisa to keep a watchful eye on the meat and the dal, says: "Aami ghusley dhukchi!" (I am going to take a bath [ghusl].30) When Latika re-enters the kitchen, she washes the rice that Lisa has already cleaned of the khud on the kulo.31 After adding some onions, garlic, chilli powder, and panch phoron32 fried lightly in oil to the dal already boiled in turmeric and salt water,33 she takes it off the stove. She then “sits” the rice to cook (bhaat boshiye dilo)34 in its designated dekchi. Lisa then states her intention to “do” (take) her ghusl (bath) and on her way out of the kitchen, reminds Latika to place the bottle of tetuler aachar 35 from their mistress’s desh on the table.

28 Call to prayer. The imam of a mosque utters the aazan five times a day at a designated hour (which changes with the shift in the sun’s seasonal position), reminding the inhabitants of the neighbourhood that it is time to pray. 29 A length of material worn across the chest and also as a head covering by women. 30 As opposed to Bamondi’s use of the word‘snan’. ‘Ghusl’ is a Persian word that is used by Bengali Muslims in Dhaka while ‘snan’ is a Bengali word used by Bengali Hindus. 31 Note Bamondi does the same in section 4.1. 32 ‘Literally, five flavours. Usually a combination of five whole spices, cumin, kalojeera (black cumin/onion seeds), mustard, fennel and fenugreek. Mostly used to flavour dal, vegetables and fish preparations’ (Banerji 1991: 169). 33 This entire process of adding the lightly fried spices to thedal is called "bagar deoa" by Bengali Muslims as opposed to "phoron deoa" by Bengali Hindus. 34 See chapter 3, section 3.4. 35 Tamarind pickle that the mistress’s favourite sister-in-law (bhabi), living in Noakhali, had made. The mistress’s desh was Noakhali.

4.3 andDPFouritvy/Nnoti-Pduerits,y Of Everyday Normal On examining the transactions food engages in in the two previous sections what emerges is that everyday normal food evinces a mode of relations that configure as sacred. Bamondi, on entering the house, performs her ablution (a ceremonial act of washing parts of the body) and wears a fresh sari before she enters the cooking area, which is ranked ritually higher than the other two distinct the serving and storage areas. Khare (1976a: 54, emphasis mine) states that the cook (Brahmin), who must ‘always rank higher than any other domestic member in the “normal” state’, has to start the process of domestic cooking in a cleaned and purified food area. ‘The cook must, therefore, bathe and wear clothes that are hand-washed at home. A ritual bath requires that the entire body (and the clothing thereon) be washed with water, since un-soaked spots in one’s clothing retain impurity’. That is, normal everyday food, to be cooked, requires a Brahmin to cook it, and that too a Brahmin who has ritually purified her (him)self out of the normal ‘not-pure’ 36 state. Bamondi takes her ritual bath though she does not soak her sari. As for Lisa and Latika, they perform their ghusl (the bath), during the process of cooking itself, after most of the food has been prepared. Ghusl, one of the two major ritual purifications in the sharia,37 the other being the wudu (ablution), is ‘a general washing of every part of the body’ that is ‘a precondition for all forms of worship in Islam’; as ‘a hadith38 states, “Purity is half of faith"’ (Tayob 1995: 370-71). It is required in transactions where there is contact with ‘real (haqiqi)’ or ‘material impurities that defile objects or persons’, like blood, and ‘conceptual (hukmi) impurities’ or ‘states

specific subareas:

36 I use ‘not-pure’, as opposed to ‘impure’, because the former would include dirt, in some forms, as well as that which is not impure, and yet is not-pure, ‘normal’ in certain transactions, and not-normal in others, as we shall see below. Pure, not-pure, and impure are different degrees of ‘access to the sacred rather than the sacred itself’ (Dumont 1970 [1966]: 285, fn. 32h). Also see chapter 2, section 2.2. 37 The Islamic legal ‘tradition’. 38 ‘(T)he term is applied to specific reports of the prophet Muhammad’s words and deeds as well as those of many of the early Muslims; the word is used both in a collective and in a singular sense’ (Spreight 1995: 83).

or conditions in which humans find themselves’, like touching any part of a pig. In the first case, ‘purity is attained by simply removing the defiling object by washing, rubbing, drying, or exposure to the sun’ and in the latter ‘by special ritual acts after the defiling impurity, if any, has been removed’. ‘The idea of removing impurities implies that purity is the natural human state’; ‘purity is an original state broken by temporary periods of impurity’. So, the normal state for a Muslim is the pure state until one comes into contact with real or conceptual impurities. Then one needs to doghusl, and ‘like other acts of worship in Islam ... (it) must be preceded by an intention to purify oneself’ (ibid.). Lisa and Latika, rendered impure by contact with blood, state their intention to do ghusl before realising their intention.39 Following Bamondi into the storeroom, we find her taking a fistful of rice, using her right hand, and putting it back into the half-full jar. The right hand is the hand that one serves or eats food with, the left hand being associated with feces, as it is the hand that one washes oneself with. 40 On being asked to explicate her action, she says that she keeps some rice back into the container because "aamar thekey tomakey/lokkhikey ektu dilam" (I have given some [rice] from my share to you Lokkhi), rice being a form of Lokkhi. She further adds, "Bhadta shunno korbo na. Bhadta shunno korley, lokkhikey tadiye (I will not empty the container If I empty it completely, I will drive Lokkhi away). Lokkhi (Laksmi) is the benevolent goddess who grants wealth and and is indexed by rice.41 Bamondi clearly does not want to displease Lokkhi/rice contained in the rice container. On the other

completely. debo" prosperity,

39 Though food is always eaten only after taking a bath. This is true for Bengali Hindus as well. 40 See, for instance, Ramanujan (1992: 226), Khare (1976a: 109, 136), Dumont (1970 [1966]: 49). People very often even refuse to take money given with the left hand, money being perceived as an index of Lokkhi, the goddess of wealth. All the cooks I interviewed in Calcutta and Dhaka were right-handed, that is, their use of the right hand predominated over that of the left. 41 In the stri aachars, married women’s rites, that are a part of all life cycle rituals, Lokkhi (or Laksmi) is ‘represented by pot of rice’ (Fruzzetti 1982: 65). Furthermore, ‘(n)ewly married women are called Laksmibou— a model of Laksmi, the embodiment of the goddess’s qualities ... Laksmi bou or meye (wife or daughter) signifies several levels of meaning: among Laksmi’s qualities and

hand, when the aazan sounds, Lisa and Latika cover their heads,42 using their right hands too, the left hand having similar negative connotations.43 Food modifies its rhythm: it stops, waits, rests, gathers the aazan/call to prayer to itself, and then resumes work. 44

4.4 Of Everyday Utensils, Refrigerators, Leftover/Frozen Foods, and Fluid Collaborations Bamondi’s acceptance of the refrigerated rice and potato curry left over from the day before is not in keeping with Brahmanical Hindu associations of ritual purity. To begin with, it is left over, that is, residues of some thing; ‘it is also the remains of some one’ (Malamoud 1996 [1989]: 8), that is, it implies contact with a previous partaker of the food. Leftover food, regulated by religious in the Smrti and Sruti texts of Brahmanical Hinduism, for is polluting ‘simply because it is left over’ (ibid.). There are different types of leftovers, however, which are transformed into polluting foods, depending on the position of the recipient in the actant/patient assemblage of gods, humans, bhutas,45 the Fathers (ancestors of the sacrificer),46 and food. For instance, sacrificial remains from the yajna (sacrifice) to the gods, offerings made to the gods, are good food to be consumed by human actants/patients

injunctions example,

values are the deification of thrift, order, and the use of nature’s gifts (Das 1962: 8-9). Laksmi is also symbolic of wealth, the wealth that a married woman brings to her husband’s house and the wealth of giving birth to a child (santan).’ (ibid.: 123-24; emphasis on ‘order’ mine). Also see Fruzzetti and Östör (1984, especially p. 174 and passim); Inden and Nicholas (1977). 42 According to the Qur’an, the head should be covered at all times so that no hair shows. 43 The dietary guidelines delineated in the Hadiths state that food and drink

must be taken with the right hand (Campo 1995: 376). 44 Some consultants also pointed out that one is not supposed to eat when the aazan rends the air. 45 Bhutas are ‘those indeterminate beings, animals, or low-level spirits who

haunt houses and whom one may appease by leaving food for them in certain predetermined places (on thresholds, especially)’ (Malamoud 1996 [1989]: 14). 46 Truly dharmic food consists of the remains of two (or three) of the four yajnas to the gods, humans, bhutas, and Fathers. These four yajnas are part of

the five mahayajnas that broadly delineate the contours of the householder’s everyday ritual (Malamoud 1996 [1989]: 14).

Plates 1 and 2: The kachcha bazaar in Dhaka set up on the railway tracks

Plate 3: A fishmonger, selling fresh fish in a bazaar, seated in front of his bonti (curved blade)

Plate 4: A street food vendor selling puchkas (tamarind water balloons)

Plate 5: A street food vendor selling mudi (puffed rice)

Plate 6: A sitting room in a

Bengali middle middle-class house

in Dhaka

Plate 7: Haggling in bazaars as part of a normal everyday foodscape

Plate 8: A domestic help buying vegetables for her employer

Plate 9: The ‘classic’ presentation of a ‘traditional Bengali meal’ (read here Bengali Hindu meal, marked by the absence of beef) (©The Bengal Cookbook (1st edn)

Plate 10: A sketch, of a Bengali Hindu middle-class man returning from the bazaar with fish, that inaugurates the section on fish recipes in The Bengal Cookbook (1st edn) and seeks to capture the centrality of fish to perceived Bengali (here Hindu) identity (© The Bengal Cookbook (1st edn)

Plate 11: A Bengali Hindu cook using a bonti in a Bengali Hindu middle-class kitchen in Calcutta

Plate 12: A Bengali Muslim cook using a bonti in middle-class kitchen in Dhaka

a

Bengali Muslim

Plate 13: Part of the fare laid out for tea (Dhakai poneer and singaras) described in 5.2.1

Plate 14: Promod da’s canteen in Presidency College, Calcutta

Plate 15: An adda in Promod da’s canteen

Plate 16: Food served at a Dhaka dawat (invitation)

Plate 17: A dawat adda in a Bengali middle middle-class home in Dhaka, accompanied by songs and music

Plate 18: Hilsa fish preparations (© The Bengal Cookbook [1st edn])

Plate 19: Mocha, mochar ghonto, thor, and kanchkola (© The Bengal Cookbook [1st edn])

Plate 20: The section of the menu card listing the vegetarian dishes served at Aaheli (©The Peerless Inn, Kolkata)

Plate 21: The kulo (rice winnower) -shaped restaurant menu card with the Aaheli written in "alpona style" (©The Peerless Inn, Kolkata)

name

Plate 22: Fresh fish sold in a bazaar in Calcutta

Plate 23: Dried fish (shutki machch) sold in a bazaar in Dhaka

but impure or improper to be offered to the gods again. The yajna to humans is above all an oblation of food to a (Brahmin) guest and, ‘according to the Apastamba (2.8.2), the householder “should be an eater of his guests’ leftovers”.... In this way, “one insures the subsistence of his body with the leftovers of the gods and of his guests” (Mahabharata 3.260.6)’ (ibid.: 14-15). Here, we see a transformation of human table scraps or that which is a remainder for the Sens47 into edible food for Bamondi who is a Brahmin, the highest of the dvijas or twice-born castes. Food, cooked by Bamondi, offered to or consumed by the Sens, and then left over, here the reversal of the yajna to the humans: the food that, high caste, but poor or daridra, Bamondi takes away with her is not truly dharmic48 food appropriate to her dharmic status. Moreover, the food is left over in a double sense: it is left over from the day before, and is, therefore, bashi (stale). The distinguishing mark of bashi is rat puiyechey (rat = night, pohalo = completed), that is, that which has completed the night. Bashi food, stored overnight, having lost its flavour, is food not true to Bamondi’s dharma. Why does Bamondi accept this leftover food then? She states extenuating circumstances at home due to her husband’s alcoholism. Finally, the food that is given away by the mistress seems to be ‘entangled’49 in various domains. At the very least it is ambiguous: the mistress does not give the food away with the explicit intention that some good will accrue, since giving food to a Brahmin is a meritorious act, and Bamondi is after all a Brahmin, and the latter’s surly of the food certainly does not index her recognition of it as a ‘gift’. Furthermore, Bamondi takes with her leftover rice. For the "bheto bangali" (rice-eating Bengali), rice, apart from fish 50 too, is

mediates

acceptance

47 The Sens belonged to the Baidyas (lit. physicians), ‘occupy(ing) the highest position among the ceremonially clean Sudra jatis’ (Sanyal 1981: 19). However, there is a great deal of debate amongst the Baidyas and the Kayasthas (originally scribes but who came to be established as a landholding caste) about who is of superior rank. 48 Dharma is defined as the system of prescriptions of the Veda taken as a whole (Malamoud 1996 [1989]: 30). 49 Thomas (1991). Cf. Marriott’s (1968; 1976) transactional theory of of biomoral substances. Also see chapter 2, fn. 79. 50 See chapter 3.

entanglement

a fundamental component of a normal meal, and is essentialised as food in general.51 “Bhaat na kheley amongol hoi.’’ (If you don’t eat rice, it is inauspicious),52 “Bhaat compromise korbo na.’’ (I will not compromise on rice)— this is what one often hears in Bengal. For Bengalis, cooked rice is the principal source of ‘bodily well-being and bodily substance’ (Greenough 1982: 36). The Krsi-Parasara states that ‘rice is vitality [prana], rice is vigour [balam] too, and rice (indeed) is the means of fulfillment of all the ends of life [ sarva-artha-sadhanam]’ (ibid.).53 The leftover rice also reveals the emergence of the refrigerator as a significant actant or ‘passage point’ (Callon 1986: 204) in the transactions of the everyday kitchen. The refrigerator, with its limiting and enabling possibilities, necessitates a modification in the of engagement between food, and other thing-, person-, and place-actants. To begin with, by containing the ingredients of cooking, it becomes an extension of the separated ritually higher cooking area, conventionally the domain of the ritually pure Brahmin cook. But the refrigerator, by being accessible to others, apart from the Brahmin cook, challenges the latter’s dominance. It also collapses the divide between aamish (non-vegetarian) and niraamish (vegetarian). This constitutes yet another major of conventional boundaries. 54 It is to be noted that the superiority that vegetarian food commands over non-vegetarian food in Hindu food hierarchies is a post-Vedic Brahmanical phenomenon.55 And while Hinduism in Bengal is distinctive in its intensity

practices

transgression

51 See Bestor (1999) and Ohnuki-Tierney (1993) for a similar equation in Japan. 52 Auspicious/inauspicious and pure/impure are not to be conflated. See Khare (1976a, 1976b) and Carman and Marglin (1985). I deal with Bengali perceptions of auspiciousness and inauspiciousness in chapter 5. 53 See Fruzzetti (1982), Inden and Nicholas (1977), and Fruzzetti and Östör (1984) for agency of rice and bhaat (cooked rice) during rituals of heightened sacrality such as marriage and birth rituals. 54 This is true not only of Bengal as Seneviratne (1992: 195) points out: ‘(V)egetarianism and meat eating are important South Asian thematic opposites.’ 55 See Srinivas (1995 [1966]: 23-24), Dumont (1970 [1966], especially pp. 146-51). For vegetarianism as ‘a dual weapon of social dominance as much as of spiritual self-discipline’ see Khare (1984).

of the Caitanya and Vaishnavite56 and Tantrik Shakta57 streams which developed principally after the coming of Muslims,58 the post-Vedic Brahmanical network is relevant to Bengali in matters of caste and pollution (and also untouchability) (Ray 2002 [1988]: 58-59). Blood 59 pollutes food that comes into contact with it. The refrigerator that contains the bloody fish, the meat, together with the boiled rice, dal, and potato curry in the same place violates the relations between such conventional divisions. A further transgression that the refrigerator is guilty of is that it holds together in the same place kachcha, crudely cooked or boiled, food, which is most vulnerable to pollution in the raw–pakka–kachcha order,60 and bashi (leftover and stale) cooked food, which is as a source of dirt and pollution. On the other hand, it is interesting to note that the uncooked rice that Bamundi brings from the storeroom and cleans in the kulo (bamboo winnower) is full of

transactions

perceived

56 ‘Chaitanya’s Vaishnavism stressed the gentle and benevolent aspects of the Krishna legend— his loving kindness to his devotees in the idyllic Vrindavana —through the theological interpretation of which the Gaudiya Vaishnavite teachers propagated the message of bhakti or devotion’ (Banerjee 2002: 211). It is to be noted that in the post-Chaitanya period in Bengal, during the 17th and 18th centuries, various popular Vaishnavite sects emerged that were founded on a synthesis of Bhakti and Sufi ideas, and therefore, drew their membership from the depressed castes among the Bengali Hindu and Muslim poor (ibid.: 55). See also Chatterjee (1993: 182-87 especially) 57 ‘(T)he Shakta cult, born ... from the “illegitimate” union of aboriginal and Brahmanical theology’ was ‘based on the concept of the archetypal female power, manifest in Shakti, as a consort of the male deity who can be roused only by her touch’ (Banerjee 2002: 53; 41). ‘In Tantrik practices of Shakta religion, any sacrifice, whether of animals or human beings, had to be through bloodletting ... blood was central to the concept of sacrifice’ (ibid.: 209-11). Also see Chatterji (1995), Ray (2002 [1988]), Chatterjee (1993). 58 Writing during the period of militant nationalism in Bengal in the early 20th century, Panchkari Bandyopadhyay, a contemporary Bengali scholar wrote: ‘In order to properly understand the Bengalis of Bengal, it is necessary to understand this country’s Vaishnav religion, as well as Tantrik religion. For, Bengalis are half-Vaishnavite and half-Tantrik’ (as quoted in Banerjee 2002: 211). 59 Together with other bodily fluids like saliva, sperm, urine, and body parts such as nail filings, body hair, dead skin, all parts of a living body that have become separated from it (Malamoud 1996 [1989]: 7). 60 For more on this see Malamoud (1996 [1989] and) Dumont (1970 [1966]).

customs

khud (small, broken, insect-ridden rice grains, tiny black stones), and yet is not polluted, for the khud is ritually ‘neutral’ dirt.61 The refrigerator in the Dhaka kitchen is equally guilty of attacking boundaries between tahir (pure) and rijs, najis (impure), halal (lawful) and haram62 (unlawful) forms delineated in the Qur’an and Hadiths that regulate what can be eaten, how, and from whom it can be received. Meats that are halal63 include those of domestic cattle, sheep, goats, and camels; 64 fishing is also permitted. 65 Forbidden elements include spurting blood, pork, and food that has not been consecrated by God himself.66 The refrigerator, in holding the bloody goat’s meat, and other foods, together in the same place, then violates such forms of purity and impurity, lawfulness and unlawfulness. The refrigerator then engages with Hindu and Muslim

conventions of ritual purity, sacredness, auspiciousness, lawfulness, and

sacrifice. In the process of this engagement it seeks to modify them; it is not entirely faithful. That is, the refrigerator emerges 61 ‘Impurity and cleanliness may significantly diverge in the storage area. Often, the excreta of various burrowing animals and of monkeys and flies may be dirty but ritually either neutral or inconsequential. Thus whatever is not impure but lower (and dirty) is not a source of concern in the storage area’ (Khare 1976a: 42, n. 5). 62 ‘The root h-r-m is among the most important Arabic roots in the vocabulary of Islamic practice. The root meaning is something like “forbidden” or “taboo” and evokes constraint, and often heightened sanctity as well. In legal thought an act deemed haram is one forbidden’ (Reinhart 1995: 101). 63 The animal has to be ritually slaughtered with a sharp knife making the fatal incision across the throat in one stroke (jhatka) to minimise the pain incurred, and taking the name of Allah while doing so. ‘And for every nation have We appointed a ritual, that they may mention the name of Allah over the beast of cattle that He hath given them for food (fn. In order that they may realise the awfulness of taking life, and the solemn nature of the trust which Allah has imposed on them in the permission to eat animal food) ...’ (Qur’an, Surah XXII Al-Hajj ‘The Pilgrimage’, verse 34, trans. by Pickthall 1976). 64 Qur’an verse 6.143-145, trans. By Pickthall 1976. 65 ‘To hunt and to eat the fish of the sea is made lawful to you ...’ (Qur’an, Surah V Al Ma’idah ‘The Table Spread’, verse 96, trans. by Pickthall 1976). 66 ‘O ye who believe! Eat of the good things wherewith We have provided you, and render thanks to Allah if it is (indeed) He Whom ye worship. He hath forbidden you only carrion, and blood, and swineflesh, and that which had been immolated to (the name of) any other than Allah’ (Qur’an, Surah II,Al-Baqarah ‘The Cow’, verse 172-173 trans. by Pickthall 1976).

as a mediator that translates conventional forms of relations. However, the boundaries that the refrigerator attempts to modify are sought to be renewed by the everyday cooking vessels or utensils with their different shapes and sizes— a dekchi to boil rice, separate koras for the fish, meat, eggplants, and peppers, a handi for the dal. They are reinforced by other implements like the vegetable bonti, the aansh-bonti, and the shil, all of which have their own designated normal resting places, and also supported by the kitchen rag (nekdta) used to wipe the refrigerator clean after Bamondi removes the bloody fish and Latika removes the bloody meat. These normal everyday things then emerge as actants that seek to restore the relational classificatory order that dirt, ‘matter out of place’ (Douglas 1984 [1966]: 41), destroys. Thus, what emerges in the transactions between the refrigerator, the conventional forms, and the utensils-cum-implements is that purity and dirt are engaged in collaborative work here. Dirt, in the form of khud, also makes its way out of the kitchen in the house into the ration shop, and thus defines the outside of the house that can be rubbished (Chakrabarty 1991). The peculiarity of the startling contrast between the spotless interiors of Bengali households and the heaps of household garbage67 consisting of food waste, fish and meat bones, and vegetable peels, dumped on the street outside them, has been described before.68 As Kaviraj (1997: 98), commenting on the history of the emergent concept of the public, succinctly points out: ‘When the garbage is dumped, it is not placed at a point where it cannot casually affect the realm of the household and its hygienic wellbeing. It is thrown over a boundary. The street was the outside, the space for which one did not have responsibility, or which was not one’s own, and it therefore lacked any association with obligation, because it did not symbolise any significant principle, did not express any values.’ This continues to hold for contemporary Calcutta where the ‘street as

conceptual

67 For an interesting analysis of household garbage as an index of the passage from enclosure to disclosure, from inclusion to exclusion, and the access to households that such waste provides to sorcerers, see Weiss’s (1996: 111-15) work on the Haya. 68 Kaviraj (1997) and Chakrabarty (1991). See also Chaudhuri’s (1951) The Autobiography of an Unknown Indian.

potential

not one’s own’ or ‘bairey’ coexists uneasily with the idea of a ‘civic69 space with norms and rules of use of its own’ (ibid.). Thus, on days when the moilawala (“garbage man”), an integral part of the everyday foodscape of most middle-class neighbourhoods, fails to turn up, the domestic help walks to the nearest garbage dump and empties the bin onto it. The khud, then, on its way to the ration shop, constitutes and reconstitutes the division between gharey (lit. inside the house)/bairey (the outside) which is ‘closely linked to apan/par ... (mine/not-mine or self/not-self)’ (Kaviraj 1997: 93). 70 As the kitchen transforms the rice (commodity) into bhaat (cooked rice/food) and generates khud (dirt) that ends up in the ration shop, it creates, sustains, and becomes entangled in the afterlife of the commodity that resonates with wider networks. In this afterlife of the commodity, Bamondi emerges as a patient who collects the khud from the rice on the kulo, and then as an actant takes it to the ration shop. Bamondi’s agency is a partial effect of the overall transformation of food. A few more words about Bamondi then. When questioned, she claimed to be a Brahmin.71 When the mistress of the Sen household, who worked as a schoolteacher, was questioned about Bamondi’s credentials, she said, with a knowing smile and nod, “She must have told you she’s a Brahmin; she actually isn’t.” She states her reasons for employing her,72 despite her “dubious caste membership claims”: personal hygiene and cleanliness, honesty (she does not steal), punctuality, tidiness, efficiency at work, her “good hand” (that is, her capacity to cook well).73 She also adds that Bamondi is "o deshiyo" ([from] that desh, that is, East Bengal, which is also the desh of the Sens), apart from her own “lack of time” due to her dual career. The mistress of the 69 One often hears remarks on the lack of “civic sense” in people, for example, in a heated argument on a crowded bus. 70 This argument has been developed further in chapter 6. 71 I found no Muslim cooks working in Hindu households, and no Hindu cooks in Muslim households. Though in an interview a 50-year-old Hindu Brahmin woman in Calcutta confided: “Quite a few Bangladeshi Muslims change their names ... they take on Hindu names like Latika and Lisa and then get jobs as domestic helps.” Interestingly, the two Muslim live-in domestic helps who cooked for my adoptive family in Dhaka were called Lisa and Latika. 72 Banerjee’s (1996) is a captivating study of the advice that was given to middle-class women on hiring domestic helps at the turn of the 20th century in various domestic manuals. 73 This has been described in detail in chapter 3.

house pretends that she accepts her credentials. She needs her as such cooks from a higher caste, Brahmins, are rare these days. Bamondi is aware of this, and uses it to gain employment,74 a of ‘cosmological authentication’ (Weiner 1992)75 as translation. Here ambivalence is deliberately entertained; sacredness is Yet ambivalence is still cast in caste divisions of Brahmanical Hinduism. Thus, here ‘matter out of place’ that ‘offends against order’ (Douglas 1984 [1966]) collaborates with conventional order; it is not excluded or eliminated. Brahmins are the preferred cooks because, positioned at the apex of the caste hierarchy and most vulnerable to pollution, they are particularly careful about commensal taboos: in their choice of who they eat with, from whom they accept cooked food, and what they eat.76 Food cooked by a Brahmin is perceived as not only as not polluted but also pure. 77 In fact, all the Bengali Hindu cooks I interviewed proclaimed vehemently that they never cook beef. Beef, for a Hindu, especially a Brahmin, is taboo,78 given that the cow is perceived as sacred. 79

process tenuous.

74 Often the cooks have names like Bamondi which index membership of a certain caste category (Brahmin). In the case of a male cook, the poitey (sacred thread) would be a visible marker of being a Brahmin; only Brahmin men wear the sacred thread. 75 Weiner (1992: 4) uses the term ‘to amplify how material resources and social practices link individuals and groups with an authority that transcends present social and political action. Because this authority is lodged in past actions or representations and in sacred or religious domains, to those who draw on it it is a powerful legitimating force.’ 76 Cf. Dumont (1970 [1966]), Srinivas (1995 [1966]), Khare (1976a, 1976b), Marriott (1976), Daniel (1984), Fuller (1992). 77 ‘A brahmin (will) not consent to working in a material whose contact might be polluting for him; if it is pure for him, it is a fortiori edible for others’ (Malamoud 1996 [1989]: 25). 78 For more on this see Dumont (1970 [1966]: 146-51). 79 Beef-eating came to be gradually tabooed during the Vedic period (cf. Srinivas 1995 [1966]; Dumont 1970 [1966]). For a discussion of the cow as sacred cf. Yang (1980). See Freitag (1981: 624) for the significance of the Cow Protection movement in the late 1880s and early 1890s in the emergence of ‘the Hindu definition of community’. Beef has been mobilised at various points in time by Hindu ‘communal discourses’ to generate ‘communal riots’. Though see Chatterji (1995: 155), where she argues that the cow was ‘peripheral’ to bhadralok Hindu ‘communal discourse’.

But there is more to Bamondi’s employment as a cook that makes visible further translations. Now, according to ancient Brahmanical Hinduism, Brahmins are mediators of sacrifice.80 Brahmanic translates the mythic event of the Purusa’s81 primal sacrifice.82 Vedic sacrifice as performance by human and non-human actants (including divinities) appears above all as work, effort, and toil that produces sweat, that indexes the sacrificial labour and fervour of the sacrificer, and is offered as an oblation to Agni, the fire god. 83 And the lynchpin of this work is cooking, the cooking of edible substances, for the gods elicit cooked substances.84 Thus, cooking

sacrifice

80 As ‘[o]fficiants at ceremonial rites, as well as the exclusive transmitters of the Vedas, brahmins are, therefore, by definition, men of sacrifice’ (Malamoud 1996 [1989]: 27-28). But he points out how this mediatory network was itself constituted in the process of translation. He (ibid.: 23) quotes from the Satapatha Brahmana, 11.5.7.1: ‘Here now is the praise of the personal recitation of the Veda. The personal recitation and learning are sources of pleasure for the Brahmin ... To him belong mastery of the senses, the power to find joy in a single object, the development of intelligence, glory and cooking the world. As this intelligence grows, four duties come to incumb upon the Brahmin: a brahmanic origin, behaviour consonant with his status, glory, and cooking the world. And as it cooks, the world protects the brahmin through the fulfillment of its four duties towards him: respect, generosity, non-oppression, and immunity’ (emphases mine). He continues: ‘In the ancient brahmanic tradition, then, a Brahmin, when he accepts or refuses food cooked by another, does this not so much as a means to showing off his rank in the hierarchy, but rather as a way of demonstrating the limits within which he will agree to exercise his dharma as officiating priest, as a substitute for the gods, or as a representative of the divinized ancestors. But in this perspective, the cook is not necessarily a brahmin, the brahmin is fundamentally a cooker, and here we see the extent to which Hinduism, in the innovations it made, narrowed and hardened its Vedic base. This it did by reinterpreting the formula “cooking the world” into “doing the cooking for other people” (emphasis mine; original emphasis removed). This theme of cooking, of actual and metaphorical cooking, displays itself in all its fullness and coherence in the brahmanical doctrine of sacrifice ... this theme of sacrifice..being (the) structuring principle (of all brahmanic thought)’ (27-29). 81 The primal being. 82 Purusa, ‘by means of the creative oblation which he made from himself, sets in place both the model of, and the necessary conditions for, the of the sacrifices offered by humans’ (Malamoud 1996 [1989]: 31). 83 ‘The paths traced on the sacrificial ground by the comings and goings of the (sacrificial) officiants are sprinkled with their sweat, and this sweat is an offering, to Agni, which one pours out as one would an oblation’ (Malamoud 1996 [1989]: 33, emphases mine).

accomplishment

and sacrifice are attached. These attachments circulate as a rite performed during the marriage ceremony in which the husband and wife offer oblations into the newly established domestic fire.85 This performance resonates with the everyday circulation of these attachments in the domestic ritual in which a sacrifice of normal cooked food is made to the domestic fire. Bamondi, sweat pouring down her brow, consigns a couple of bhaat (cooked rice) grains to the flames86 and officiates for her employers (jajmans) in their everyday cooking as sacrifice as a mode of being-with-al -kinds-of-others. Of course, the extent to which Bamondi and her mistress, and other such Bengali Hindu middle-class households, are aware of these attachments of Vedic sacrifice is another matter. Most end up saying "ota agni debotar jonno" (that is for [intended for] the fire god Agni), "ota agnikey ditey hoi" (that has to be given to Agni), or "ota agnirjonno kortey hoi" (that has to be done for Agni). But as to why this should be intended or done for Agni (the fire god), why Agni requires it, is a question that seldom elicits the Vedic associations of sacrifice for most. Food as sacrifice acquires the form of a thing.87 And yet they enact this ‘archetypal’ ritual as themselves (Humphrey and Laidlaw 1994: 267), perceiving themselves as doing so, and they do so everyday “like everyday”. Thus, in the performance of normal food as sacrifice “like everyday”, food, and the various actants it gathers to itself— the kitchen, utensils, implements, refrigerator, cook, and mistress— all, emerge as ‘ordinarily sacred’ enmeshed in myriad mixings of mixtures, collaborative networks of translations. The description reveals that in the event of the emergence of everyday food as sacrifice as a thing-actant, Bamondi and the Sens as sacrificators simultaneously emerge as person-actants. 84 ‘That which is cooked belongs to the gods’ (Malamoud 1996 [1989]: 32-35). 85 Once the new domestic fire of the husband and wife has been established

(agni-sthapana), the husband offers, with his right hand, a series of oblations into the fire, including clarified butter or ghee and other special foods, while his wife touches his right shoulder (Inden and Nicholas 1977: 45) 86 While the rite of sacrificing food as part of the Bengali Hindu marriage ceremony is still performed, not all the rannar lok I interviewed performed the everyday domestic sacrifice. 87 Cf. Humphrey and Laidlaw (1994: 158, 267) who point out that a ritual is given an object-like existence by the fact that it is ‘thought of as both

ontologically and historically prior to the (actant’s) own performance of (it) ... (is) ontologically constituted beyond individual intentions’.

Conclusion Located in Bengali Hindu and Muslim middle-class homes, the aroma of the normal everyday kitchen as ‘sacred’ provides an immediate contrast to the dominant understandings of a kitchen as a ‘mundane and ordinary site’ of food preparation, tucked away in the ‘domestic’ corner of the house. What I have described here contrasts with conventional anthropological understandings of sacred (in the Durkheimean sense of things set apart and forbidden) and mundane. It shows how a Bengali middle-class kitchen is ordinarily sacred. The sacred character of the kitchen emanates from being-with-all-kinds-of-others. 88 That is, sacredness for middle-class Bengali Hindus and Muslims is not first conceptualised (Heidegger would say it is not ‘present-at-hand’) before becoming used (‘ready-to-hand'). Rather, their perceptions of sacred are in an important sense practical, assembled, and reassembled in the dynamic flow of everyday transactions. They are made, unmade, and remade in the material practices of everyday cooking, bound up with their bodily engagement with various spatio-temporally distributed person-, place-, and thing-actants. The descriptive rendering here reveals the collaboration invention (making the kitchen accessible to all through the refrigerator; storing together in the same place, the refrigerator, vegetarian/non-vegetarian, kachcha/leftover, halal/haram foods; eating leftover food; selling of khud in the ration shop) and (Hindu and Islamic perceptions of ritual purity, sacredness, auspiciousness, lawfulness, and sacrifice), each evoking the other. That is, there is constant circulation, continuous moving back and forth, modifying, and reasserting of sacredness in the everyday kitchen. What has been described here utilises embodiment (see below) as a process in which the invention (transgression) of conventional forms does not render them obsolete but with them. This process goes on and on everyday “like everyday”, and the collaboration with conventional configurations of pure and dirty, sacred and mundane resonates with wider hybrid-collectifs of caste and class divisions. Let us examine the various actants engaged in this ceaseless negotiation between invention and convention. The refrigerator,

between

convention

collaborates

88 See chapter 3, section 3.2.

utensils, implements, plastic bags, empty jam bottle containing the khud (insect-ridden rice grains and black stones), thermal and the rice, spices, and other foods as thing-actants emerge as specific forms of transactionally meaningful bodies. The house, kitchen, and ration shop as place-actants, and the cooks and the mistresses as person-actants also emerge as particular forms of transactionally meaningful bodies. What becomes visible in the preceding sections is that it is the everyday practical engagement of these emergent transactional forms with each other that the constant passage between invention and convention. This engagement of these various bodies reveals a nexus of flows, layers, and containments. To begin with, the making and storage of the foods by the cooks take place in the kitchen and various other inter-related rooms in the house. The foods are stored in the plastic bags and bowls in the refrigerator, in the containers in the storeroom, and in the thermal containers in the dining room. The foods are cooked in the various utensils that are stored in their normal designated spots in the kitchen. The process of making everyday food generates constant movement to and fro between these multiple containers: the sweaty cooks moving into and out of the house and various rooms; the food moving into and out of the refrigerator, various utensils, rooms, and the house; the utensils and implements moving into and out of the various rooms and the refrigerator. Here embodiment (Merleau-Ponty [1962]; Gell [1998]), in the sense of bodies moving into (contained in) the house and various rooms, the food contained in the utensils and makes visible a series of containments and constant flows of distributed actants between multiple containers or ‘condensed networks’. It is in this ceaseless passage in and out that the agency of food lies. Furthermore, the multiple containments elicit each other: for example, the kitchen evinces the kinds of bodies it will gather— cooks and utensils; the refrigerator evokes the kinds of bodies it will hold— foods and utensils; the food brings forth the kinds of bodies it will assemble— utensils and cooks. Thus, in the everyday process of making food, the relations that obtain between these multiple bodies, engaged in the endless traffic between containers, are relations of elicitation. As the description reveals, these are fraught translations and ambivalent transformations of attached intentions and collaborative acts of faithlessness. Hence,

containers,

generates

refrigerator,

relations

they are in a constant state of renewal evoking continuous of persons, places, and things into and out of containers wherein emanates the agency of food. Food in its everyday normal form then compels a ceaseless gathering and containment of multiple and spatio-temporally distributed person-, place-, and thing-actants in a specific mode of relationality that configures as sacred. In assembling the sacred through the ceaseless nexus of flows into and out of concentric containments, food as sacrifice as a thing-actant/patient assembles Bamondi and the Sens as the performers of such sacrifice. The mistress intends that the food should be cooked in a certain manner that is normal for her and compels the cook to cook in that way. The cook intends that her mistress should to employ her that necessitates her cooking food everyday in a form that is perceived as normal by her mistress. And their are attached to the wider collaborative networks of of desh, caste, class, conventions of ritual purity, sacredness, auspiciousness, lawfulness, and sacrifice. Normal food as sacrifice here then emerges as a mode of translating collaborative networks of intentions into effective action, thereby generating Bamondi and the Sens as effective sacrificators, that is, person-actants/patients. Let us stay a while longer with the properties of this performance of the agency of normal food.

movement

continue intentions associations

5

Of Seducing and Respectable, Hospitable and Stingy Foods: Subjectivities of Normal Food Here I depict further the manner in which normal food, in eliciting specific modes of relations— everyday and hospitality— comes to have subjectivity. In the process I describe the ways in which place- and person-actants come to have subjectivities too. It is the very focus on the agency of food that leads me to examine the subjectivities of food, places, and persons.

5.1 Of Everyday Seducing and Calculating Foods: Middle-Class Respectability in Calcutta and Dhaka It’s 12.45 in the afternoon. Latika and Lisa, 1 having mutually expressed their wish that afternoon to eat lonkar bhorta (mashed chillies) like they do in their desh, proceed to prepare their lunch. Latika draws out the bottle containing the dried red whole chillies, tucked away in a trunk in their room behind the kitchen. Re-entering the kitchen, she pulls out the blackened chatu (frying pan) from its normal spot on the racks holding the utensils. She then proceeds to roast the chillies on the chatu, now seated on the stove. As they gradually turn their colour from red to almost black, turning crispier by the moment and releasing their sharp smell into the kitchen, Latika begins to cough. Lisa, sitting on the floor of the verandah leading into the kitchen and cleaning the rice on the kulo (bamboo winnower), wipes the tears coursing down her cheeks with her dupatta,2 while

1 Both Lisa and Latika, the two live-in domestic helps who also cooked for the Bengali Muslim family living in a central Dhaka apartment, have been discussed in chapters 3 and 4. 2 As explained earlier in chapter 4, fn. 29, a dupatta is a length of material worn across the chest and also as a head covering by women.

Transactions in Taste simultaneously trying to contain her coughing. As the mustard oil joins the crispy chillies on the chatu, and they together release an even more caustic concoction of smells, the coughing increases, and the eyes step up their flow. Lisa and Latika exchange knowing watery glances and smile, bliss written all over their faces, despite the paroxysm of coughing and tear-stained cheeks. Once the competition between the crackling chillies in their chatu and the bubbling rice in its dekchi is over, the cooking done, Lisa and Latika sit down to eat, and lose themselves in the ‘feast’ awaiting them. The persistent doorbell suddenly penetrates their haze of oblivion. A disgruntled Lisa gets up, leaving the chipped plate on the floor with its now dismantled mound of rice, mashed with the fiery roasted chillies proudly displaying their almost blackened seeds, glistening with pungent mustard oil. In walks the mistress, Z, in a flurry of sari folds, while Lisa struggles to contain her horrified expression at her unexpected arrival. She makes her way to the kitchen as swiftly as her legs can carry her to fetch her mistress a glass of iced water. She whispers fiercely to Latika, who scrambles to her feet, and hastily covers, and tucks away both the plates with their almost pulpy mixture of rice grains and nearly blackened seeds that gleamed in merry devilment. Lisa washes her hands under a running tap, scraping off, with her left hand, the sticky mash that clings lovingly to the fingers of her right hand. She then pours iced water into a glass, and hurries out of the kitchen. In the meanwhile, the sharp smell of the fiery roasted chillies, its distinctive presence tuned to greater clarity by the odorous mustard oil, wafts out of the bowls covering the plates with their pulpy mixture, out of the kitchen, and meanders down the corridor, diffusing its unmistakable presence everywhere. It makes its way into the mistress’s room, wraps itself around her, her body, her skin, her eyes, making them water. And as it gradually seeps into her and enters her inner recesses, it makes her cough, makes her face turn red, and makes her angry. Her voice, steely with anger, brings both domestic helps scurrying into her room, almost tripping over each other. "Aabar lonka khaiso?!! Tomader kotobar boliyasi na, aamar bashaye lonkar bhorta na khetey?!! Tomader desher khabar, deshey khabey!" (Again you are eating lonka [chillies]?!! Haven’t I told you several times, not to eat lonkar bhorta in my house?!! Eat the food

sensuous

Subjectivities of Normal Food

of [belonging to] your desh, in your desh!) And so the tirade in a tone and manner quite distinct from the demeanour she adopted when not engaging with the two domestic helps. It was a few days after this, on a warm summer afternoon, that Lisa and Latika made that fateful tamarind sherbat for me which culminated in Latika’s sudden dismissal the following day. 3 Here food emerges as an actant in its olfactory–tactile–gustatory–affective–discursive mode. The fiery lonkar bhorta exudes a sharp smell; the smell, as olfactory ‘skin’ (Gell 1998: 147),4 ‘partially detach (es)’ (Gell 1977: 26; emphasis mine) itself from the bhorta in the bowl-covered plate and attaches itself to the mistress, leaving its traces behind all the while in the kitchen, in the corridor, before entering the room containing the mistress. It then touches her, wraps her in its embrace, dissolves her bodily boundaries, and enters her. It makes: her eyes water, her face turn red, her cough, and her lose her temper. Here the attachment is brought forth by the reciprocal process of smelling (the mistress’s capacity to smell) and being smelt (food’s capacity to be smelt or to exude smell). Furthermore, this reciprocal engagement of the smell of the lonkar bhorta and the mistress as its recipient impinges upon her of normality. The smell, a trace of the normal associations of the desh of the domestic helps, attacks the mistress’s mode of with all kinds of others. It invades her perceptual boundaries of normality: corporeal–sensual–spatial–temporal–affective–moral, her personhood (including her house). The watering of her eyes, the reddening of her face, and the coughing that assails her do not index for her her perception of normal bodily, sensual, or affective gratification. Nor does the smell of the lonkar bhorta bring forth associations of desh for her as it does for the two domestic helps. It does not belong to her the way it belongs to them. It violates her sense of respectability (bhadrata): she perceives their consumption of “such chilli hot food”, the lonkar bhorta, as evoking “their" heightened sexual desire and potential promiscuity which is not in keeping with her definition of ‘bhadrata’. It attacks her sense of

continued,

contained

attachments engagement

3 See chapter 3, section 3.5. 4 After Anzieu (1989).

security: “they" (wish to) eat “only” chilli hot food (“era shudhu lonka khai"), which elicits “their" propensity for “blind and irrational rage” in the grip of which “they" are capable of doing “anything”— murder, rape, and what have you, citing newspaper reports of “such incidents”5 over the years. Ironically enough, the chillies that bring forth “blind and irrational rage” in "them" here make her angry, make her associate Lisa and Latika’s subjectivities with those that “belong” to the poor sections of “society” they are drawn from. Food then compels people to “behave” in certain ways: “irrationally”, “promiscuously”, so much so that their capacity for irrational anger, licentiousness, heightened libido is mediated through food. The crisp, sharp-smelling chillies with their fiery hot dispositions, normally associated with Lisa and Latika’s desh, and not-normally associated with Z’s desh, evoke Z’s subjectivity and that of her desh. Thus, the gathering of the lonkar bhorta evinces the forms of subjectivity that food-, place-, and person-actants come to have.6 The agency of food emerges not only in the bringing forth of the middle-class bhadralok networks of normal subjectivities vis-à-vis those of the poor, but also in the elicitation of such networks for the poor vis-à-vis the bhadralok. As a Brahmin rannar lok, cooking for a south Calcutta Bengali Hindu household, runs through the normal food that she prepares for them everyday, she pauses suddenly in her rapid listing: “Aar kokhono ... kokhono ham sandwich kori ... hamta to aar ranna kortey hoi na! Sheta shudhu paorutir moddhey diye ditey hoi. Aajkal to shobai shob khai!" (And sometimes ... [only] sometimes I do ham sandwiches ... [because] the ham does not need to be cooked! That only has to be put into [added to] the bread. These days everybody [in a long drawn out ironic tone] eats everything.) It is interesting to note how ‘ham’ becomes the subject of the sentences, as her description proceeds, instead of ‘I’, so that ham becomes the actant; the cook has passive 5 She cited one “incident” where a domestic help, in a “fit of rage”, had hacked her employer to death with a bonti! 6 As Latour (2005: 218) puts it, ‘(E)very assemblage that pays the price of its existence in the hard currency of recruiting and extending (associations/bundles of composite entities that endure in time and space) ... has subjectivity ... Subjectivity is not a property of human souls but of the gathering itself— provided it lasts of course.’

collaborative agency. On being asked later if she would eat a ham7 sandwich if offered, she flatly says “no”. She states that "everybody" eats "everything" these days— her ironic tone, coupled with her own flat refusal to eat ham as a Brahmin, though poor, implies that in these transactions she conflates “everybody” with “the bhadralok", so that her statement indexes her perception of the bhadralok as eating "everything" (‘anything goes’). Perceived respectability or bhadrata then may be associated with affluence but not necessarily “strict moral codes” mediated by “normal” food for the poor or not-middle (and upper) classes. Bhadrata is also perceived by poor domestic helps as an of petulance which paradoxically most bhadralok (certainly the mistresses) do not seem to possess. As Bamondi, the Brahmin cook working for the Sens (in the last chapter), pointed out, when her mistress was out of earshot: "Jar fridge aachey, badi aachey, gadi aachey ... sheta to dekhchi ... kintu bhadra maney jey ghenghen korey na ... eta aajkey thik korey ranna kora hoi ni, sheta thik korey aajkey porishkar kora hoi ni ... !" (One who has [owns] a fridge, a house, a car ... that I see ... but bhadra (respectable) means one who does not whine/nag ... this has not been cooked properly today, that has not been cleaned properly today ... !) Once again respectability evokes associations beyond affluence, including the possession of a refrigerator which indexes abundance of food, and all kinds of food, that need to be stored. It elicits the possession of a particular discursive quality or verbal ‘skin’, which “the bhadralok" do not necessarily possess. Food prepared, stored, and consumed by, and for, middle-class bhadralok then may be abundant, evoking affluence but not necessarily ‘respectability’. Food also elicits the normal subjectivities of East and West Bengalis, and Bengali Hindus and Muslims vis-à-vis each other. “The West Bengalis”, with their normal everyday predilection for sweet tasting foods ("Ora shob kichchutey chini dei" = ‘They’ add sugar to everything), are perceived by East Bengalis as “sweet-talking people”

absence

7 Ham and other pork products are not part of normal everyday food for most Bengali Hindus in either Calcutta or Dhaka because the pig is described as an animal that eats “everything” (dirt). Moreover, it is not as easily available in butcheries as chicken, beef, or goat’s meat. Bengali Muslims do not eat pork because it is haram and tabooed by the Qu’ran (see chapter 4, fn. 66). Also see Douglas (1984 [1966]).

who are “calculating”. Sweet food in these transactions makes West Bengalis utter sweet nothings, and both thus have negative However, in auspicious ceremonial transactions, such as East and West Bengali Hindu and Muslim marriages, sweet food, in the form of sweetmeats and sweet sherbat (drink), is auspicious or acquires agency that brings forth auspiciousness. “The East Bengalis”, with their propensity to eat chilli hot foods ("Ora shob kichchutey jhal dei" = ‘They’ add [jhal ] chillies to everything), are perceived by West Bengalis as “people with fiery (hot) tempers and heightened sexual libidos”. Hot food in these transactions makes East Bengalis “fight/quarrel” a lot (bhishon jhogra korey), and heightens their sexual prowess, with all its associations of licentiousness, and thus both the food, and the people of a place consuming it, possess undesirable subjectivities. in some Bengali Hindu and Muslim birth ritual transactions, for example, jhal, a powdered mixture of ‘dried garlic, black pepper, and ginger mixed with clarified butter and water’ (Fruzzetti and Östör 1984: 231), is consumed by a woman after she has given birth to make up for the loss of heat during childbirth. Again, East Bengalis from certain regions of Bangladesh, particularly Chittagong and Sylhet, consume shutki or dried fish which has such a distinctive odour that a house where it is cooked and eaten develops a thick olfactory ‘skin’ encompassing it, so much so that adjacent houses in the neighbourhood become aware of the process. The odorous of shutki become the odorous associations of people from a particular place whose desh is, or who belong to, Chittagong and Sylhet:8 the subjectivities of foods, places, and people are constitutive of each other. The making of such distributed or decentred subjectivities9 is indexed, yet again, by the further odorous work that food performs. East and West Bengali Hindus perceive “the Muslims” who add onion and garlic to everything (“shob kichutey peyaj-roshun dei, aar shey ki gondho!" = ‘They’ add onion–garlic to everything, and what

associations. everyday

particular However,

associations

8 Cf. Jackson (1998: 182–83).

9 Cf. Gell’s (1998) ‘distributed personhood’ following from Strathern’s (1988) ‘genealogical theory of mind’ and Wagner’s (1991) ‘fractal personhood’.

a smell!), and eat “only gosht" 10 or meat, particularly beef. 11 The odorous onion and garlic are perceived as non-vegetarian foods by Hindus,12 so much so that those who are strict vegetarians abstain from consuming them completely while others refrain from adding them when preparing meals on certain days of the week. 13 Onion, garlic, and beef, all characterised by their distinctive odours, are also perceived as heat exuding foods that excite people’s passions and heighten their sexual capacity. 14 “The Bengali Hindus”, on the other hand, are perceived by Bengali Muslims as thrifty to the point of almost being stingy (“Ora khub hishebi’ = ‘They’ are very calculating [that is miserly]) which evinces their propensity to make measured quantities of food everyday. 15 Even when they invite people to lunch or dinner, “‘the ’ will make you smell everythin"’ (“ora shob kichchu tomakey shungiye debe ”), that is, they will cook

10 ‘Gosht’ is used by Bengali Muslims to refer to meat, mostly to goat’s meat, and sometimes to beef (which is usually referred to as just ‘beef’). However, when Bengali Hindus use ‘gosht ’ they use it to indicate beef. See also chapter 6. 11 Fruzzetti and Östör (1984: 223), in their account on kinship and ritual in Bengal, recount a Hindu ‘folk story’ on the ‘connection’ between garlic, onion, and Muslims. In the story, Musalman and Hindu were two brothers in Vedic times whose father, an ancient sage, derived his powers from consuming the same whole cow, whom he brought back to life everyday after having had his fill. Musalman, the elder son, desirous of possessing those powers himself, consumed the animal’s hind leg, which disintegrated, and from it grew onion and garlic. On being banished, for his sin, from the beautiful place they lived in, ‘he found (ed) a community which would live on the consumption of beef (go meat).’ 12 This is also to be found amongst the Jains, for example, who perceive onion and garlic as actively fruitful and life-giving, so that eating them causes ‘death’— of potential life (Humphrey, personal comm.). 13 On Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays many Bengali Hindu households perform the weekly worship of various deities: Narayan, Lokkhi, and Shoni. See Fruzzetti (1982). 14 Hindu widows did not, and in most parts of India, still do not consume onion and garlic because of this. See also Lamb (2000), Sogani (2002), and Banerji (2001). Since garlic and onion are defined as non-vegetarian, they are cut with the bonti used to scale and dice fish and meat. 15 As a few East Bengali Muslim consultants pointed out, “One will hardly ever find more than one cook in a Hindu home!” The number of cooks or live-in domestic helps, that indexes the “prestige” of a household, here also indexes the “miserliness” of Bengali Hindus.

and serve food in measured portions so that there is perhaps just about enough food to feed the guests but not in such abundance that one can help oneself to much more of a particular food, if one so desires. Thus, food, here in the form of smell/odour (and heat), evinces a particular collectivity of people as a distinct “community”, and becomes a ‘measure’ or mode of perceiving them as such.

5.2 Food as Hospitable 5.2.1 Dhaka Hospitality The car draws up in front of the vendor’s cart loaded with bananas, apples, tangerines, and grapes. Z steps out of the car to assist her Bengali Hindu guest, J, from Calcutta in her endeavour to purchase some fruits for the ill friend that they were about to visit. Bracing herself for the ritual bargaining with the vendor that she knows awaits them, Z struggles to contain her stupefied expression when J meticulously selects a bunch of three bananas from the whole array of fruits and proceeds to pay for it. Fingering some luscious apples, Z tactfully points them out to J: "Ei gulo o kintu dekhtey tatka!" (But even these look very fresh!) J agrees, and draws out the money to pay the vendor for the three bananas. An hour later, seated in the spacious sitting room of the ill friend with some members of her household, Z continues to battle with her embarrassed astonishment, for the three bananas contrast strangely with the generous fare for tea that has been laid out for them: Dhakai poneer16 on toast, singaras17 stuffed with spicy vegetables (Plate 13), sizzling meat kebabs, mouth-watering halva,18 and fragrant tea. A few days later Z confided in me that she had found the episode “strange”: “Tumi karur bashaye geley, shudhu ek joner jonno to khabar niye jabey na! Puro familyir jonno niye jabey ... as a token of appreciation for the hospitality extended

16 A kind of cottage cheese found in Dhaka. 17 Triangular fried pastries. See also chapter 6, fn. 36 and fn. 37. 18 A sweet preparation of semolina, almonds, raisins, and cardamoms, often fried in ghee or clarified butter. However, carrots, eggs, or even poppy seeds (which I ate in a Bengali Muslim Dhaka household but which they insisted was a West Bengali concoction, given the West Bengali predilection for poppy seeds) can be used instead of semolina.

to you by the family as a whole! ... O parer lok19 ... !” (When you go to [visit] someone’s basha (house), you don’t take food only for one person! [You take food] for the whole family ... as a token of appreciation for the hospitality extended to you by the family as a whole! Persons from that side of the border [par]20 [that is, from the desh of West Bengal] .... !)

5.2.2 Calcutta Hospitality The slamming of car doors and a flurry of footsteps heralded the arrival of Shipra’s guests for lunch. After the general noisy exchange of greetings, complimenting of saris, exclaiming over how the children had grown, and half-hearted reprimanding over why they had got her sweets ("Tomra keno eigulo koro?!" Why do you [all] do such things [that is, bring sweets]?!), everyone settled down for a chat and cool refreshments. After a while, Shipra announced that lunch had been served, which triggered off a general scrapping of chairs, washing of hands, and a making of desultory conversation standing near the table. Then Shipra said: "Boshey poro! Laltu, tui okhaney boshey ja!" ([Everybody] Sit down! Laltu, you sit down there!) Somebody else chipped in, "Aami kintu eikhaney boshchi?!" (I am sitting here though?!) "Machchta ki darun hoyechey khetey! Aagerbarer cheyeo bhalo!" (The fish is so wonderful to eat [that is, has been cooked really well]! Even better than the last time!). Boltu, seated next to Laltu, nodded his head in agreement, and continued to break into his compact cake of rice, mashing it with his fingers, together with the curried fish (chewing with his fingers).21 Shipra: "Keno, tomader baditey ja kheyechi shedin! Bah bah ... !" (Why, the way I ate [that is, the food was wonderful] at your house the other day! Bah bah [expressing appreciation] ... !). Nandini asked her seven-year-old son: "Machcher kata tuley debo?" ([Should I] pick the bones of the fish [for you]?) Shipra, a bit distressed: "Chinese vegetableta to kyeu kheloi na!

19 See chapter 2, section 2.2.1 for the Bengali usage of lok as person. 20 ‘Par’ includes in its semantic field: margin; border; act of crossing or crossing over or passing beyond (Samsad Bengali–English Dictionary [revised and enlarged second edn] 1982: 562, emphasis mine). 21 See chapter 3, section 3.4

Bhalo hoi ni khetey?" (No one has eaten the Chinese vegetables!22 Are they not good to eat [that is, have they not been cooked well]?) Boltu continued to eat, licking the sticky mash of rice and fish off his fingers with relish, while Laltu and Nandini cried out in unison: "Na na! Bhalo hoyechey!" (No no! It is has turned out well!) Their verbal reassurance, however, contrasted with the small leftover vegetable heaps piled up in a corner of both their plates. "Tumi to kichu nilei na! Aaro nao ektu!" (You haven’t taken anything! Take some more!), Shipra cajoled her brother. While Shipra, keeping a watchful eye on the proceedings, continued to entreat her guests to eat "some more", Nandini interjected, halfway through the meal: "Shipra, tumio boshey poro!" (Shipra, even you [should] sit down!), to which she said, "Hein, hein! Boshchi!" (Yes, yes! [I am about to] sit!) As Shipra, her husband, and their guests stood at the door, participating in the usual extended leave-taking ritual, Nandini interrupted the general exchange: "Shobaikey aar ek bar money koriye di?! Porer robibar aamar baditey kintu shobar khaoa!" (Let me remind everyone once more? Next Sunday everyone eats at my house!) After their guests’ departure, Shipra dejectedly told her husband, "Ki bhabbey shobai?! Aajkay Chinese vegetableta kintu bhalo hoi ni." (What will everyone think?! Today the Chinese vegetables were not well done [not cooked well].) Her husband tried to console her by reassuring her that it had not been such a disaster for everyone had enjoyed the meal, and his business talk with Nandini’s husband had gone well, though his brother had remained reticent. Meanwhile, Laltu and Boltu, seated in their car speeding away from Shipra’s house, were discussing the ill-fated vegetables once again: "Normally, Shiprar ranna bhalo hoi. Aajkey kintu vegetablegulo khaoa jachchilo na!" (Normally, Shipra’s food is good. Today, however, the vegetables could not be eaten!) The rest agreed. "Hoyto rannar lok paltiyechey," (Perhaps she has changed her rannar lok [cook]) someone chipped in. Nandini denied it: "Na na! Rannar lok eki. Edeshiyo. Aar shobkichu to jemon hoi, temni hoyechilo. Vegetableguli Shipra korechey!" (No no! It is the same rannar lok. From this desh [that is, West Bengal]. The rest [of the food] was [cooked] the way it [normally] is, it was that way. The vegetables Shipra had done [cooked].) 22 A vegetable medley made in “Chinese style”, that is, to which vinegar, soy sauce, and often corn flour have been added.

In both these ethnographic vignettes of hospitality, desh as

normal foodscape compels various spatio-temporally dispersed actants

into a specific form of relations, hospitality, that enables them to relate to each other, and to it, in particular ways. That is, just like desh as foodscape, in its everyday form, has certain axes or measures of normality and not-normality, 23 it does so too in its hospitality mode. Thus, the woman from Calcutta, J, who buys three bananas for her ill friend in Dhaka who lives in a house that contains other family members as well, violates what Z perceives as normal reciprocity in East Bengali hospitality transactions. For the ill friend is part of a collectivity/household, and normal food consumption is a collective act: Z seeks to remind J of the normal collective character of such food-giving. Normal hospitality also compels networks of repetitive reciprocal acts such as the taking of sweets by the guests to Shipra’s house, and Nandini’s reciprocal invitation to a meal at her house the following Saturday. It requires the performance of particular ways of relating by the guests and the host, such as waiting for the host to announce the commencement of the meal, standing around the table making desultory conversation before being invited by the host to take a seat,24 and expressing appreciation for the host’s It includes remembering to repeatedly entreat the guests to take more helpings, keeping a watchful eye on the proceedings, and sitting down to eat only after the guests are well ensconced in making their way through the food. It also brings forth a certain manner of presenting, distributing, and eating the food: serving the rice in compact cakes on the plates, 25 persuading the guests to eat some more,26 chewing with the fingers and licking them, 27 the latter acts indexing the guests’ appreciation of the food prepared by the host. These measures/axes of coherence of normal hospitality once again serve to highlight the capacity to retain and project continuously the mode of associating between the various actants that defines normal food.

efforts.

23 See chapter 3. 24 See Le Wita (1994) for an analogous situation in France among the ‘bourgeoisie’. 25 As for a normal everyday meal. See chapter 3, section 3.4. 26 For a similar ritualised exchange between the host and the guest over the quantity of food eaten, see Abu-Lughod (1988: 116). 27 Like in a normal everyday meal.

Furthermore, hospitality transactions reveal ambivalent

transformations of networks of intentions. The intentions of the host (Shipra) to feed the guests as a normal West Bengali ‘good and gracious host’, to express gratitude for sympathy extended (as in the Dhaka example where the household lays out a generous East Bengali hospitable fare for its guest), and to seek to bring about a successful business deal (as in the Calcutta example) are cases in point. This can be presented diagrammatically as:

The ‘-A’ and ‘-P’ suffixes indicate agency and patiency, the long arrow indicates the relationship between the food as a thing-actant mediating such strategic action between the host and the guests/recipients as patients attached to the wider collaborative networks of desh and their conjoined subjectivities. The short arrow indicates patiency relations.28 The food that is served by the host and by the guests is a ‘part’ of the host’s personhood that detaches or separates so as to extend the latter’s personhood beyond his/her self (Munn 1986). It is an index of the host’s ‘distributed personhood’. Therefore, in consuming the food, the guests/recipients consume the personhood of the host (Strathern 1988). They consume the layered subjectivities of the host, desh, and food. This consumption of food generates future potential relations, 29 such as reciprocal hospitality or the promise of a successful business venture as in the Calcutta example. That is, in transactions of hospitable food, the associations elicited in its production are transformed and reincorporated ( Gell 1986), or extend beyond the immediate moment of consumption, and protended as future ongoing actualisable relations. On the one hand, this entails the intersubjective30 capacity to remember/retain, and to remind (the recipient of) past relations of transactions. Thus, Shipra’s lunch invitation recalls and reciprocates the hospitality extended at Laltu’s house a few days ago, and anticipates Nandini’s invitation the

consumed

potentially

28 This graphic illustration has been modified from Gell (1998). 29 Cf. Munn (1986).

30 As Munn (1986: 60) puts it, ‘intersubjective in the primary sense of forming or attempting to form a specific kind of relation between the minds ... of actors.’

following Sunday. On the other hand, the protended relations are potentially realisable. They may unexpectedly betray, go horribly wrong, or may not have the desired outcome. Thus, Z’s failure to elicit changes in J’s manner of practising reciprocity in normal East Bengali hospitable transactions mediated by the three bananas, and Shipra’s husband’s business talk that was only partially successful instantiate this. Failed hospitality is a dis-capacity to effectively replicate the assembling of food31 that has come to be perceived as normal, as in Shipra’s case where the Chinese vegetables fail to measure up to her normal West Bengali cooking performance. Now, normally, a guest leaves nothing of the meal on his/her plate. Thus, here, the leftover heaps of vegetables index a partial rejection by the guests of part of Shipra’s personhood, her performance as a ‘good cook’ and a ‘good hostess’, and therefore her capacity to gather variegated dispersed person-, place-, and thing-actants normally. The leftovers evoke her failure to extend her agency beyond her self, so that she is constituted in the perceptions of her guests in this instance as a normally good cook who has not lived up to her normal culinary standards. And Shipra anticipates being perceived as such by her guests when she confides in her husband: “What will everyone think?!” which elicits her dejection. This process can be presented diagrammatically as follows: Here, food left over by the guests, which stands as a patient vis-à-vis the guests, simultaneously exercises agency over the host, who is the patient in the nexus of transactions that assumes the form of failed hospitality. Food here mediates the agency of the guests in their partial rejection (and thereby constitution) of part of the host’s personhood. Thus, normality and not-normality are elicited as engaged in fraught negotiations in hospitality transactions. And it is in the very process of this hazardous collaborative work that the layered subjectivities of things, places, and persons emerge.

31 See chapter 3.

Conclusion Food, in its everyday and hospitality modes, here emerges as a thing-actant that elicits the ongoing conduct of normal spatial, temporal, corporeal, sensual, affective, moral, discursive relations between other things, persons, and places. Such relations are in a ceaseless dynamic negotiation with their not-normal forms, given the ambivalent transformations through surprise acts of betrayal and memory. It is in the very course of this collaborative hazardous work of evoking normal everyday and hospitality relations that food acquires subjectivity, and elicits the subjectivities of other thing-, person-, and place-actants. Therefore, they are all distributed in each other’s becoming. These distributed subjectivities acquire specific forms in the wider networks of the critical events of this region that evoke their acute preoccupation with social differentiation through food and commensality. But have we covered all the highlights of food’s performance? Or is there something more to be gleaned from tasting it further? Let us focus on its notes a while longer.

andMat(aarGan6ChaAdda'iSdale'o/nd)lckana)rieg-l)s:,'

Consuming Normal Food 'Identies' Familiar bus, the familiar route) rcbusC(The oh... euntea, familiar bread–biscuit) r(The uChena ti–bscot familiar familiar tea glass) gc(The Chena heal ynsehar 1 ('Eating' the familiar cigarette)

Chena cikhaoa garette

the jhpChena aoetoahey (Walking

familiar

path)

familiar picture, corpse of dreams) (The ...lscChena ahospnbheir,

— Suman Chatterji (‘Chena Dukhkho, Chena Shukh’ — The Familiar Sadness, The Familiar Happiness)2

The plaintive notes of this ode to ‘Bengali familiarity’ draws our attention to a trait hitherto unexamined. Any ethnography of food in Bengal is incomplete without a description of the clusters 3 of relations that tea, 4 as an element of the normal foodscape, and its frequent companion, adda (‘idle’ or ‘care-less’ talk) create and encapsulate. The manner in which predominantly middle-class

1 The verb ‘khaoa’ (to eat) is used to refer to eating solid foods, drinking fluids or liquid foods, and consuming comestibles like cigarettes and medicinal pills (!) This is peculiar to Bengali, and often draws flak from “non-Bengalis” (term used by Bengalis to refer to anyone who is not a ‘Bengali’). As an adjective, as in ‘khaoa thala’ (lit. eaten plate), it is used to describe a dirty plate after the food has been consumed. The noun ‘khaoa–daoa’ (lit. eating–giving) refers to eating and drinking, eating, and related activities. 2 From Suman Chatterji’s album of Bengali songs, Sumaner Gan ‘Tomakey Chai’ (Suman’s Songs ‘I Want You’). 3 The use of the word is deliberate because of its musical associations, as in clusters of notes. 4 It is worth noting that most of the anthropology of drink (cf. Douglas 1991 [1987]) deals with alcohol, with some exceptions like the works of Chatterjee (2001) and Macfarlane and Macfarlane (2003) on tea, though these are mainly historical in orientation.

Transactions in Taste Bengalis in urban Bengal assemble their everyday and hospitality relations through the polyphonic 5 practice of adda needs to be examined. Through a series of vignettes, I describe here their anxious engagement with their relational worlds, making, unmaking, and remaking them through sound, smell, touch, taste, and vision, and thereby evoking their perceptions of relatedness as Bengaliness (Bangalitto) in variegated ways. The vignettes that ensue focus on a rather technical discussion of very specific forms and practices, and hence contain many Bengali phrases and sentences. The use of Bengali not only evinces a sense of the normal soundscape of these addas, but also makes visible the identities indexed by specific shifts in food linguistic terms. It is to be noted that all direct speech has been bracketed in bold, and the description that unfolds as the chapter proceeds has been italicised and bracketed in bold.

sensuous

linguistic

particular

I Act 6.1 Promod dar canteener adda: An adda in Promod da's6 canteen in Presidency College, Calcutta A girl walks into Promod da’s canteen (Plates 14 and 15), on a Friday afternoon, dressed in a long, figure-hugging skirt. Almost immediately, there is a lull in the talk. One of the girls elbows the other: “Oi dekh!! (See that!!) Ki podechey!! (What has she worn!!) Aami dekhechi (I have seen) when I wear a salwar kameez,7 the guys treat me differently; there is a subtle change in their behaviour ..." One of the boys, chomping on his fish chop, interrupts her musings, "Boyfriender maney janish?" (Do you know what the word ‘boyfriend’ means?) The girl, the smell of the fish making her edge away from him slightly, snaps back at him: "Aamar dharer

5 The word is used in the following sense pertaining to music: ‘(especially of

vocal music) in two or more parts each having a melody of its own; contrapuntal’ (The Concise Oxford Dictionary 1999: 1109). 6 Da is short for ‘dada’ which means brother, a common mode of address for men in Bengal used by Bengali Hindus, and in certain interactions by Bengali Muslims. The latter, especially in Dhaka, use ‘bhai’.

Making and Consuming Normal Food Identities

kachchey aashish na ... Machcher gondho aamar shojjo hoy na!" (Don’t even come near me ... I can’t stand the smell of fish!) Then, in response to his question, she looks at him coquettishly, “A boy who is a friend!” The affronted boy, his voice dripping with sarcasm: “Ba, ba! Bangali jey machcher gondho shojjo kortey parey na!" (Oh, Oh! A Bengali who can’t stand the smell 8 of fish! [implying that such a thought is inconceivable for ‘Bengali’ and fish are synonymous or fish evokes Bengaliness.]) One of the other boys, savouring his tea with every puff of his cigarette, intervenes: "Ay! Aabar jhadi marchey! ...” (Again you are fluttering your eyelashes [that is, flirting!] ...) One of the girls, raising her voice, calls out to Promod da, the man running the canteen: "Promod da! Tomar chicken roll holo?" (Promod da! Is your chicken roll done?) A quiet voice, ringing with authority says, “We must organise a proper protest and gherao (surround) the principal’s room. Otherwise capitalism will win, fees will go up, the poor with merit will not be able to study here ... Remember, how Laltu and Teni da organised those protests against the demolition of the Babri Masjid.9 And the ..." His words are drowned by the raucous singing of some of the boys, swaying to the strumming of a guitar, perched precariously on some of the narrow benches: "Key tumi, Nandini, Aagey to dekhini ...” (Who are you, charming creature? Haven’t seen you before ...] Sanatan, Promod da’s 13-year old helper, comes and pours more tea into their cups, the tiniest I have ever seen, and only in Calcutta, while John Lennon stares down at them, the sketch jostling for space with: Cactus, Bangla Rock, 23rd December. No Fee Hike. Long Live Revolution (in red paint). God is Dead. 7 A tunic-like top, usually of lower calf length, worn with loose trousers (salwar). 8 The word ‘gondho’, loosely translated here as smell, could refer to aroma and fragrance when prefixed with ‘shu’ (good), or to stink and stench when used with the adjective ‘bajey’ (bad). 9 Refers to the destruction of the disputed Babri mosque in Ayodhya in India in 1992 by Hindu kar sevaks, a turning point in Hindu–Muslim relations in postPartition India.

Act

II

6.2 Dhaka addas 6.2.1 An adda at a Dhaka dawat (invitation) The next adda moves to Dhaka The setting is a dawat in the house of two Bengali Muslim sisters, one a renowned artist, the other a human rights activist married to a Bengali Hindu banker from Calcutta, now living in Sylhet, 10 who is described as a "khanti" (pure) Brahmin by some in the gathering. The occasion — the visit of the latter’s daughter, who is studying for a degree at the University of London. The Bengali Brahmin man in question (BG henceforth): "Aagey Hindura, bishesh korey Brahmonra, bhabto jey gosht khaoa pap ... maney jat niye. Tarpor to aastey aastey Brahmonra aarombho korlo ... aageyo kheto, ekhono khaye. Kintu ekhono Bangalira money korey jey mangsho ..." (Earlier Hindus, especially Brahmins, thought that eating gosht11 [the Bengali Muslim term for meat] was sinful ... I mean vis-à-vis jat [caste]. Then, gradually, the Brahmins started ... they used to eat even earlier, they eat even now. But even now Bengalis think that mangsho [the Bengali Hindu term for meat] ... [BG’s use of ‘mangsho’ to denote the thought process of Bengalis concerning meat is striking in that it, by implication, excludes Muslims from ‘Bengalis’. The pause in his first statement between “sinful” and “I mean vis-à-vis jat” is significant because it reveals his hesitation over expressing how eating ‘gosht’ was sinful. He decides to mention only its ‘effect’ on jat, not expressing that ‘gosht’ also contains the additional associations of the meat being 10 The headquarters of Sylhet Division in north-east Bangladesh are located in the city of Sylhet. 11 ‘Gosht’ is an Urdu word that has been incorporated into the Bengali by Bengali Muslims and is used as such by them. When I innocently queried what was the difference between ‘gosht’ and ‘mangsho’, there was general amusement. Someone interjected humorously: "‘Jol’ aar ‘panir’ moton!" (Like ‘jol’ and ‘pani’, alluding to the fact that the Bengali Hindu term for water is ‘jol’ and the Bengali Muslim term for it is ‘pani’ which has, in turn, been appropriated from Urdu.)

language

prepared in accordance with Islamic law, that is, halal12 meat that Hindus do not eat. His use of ‘earlier’ and ‘now’ indicates his awareness of the changes in the food practices of Bengali Hindus, especially Brahmins.]) S (a Bengali Muslim man) interjects: "Aapnio to ekhono mangsho khan, gosht khan na." (You too still eat ‘mangsho’ and not ‘gosht’ [referring to the fact that BG persisted in his use of the Bengali Hindu term for meat, despite having lived in Bangladesh for years and having married a Bangladeshi Bengali Muslim woman, that is, indexing his lack of adoption of Bangladeshi conventions.]) Somebody laughs. And the prelude of fragrant tea and fizzy ‘Coke’ (Coca Cola/Pepsi) continues to flow, the fragrance jostling with the impudent bubbles for the coveted shelter of the nose. BG continues: "Aagey aami khoob particular chilam teentey jinish

niye: ‘mangsho’, ‘snan’ aar ‘jol’." (Earlier I was very particular about three things: ‘meat’, ‘bath’, and ‘water’ [= took care to stick to the Bengali Hindu terms for all three. The use of ‘earlier’ here indicates that he takes S’s point about his lack of his acceptance of ‘their’ way of life, and that he tries to make amends.]) MM (a Bengali Muslim man) asks in amusement: "Tumi ‘deem’ khao na ‘aanda’ khao?" (Do you eat ‘deem’ or ‘aanda’? [alluding to the fact that the Bengali Hindu term for egg is ‘deem’ and the Bengali Muslim term is ‘aanda’.]) BG responds: "Deem khai. Eta aar ekta ...” (I eat ‘deem’, that is another one. [His lapse into present tense contradicts his earlier statement that only ‘earlier’ he was very particular about his use of Bengali Hindu terms.]) A few people join in laughter. MM, looking at my puzzled expression, says: “Ora khaye ‘deem’,

aamra khai ‘aanda’” (They [Bengali Hindus, referring to BG] eat ‘deem’, we [Bengali Muslims] eat ‘aanda’). Z (a Bengali Muslim woman) leans towards me: “BG da kintu

khanti Brahmon.” (But BG is a pure Brahmin, [she offered by way of explanation: his “pure” caste status elicited his adherence to “pure” Hindu Bengali comestible terms. Her use

12 See chapter 4.

of the Bengali Hindu term ‘da’ instead of the Bengali Muslim term ‘bhai’ in addressing BG, a Brahmin, is noteworthy.]) BG adds: “Bou musholman, otao boley dao." (That my wife is Muslim, say that too.) Another woman quips: “Khanti Brahmon Musholman" ([She is a] ‘pure’ Brahmin–Musalman [an oxymoron since a Muslim cannot be a Brahmin]. 13) BG, sipping on his bubbly ‘Coke’ (Coca-Cola),14 nods his head in serious agreement but his eyes betray his amusement. Warming to the theme of ‘mangsho’ and ‘gosht’, BG continues: "Kintu ekhon shob change hoye gechey ... grameo ekhon mangsho khaoa hoy ..." (But now everything has changed ... even people in the villages now eat mangsho or meat (His use of the present tense is to be noted.]) Losing his cool a bit, S focuses his narrowed eyes on BG, while the biscuit teams up with his taut outstretched fingers to lend assertiveness to what he says: "Gechen konodin gramey? Aapnar gramer shathey kono shomporkoei nai ... aapni janenei na! Aapni oi shohorey koyekta loker baditey gechen jara eshey mangsho khachchey! Gramer lok mangsho khaye na ..." (Have you ever been to a village? You don’t have any relation with villages ... you don’t know a thing! You have visited a few people’s houses in the city where they eat mangsho or meat! Village people do not eat mangsho ... [Here the use of the word ‘shomporko’ or ‘relation’ is significant. BG’s lack of relation with villages implies that his desh (here ‘villages’)15 is not in Bangladesh, that is, he does not ‘belong’ or is not rooted here. BG’s ignorance of the impoverished everyday existence of villagers angers him.]) MM intervenes placatingly: "Gramey lokey mangsho kom khaye. Shoptahey ekbari mangsho ... Gramey shaptahik bajar hoy ... Mass vegetable khaye ..." (People in villages eat less mangsho. Once a week ... In the villages you have a weekly bazaar [he offered 13 See Ahmad (1973) and Fanselow (2000 [1996]) though for caste or castelike structures and values among Indian Muslims. Also see chapter 2, fn. 70. 14 ‘Coke’, short for Coca-Cola, is often used as a generic term in India and Bangladesh to refer to cola, though now ‘Pepsi’ too has gained ground, the intense advertisement campaigns over the years an index of the fierce battle between the two cola giants to capture the aerated drinks market. 15 See chapter 3.

by way of explanation] ... The “mass” eat vegetables ... [Here the poor people of the villages become an undifferentiated “mass”, betraying that MM is not too knowledgeable about their food practices either.]) Clearing a few salt grains, the last vestiges of the biscuit that cling to her lips, with the tip of her tongue, a woman with piquant humour: "Dekho! Bangalira khaoa-daoa niye chorcha koto bhalobashey!" (See [addressing me]! How much Bengalis love to discuss food!) MM, continuing his heroic efforts to dissipate the now almost palpable tension, offers BG an olive branch: "Tumi bolo, khaoadaoatey ki differences lokhkho koro?" (You tell [us], what are the differences you observe in food [between Hindus and Muslims]?) BG, apparently accepting it, launches into a description of how Sylheti cuisine differs from food elsewhere in Bangladesh: "Sylhetider ranna karur rannar shathey milbey na ... tara aar ek style e choley jai. Sylhetira main kheto ... ekta holo khatta 16... machch-tachch khub kom kheto, vegetable khaye na. Khaye goshto, mangsho khaye. Beshir bhagey beef holey, beef khaye ... " (The cuisine of Sylhetis does not resemble that of any other people ... they ‘go’ into another style. The Sylhetis mainly used to [the use of the past tense is striking] eat ... one would be ‘sour’ 17 [food] ... [they] used to eat very little fish, [they] don’t eat [the lapse into present tense is to be noted] vegetables. [They] eat goshto [he adds an ‘o’ at the end of ‘gosht’, thereby pronouncing the Urdu word in a ‘Bengali way’,]18 eat mangsho [his use of the Bengali Hindu term for meat, after having Sanskritised the Urdu term for it, is to be noted]. For the most part, if there is beef, [they] eat beef ... [Here BG conflates ‘Sylhetis’ and ‘Muslims’ in his description of Sylheti cuisine.])

16‘Khatta’ is an Urdu word for sour. Bengali Hindus use the Bengali word ‘tok’. 17 It is worth noting that Bengalis eat qualities of food: sweet, sour, hot (chilli hot), bitter and so on. The quality of the food is the food itself. 18 ‘High’ Bengali, often called shudhdho or sposhto Bangla (pure or clear Bengali), has a tendency to round off words, here with an ‘o’.

A Bengali Muslim Sylheti woman clarifies: “Kara?" (Who?) Z, who is ‘originally’ from Noakhali19 but now resides in Dhaka, says: “Muslims ... Sylheti Muslims.” The Bengali Muslim Sylheti woman disagrees, rather appalled at the thought of Bengali Muslim Sylhetis being associated with the non-consumption of fish. BG continues, muttering under his breath: “Eta original. Kom khaye machch.” (This is original. [They] eat less fish [he drops the adverb ‘very’ in the face of the woman’s vehement disagreement.]) Then more loudly: “Aar khatta khaye kisher jonney, aami porey janlam. Assamira khoob khatta khaye.” (And why do [they] eat ‘sour’ [food], I got to know later. Assamese people [Sylhet Division shares a border with the Indian state of Assam] eat a lot of ‘sour’ [food].) MM interjects dryly, the biscuit crunching in agreement: “Onno khattao khaye. Aamrao khaye.” ([Sylhetis] eat other ‘sour’ [foods] too. [They] eat hog plums too.) Z reinforces MM’s statement: “Shob jaegar aamra: Comillar aamra, Sylheter aamra.” (The hog plums of all places: Comilla hog plums, Sylheti hog plums [alluding to the fact that the consumption of sour foods by Sylhetis may not be the result of Assamese influence, as other sour foods like hog plums are also eaten — hog plums grown in Sylhet, in Comilla, a district in Chittagong Division in southern Bangladesh. That is, the consumption of sour foods (including hog plums) in Bangladesh, whether in the north or south, is independent of its consumption in the Indian state referred to.]) BG persists in his discourse on the influence of ‘Indian food consumption practices’ on those of Bangladesh: “Khashirao khatta khaye. Oi upper level er DC-TC.” [The Khasis [a ‘tribe’ living predominantly in the Indian state of Meghalaya that adjoins Sylhet Division] too eat ‘sour’ [foods]. Those at the upper levels [of society] like DCs or District Collectors [implying that hog plums are consumed in Sylhet in Bangladesh because of the influence of the consumption practices of the Khasis of the Indian state of Meghalaya. And then, almost apologetically, adds that such consumption is under the influence of Khasis 19 That is her desh is Noakhali.

only drawn from the upper echelons of society, which in turn implies that the Khasis, being a ‘tribe’, are looked down upon.]) The spicy fragrant biryani20 and the cool tangy burhani21 make an appearance (Plate 16). There is general movement, coupled with the clattering of crockery, that look a bit lonely without cutlery but brighten up once the steaming biryani decides to grace them with its aromatic presence. BG then turns to someone attempting to suggest that shatkoras, bitter citrus fruits consumed only by Sylhetis in Bangladesh, are not grown in Sylhet. An argument ensues, with BG vigorously nodding his head in denial, which enables the chicken leg to momentarily win its battle with his determined mouth. He continues with a vengeance: "Komlao jerokom manushey money korey Sylhet, komlao Sylhete hoy na. Outlet Sylhet karon Shillong thekey Kolkataye select hoy." (The way people think [komla] oranges22 are Sylhet, even oranges are not grown in Sylhet. Sylhet is an outlet because [oranges] from Shillong [the capital of the Indian state of Meghalaya that borders Sylhet Division] are selected in Calcutta. [His expression of the association of Sylhet with oranges as ‘oranges are Sylhet’ indexes the ‘interanimation’ of food and place actants as described below.]) Z intervenes reasonably: “Kinto kichu kichu orchards chilo." (But there were some orchards.) BG: "Kichu chilo, khoob kom. Rabindranatho boltenje komlalebur gondho paoa jai Sylhetey. Hein, unio money korten ..." (There were some, very few. Even Rabindranath [Tagore, the poet]23 used to say that the fragrance of oranges can be found in Sylhet. Yes, even he used to think ... [implying that even the great poet was mistaken in his association of Sylhet with the fragrance of oranges!]) 20 A dish made with highly seasoned rice and meat, fish, or vegetables, and

often cooked in ghee or clarified butter with a distinct aroma. 21 A yogurt drink consumed together with or after the rich biryani to help digest it. 22 ‘The Bengali orange is not the same as the Western fruit of that name. What

we call an orange is the tangerine of the West. The transposition of the English name is interesting, for the word orange is derived from the Hindi and Urdu narangi’ (Banerji 1991: 142). 23 See chapter 2, fn. 10.

BG finishes with a relish: “Ultimately, khaoar beparey Sylhetira khub conservative.” (Ultimately, in matters of food Sylhetis are very conservative [that is, ‘averse to innovation’. In pronouncing his judgment of Sylheti culinary practices, his use of the present tense is noteworthy.]) MM asks dryly: “Sylheti Hindu na (or) Sylheti Muslim?” BG: “Hein, duto eki rokom. Kintu Hinduder khaoa-daoar habit

ektu onno rokom chilo, Musolmander onno rokom chilo." (Yes, the two are the same. But the food habits of the Hindus were different, those of the Muslims were different. [His lapse into the past tense is to be noted again.]) MM (almost triumphantly): “Exactly!” BG elaborated: “Hinduder khabar ... maney ... Bangalir khabar

motoni chilo. Mangsho-tangsho ektu kom kheto, shak-shobji ityadi beshi kheto." (The food of the Hindus ... meaning ... was like Bengali food. [They] used to eat less of meat, used to eat more vegetables etc. [Yet again the interesting conflation of ‘Bengali’ and ‘Hindu’, to the exclusion of ‘Muslim’, is noteworthy, as at the beginning of the adda with ‘gosht’ and ‘mangsho’.]) A Bengali Muslim woman asked: “Tarao ki tok kheto?" (Did they too eat ‘sour’ [foods]? [‘Tok’ now directs the flow of discussion in tense past.]) BG, nodding his head enthusiastically: "Hein, tok kheto. Tok Hinduder ekta dish ei thakbei." (Yes, [they] used to eat ‘sour’ [food]. ‘Sour’ [food] will always be a dish in itself amongst the Hindus [that is, in the Hindu meal]. [His use of the past and present tenses here indicates one continuity in Hindu food practices.]) The woman continues: "Ekhon jerokom hoy. Shesh patey ekta tok hobey." (Like the way it is now. In the last course served, there will be a ‘sour’ [food]. [The woman uses the present tense, thereby denoting her awareness of things as they are now.]) BG says approvingly: "Hein, thiki boleycho." (Yes, you have

said the right thing.) Z, almost mischievously: "Shatkora diye o to mangsho korey ora." (They do [that is, cook] meat with shatkora too. (The disputed shatkora fruit raises its ugly head again, together with ‘mangsho’! Here, Z draws attention to the Hindu cooking of meat, and that too with the sour citrus fruit as

an ingredient of a main course, thereby contradicting the woman [and especially] BG.) Enter MM: "Aachcha, aamakey ekta jinish bolo. Aamar shoshur baditey panch-chota rokom shobji ek shongey diye ..." (Listen, tell me something. At my in-laws’, with five–six types of vegetables ...) BG volunteers the name of the dish: "Labda." MM: "Labda, sheta ki Bangali Mushalmander modhdhey ..."

(Labda, is that amongst the Bengali Muslims ...?) BG quickly cuts him off: "Na, na! Mushalman na!" (No, no! [That] is not Muslim! [The food itself here becomes not Muslim, that is, Hindu.]) On MM’s enquiry as to how and why Labda has come into being, BG offers: "Pujor shongey shomporko aachey aar ..." (There is a relation with puja and ... [Here, BG alludes to the connection between the dish and puja or worship;24 Labda is ‘related’ or elicits a relation with puja.]) A Bengali Muslim woman, sipping on her cool burhani, intervenes: "Aar ek hoto ki, onek rokom shobji hoto to! Aamar ja money hoy, common sense e, shey ektu ektu thekey jeto." (There was another reason, there used to be so many vegetables. What I think, ‘in common sense’, a little of those used to remain as leftovers.) MM, points out, rather dismissively: "Shetato Hindu baditei

hok, Musholman baditei hok ..." (That could happen even in a Hindu house, even in a Muslim house ...) BG: “That might a good point. Thekey gelo shobtar ektu, sheta diye Labda korey neoa hoto. Aar ekta, bidhobara niraamish kheto ...” (That might be a good point. A little of everything remained, with that Labda was made. And another [reason], widows used to eat vegetarian [food] ... [His use of ‘might’ indicates that he is not sure of the ‘origins’ of Labda.]) MM, interrupting him, says: "Na, na! Aami karon jiggesh korchi. Ekta hochchey, shob ektu ektu thekey jeto, sheta diye Labda toiri hoto. Aar ekta tomra bolcho, Pujor shathey Labdar kono ekta shomporko aachey. Sheta ki?" (No, no! I am asking for the reason. One is, a little of everything remained, with that Labda was made. Another [reason] you are giving is that Labda has some relation with puja. What is that?) 24 As related to Hindu worship rituals.

BG qualifies, hesitatingly: "... thaktey parey." (... could have. [This again indexes his uncertainty about the kinship of Labda.]) Then, more surely: "Brahmonkey pujor shomoye onnodaney shobtai kom kom ektu ektu korey daye. Sheta jodi bechara ota diye ranna korey, sheta Labda chada aar ki korbey?" (At the time of puja, in onnodan,25 the Brahmin is given a little of everything. If he has to cook with that, poor fellow, what can he do [that is, cook] other than Labda? [That BG himself was a Brahmin might have had something to do with his sympathetic understanding of the Brahmin priest’s predicament.]) Another Bengali Muslim man, chomping on his salad, said in mocking jest: "Onekgulo item er modhdhey ekta ..." (Amongst many items, [the Labda] is one ... [This alludes to the elaborate meal, comprising of several courses, that Brahmin priests are held to enjoy, their pot bellies indexing their enjoyment!]) BG, swallowing his mouthful of biryani hastily, reasserts defensively: "Na, na! Aami dekhechi! Ektu chal dilo, ektu lau dilo ..." (No, no! I have seen! [The donors] give a little rice, a little bottle-gourd ...) MM interjects, his tone acerbic: "Eta ekta koutuk! Musholman fakir shobji khaye na kintu Hindu fakir shobji nei!" (This is a joke! The Muslim fakir does not eat vegetables but the Hindu fakir takes vegetables! [MM is rather dismissive of the quasireligious explanation that BG offers. The juxtaposition of the word ‘takes’ vis-à-vis the ‘Hindu fakir’ is striking compared to that of the word ‘eat’ vis-à-vis the Muslim fakir, as if to emphasise the mendicancy of the Hindu fakir!]) BG, not to be outdone: “Hindu to aabar ‘fakir’ hoy na! Hindu ‘bhikkhuk’! Aamra boli fakir–sannyasi, sannyasi ..." ([The] Hindu is not a ‘fakir’! [The] Hindu is a ‘bhikkhuk’ [mendicant receiving ‘free gifts’]! We say ‘fakir–sannyasi’, ‘sannyasi’ [an ascetic who renounces the world] ... [BG rejects the use of the Arabic word ‘fakir’ to define a Hindu ascetic. Instead, he uses the Sanskrit terms ‘bhikkhuk’ and ‘sannyasi’, even Sanskritising the Arabic word by appending ‘sannyasi’ to it.)] 25 A ‘free gift’ of food. For a penetrating analysis of dan or the notion of a free gift, see Laidlaw (2000).

MM, having had his fill of the semantics of mendicancy, steers the discussion back to food: "Aami jantey chai (I want to know): we are talking about two communities, living together in the same atmosphere, getting the same vegetables. How is it that there are differences?" Then, straightening himself from his reclining position on the sofa, he delivers his thrust, even his fingers caressing the fragrant biryani a little overawed by his glinting eyes: "Eta ki ekta hotey parey, basic ekta? Banglai lekha ekta probad aachey: Hindur badi Shaheber gadi Aar Musholmaner hadi. Hadi boltey mangsho ba expensive jinish ebong shei sense e hadi of the Hindu will be more economical, kom khoroch korey. Shei sense e ki vegetable beshi bebohar hoy? Kinba leftover vegetables gulo ekotro korey chaliye dai?" (Can this be a [reason], one basic [reason]? There is a proverb written in Bengali: The house of the Hindu The car of the Sahib And, the cooking pot [hadi] of the Muslim. The pot refers to mangsho [meat] or expensive things, and in that sense the pot or hadi of the Hindu will be more economical [they, the Hindus] spend less. Is it in that sense that vegetables are used more? Or that [they] put together leftover vegetables [and] make do? [MM implies that since to the Hindu, (his) house is of utmost importance, he spends a lot on it, which makes him economise on food. The Muslim, on the other hand, chooses to spend more on food because (he) identifies very strongly with it. The identity of the Bengali Muslim, then, for MM, is attached to food while that of the Bengali Hindu with his house. This, for him, encapsulates the reason for the difference between Bengali Hindu and Muslim food practices.]) BG, coming up with his version of the economics of Hindu and Muslim food differences: "Ekhon jodi boli, Hindura hoye gechey gorib. Hindura kichu machch, choto machchgula khaye. Ekhon to puro change ... Hindura ekhon machch khaoar chance paye na karon ekhon machcher dam beshi. Musholmanra khaye. Musholmanra joto shobji, joto machch, bhalo shob khaye." (If I now say, the Hindus have become poor. They eat some fish,

the small fish. Now there is complete change ... Hindus now don’t have a chance to eat fish because now fish is more expensive. Muslims eat [fish]. Muslims eat all the vegetables, all the fish, all good things. [Through his repeated use of the word ‘now’ and the present tense, he implies that Partition has brought about a sea change: it is responsible for the economic impoverishment of the Hindus which has proceeded hand in hand with the economic enrichment of the Muslims. So for him, it is Partition, rather than any innate propensity of the Hindu to identify more strongly with his house than his food, which evinces his meagre culinary expenses.) S, silent after his rather heated exchange with BG at the beginning of the adda, repeats himself thrice in a rather taut voice: "Bajarey ekhon machch nai." (Fish is not there in the bazaar now. [S, dismissing Partition with its complexities of religious differences, thereby contradicts BG: if the fish are absent from the market, how can the Muslims consume them?]) BG, sipping on the cool refreshing burhani, apparently concedes

some ground, but only as far as vegetables are concerned: "Shobji ja aasey ta Musholmanra khaye ba Hindu uchchobhittora khaye. Ekhon to uchchobhitto boltey to Muslim, Sylheti Musholmanrai. Otoeb, bajar-tajar ekhon ekebarei different. Tader to outlook o change hoye gechey. Ekhon Comilla Muslim khub vegetable khaye ..." (Whatever vegetables are there, Muslims and upper-class Hindus eat. Now by upper class we mean Muslim, Sylheti Muslims. Therefore, the bazaar is completely different. Even their outlook has changed. Now Comilla Muslims eat a lot of vegetables ... [After conceding that there are some upper-class Hindus who can afford to eat vegetables, he comes back to his point of equating the upper classes with Muslims ‘caused’ by Partition, as his use of ‘now’ indicates yet again.]) "Ei election e to ..." (In these elections, referring to the forthcoming elections in October 2001) ... "Aamader NGO te ..." (ln our NGO) ... “Sunbeam khub bhalo school, okhankar" (Sunbeam is a very good school, there) ... “UN e te” (In the UN)’ ... And so the conversation streams its way in and out of the small groups that have formed out of the fifty odd people assembled.

Muktijuddher gan (songs of the Liberation War) 26 follow in the footsteps of the dinner of spicy biryani and cooling burhani, with the omnipresent harmonium27 on the floor once more (Plate 17). "Rokto lal, rokto lal, rokto lal ... rokter aaguney korey protirodh" (Red blood, red blood, red blood ... in the fire of blood we protest) sing the chorus of voices, high with emotion. "Shobey aagoan hou, shobey aagoan ..." (Let us all forge ahead, all forge ...) had young and old undulating from side to side, clapping their hands, nodding their heads vigorously to the rise and fall of the rhythmic beat.

6.2.2 An adda on a hot dusty afternoon in Z's apartment in central Dhaka A renowned Bengali Hindu Rabindrasangeet28 singer, invited to sing at an Indo-Bangladesh "cultural exchange" programme, holds court on the floor, another ganer aashor (song or musical gathering) and adda. An awestruck woman asks the singer: "Didi,29 aapni to Mon dir kachey gan shikhechen na Shantiniketan e?!" (Elder sister, you have learnt how to sing from Mon di at Shantiniketan?)30 Z calls out to the pair of domestic helps she employs: "Ei Lisa, Latika shuney jao ... Shono, mehmaner 31 jonno cha niya aaiso, jey cha didi (indicating me) India 32 thekey aaniyasey, shey cha. Teapot 26 The Liberation War refers to the 1971 war when Bangladesh gained freedom from Pakistan. 27 Almost every house I visited in Dhaka boasted this musical instrument, and almost always, it had been imported from Calcutta. 28 A genre of music named after Rabindranath Tagore, the Bengali poet who, as mentioned before, wrote India’s national anthem. After becoming Bangladesh adopted the first 10 lines of Tagore’s ‘Aamar sonar Bangla, Aami tomai bhalobashi’ (My golden Bengal, I love you) as its national anthem. Also see chapter 2, fn. 85. 29 ‘Didi’ (di in short), which means elder sister, is a common mode of address for women in Bengal used by Bengali Hindus and in certain transactions by Bengali Muslims. The latter, especially in Dhaka, use ‘aapa’. 30 Shantiniketan is the music school set up by Tagore in West Bengal, about an hour’s train journey from Calcutta, where Rabindrasangeet (see fn. 28) is taught. 31 An Urdu term, meaning ‘guest’, that is not used by Bengali Hindus, who use the term ‘atithi’. 32 In Calcutta, most people, when speaking in Bengali, used ‘Bharat’ to refer to India while ‘India’ was elicited by the use of English. In Dhaka, however, ‘Bharat’ was almost never used.

independent,

e dheley aar dhoodh–chini aalada niya aayso, jemon roj koro. Aar naasta 33 ki aasey? ... Cholo aami giye dekhey aashi." (Lisa, Latika come and listen ... Listen, bring tea for all the guests, the tea that the didi [indicating me] has brought from India, that tea. Put it in a teapot34 and bring the ‘milk–sugar’ separately like you do everyday. And what is there for snacks? Come, let me go [with you] and see). Z disappears down the corridor into the kitchen, in a swirl of sari folds and tinkling of tiny bells on the elaborate, ornamented key chain dangling at her waist. Latika sits on her haunches, rummaging through the various stored freezer bags and utensils, while Z stands hovering over her amidst the crackling of plastic and clanging of metal. Having issued instructions that tea should be served with salted biscuits, mishti35 (sweets), and frozen36 singaras37 to be defrosted and fried in the ubiquitous soya oil, 38 she disappears again amidst rustling folds and ringing bells. Amidst the gentle clattering of cups and saucers, the tinkling of

spoons, the plonking of sugar cubes, and the sizzling of singaras, someone exclaims: "Kolkatar tater shari ki shundar!" (The cotton saris from Calcutta are so beautiful!) The singer from Calcutta, delicately nibbling at her sweet, gushes: "Keno? Tomader Tangail 39 shari ... ?!" (Why, what about your saris from Tangail?) 33 An Urdu term, meaning ‘snack’, that is not used by Bengali Hindus, who use the term ‘jolkhabar’ (lit. ‘waterfood’). 34 Tea in Calcutta is very often cooked on the fire (though without milk) rather than soaked in a teapot. After cooking the leaves and bringing the “liqueur” (a misappropriation of the word to denote black tea) to boil, it is allowed to stand for a while, after being lidded. 35 ‘Mishti’ as an adjective refers to the quality of being sweet (or sweetness), and as a noun to food (sweets). Also see fn.17. 36 Singaras are not frozen in Calcutta, and almost always purchased in shops and wayside stalls. Non-vegetarian singaras and kebabs in Dhaka are often made right after Qurbani or Idu’l Zuha (also called Bakr Id) when the sacrifice of goats generates a lot of meat. See chapter 4. 37 Also called samosas (origin from Persian and Urdu) outside Bengal, they are triangular fried pastries containing spiced vegetables, predominantly mashed potatoes, or minced meat. 38 Soya oil is the most widely used cooking medium in middle-class households in Dhaka while sunflower oil, and to some extent rice bran oil, are used in such households in Calcutta. 39 A place in Bangladesh renowned for its woven cotton and silk saris.

A man, utter contentment etched in every line on his face exclaims: "Chata daroon!" (The tea is delicious!) The tea makes its way down his gullet noisily with every slurp, the aroma washing over him, and gently coaxing his eyelids to meet. Z, gesturing towards me, says: "Makaibari cha, o enechey, aamar jonno, India thekey." (It is Makaibari40 tea, she has brought it for me from India.) “English Breakfast tea ..." “India te to corruption ...” (The

corruption in India) .... “Rabindranather lekha kobita ....” (Poems written by Tagore) “Rojar shomoi iftar partygulatey ...” (The iftar parties during roja)41....“Aagekar diney meyeder biye ....” (In the days gone by, girls married) .... The blades of the fan continued to chase each other in a whirl of rhythm above our heads.

6.3. On adda and Bengaliness I offer these addas to evoke a nuanced image of the agency of normal food. What is adda after all? And what is ‘Bengali’ about it? Why is there the constant refrain of how adda is being lost,42 despite its pervasiveness in urban Bengal, as the vignettes above show? What elicits the sense of remoteness, loss, and nostalgia — of a lost place, practice, and identity connected with it? The quest for answers to these questions tells us something about how food works to shape the mode in which other things, persons, and places are compelled to emerge as actants with particular ‘identities’. Let us pause here and examine the word ‘adda’. A 1968 entry

in the Samsad Bengali–English Dictionary gives us a feel for the semantic field of the word: Adda-n. a dwelling-place; a haunt; a (fixed or permanent) meetingplace, a rendezvous; a place or institution for practising anything (ganer adda: [adda for musicians]); a club; a company of idle talkers, their meeting-place or talk; a place for assemblage, a station or stand (garir adda [adda for vehicles]). Adda gara-v. to take up abode (usu[ally] permanently), to settle. Adda deoya, adda mara- v. to 40 Tea from a place called Makaibari in Darjeeling district in the Indian state of West Bengal. This tea is preferred by some for its aroma. 41 Refers to the parties where food is served to break the fast that Muslims observe in the month of Ramadan (the ninth month of the Muslim calendar) from sunrise to sunset everyday. 42 See also chapter 2, section 2.2, where this sense of lostness has been alluded to.

join in an assembly of idle talkers; to indulge in idle talk with others. Addadhari-n. the keeper or the chief person of a club; a regular club-goer. Addabaj-a. fond of indulging in idle talk with others or of haunting clubs where such talk is indulged in.43

The 1982 (second) edition of the same dictionary has an identical entry, except that the first set of meanings for adda includes ‘a habitat’. ‘Adda’, therefore, describes a practice, an institution, a place, or talk. Talk here, however, is of a particular type, if we are to follow the dictionary above. It is ‘idle-talk’ which is steeped in moral associations of ‘work’ and ‘idleness’ (Chakrabarty 1999: 116),44 in conventional calibrations of work and leisure. It could also be understood as ‘careless talk’ or ‘chats’ (Chattopadhyay 1978: 210). Chakrabarty (1999: 110) describes it: ‘Roughly speaking, it is the practice of friends getting together for long, informal, and unrigorous conversations.’ The ethnographic vignettes I have offered here describe adda as a cluster of talk, discursive styles, dispositions, demeanours, and embodied practices that are constitutive of, and constituted by, normal everyday and hospitable relations. Adda describes ‘idle’ talk, careless chats, discussions, and informal debates, where food governs in particular ways, where voices and emotions may rise and passions may flare, where there is easy camaraderie and a certain familiarity, to the extent that abuse and jokes with sexual connotations are acceptable. An adda normally comprises of more than two people who are An adda does not take place between persons across various age groups; otherwise it is termed as golpo kora (to ‘do’ or engage in ‘story telling’) or kotha bola (to utter words or ‘talk’). An adda takes place in a tea shop, coffee house, someone’s house, college canteen, office or street corners, and not in a bus or train or other mode of transport. So it implies a ‘fixed place’ rather than a

subjectivities,

contemporaries.

43 As quoted in Chakrabarty (1999: 121). 44 In chapter 3, section 3.5, the mistress’s reasons for her indictment of her two domestic helps include the latter’s propensity to spend too much time

engaging in idle-talk, implying that a ‘certain degree’ of engagement in such talk is perceived as normal. Cf. Bourdieu (1979 [1963]: 25), for instance, in his study of the Kabyle, points out that ‘the fundamental opposition was between the idler (by circumstance or inclination) who fails in his social duty and the worker who

fulfils his social function, whatever the product of his efforts’.

transition or journey from place A to B. This finitude and rootedness in a place contrasts with the open-ended character of adda — it is infinite or boundless in terms of the topics that can be talked about or discussed: it is fluid, diffuse, amorphous talk. It was described by one consultant as: “It is not conversation because that would imply a certain direction and directedness, whereas adda is not directed in that anything under the sun can be discussed freely.” Adda is characterised by a rich indetermination — “self defining”, in the words of one consultant. And yet adda is purposive in the sense that persons gather with the intention of engaging in adda; one cannot engage in adda while doing something else, one has to be ‘idle’ to engage in ‘idle-talk’. Additionally, adda has to be distinguished from more formal debates and discussions focused on a particular topic. It also differs from religious or political rallies or speeches. Adda is also distinct from rumour (gujob) and gossip (poroninda). An adda can be a launching pad for a rumour or gossip; it can develop in such directions but such developments are purely incidental. Given that there can hardly be an adda without normal food, it

is interesting to note that the dictionary entry makes no mention of food. Chakrabarty (1999) too, in his work on adda, devotes a short section to the growth of tea shop and coffee house addas but his account is marked by a peculiar sparsity of any sustained description of food. In most addas in Calcutta45 and Dhaka, tea, sometimes coffee, is normally consumed, together with snacks ranging from singaras,46 chanachur,47 piyajis,48 kebabs, tamarind chutney, and sweets (made from chhana)49 to Dhakai poneer 50 on toast, Britannia English Marie arrowroot biscuits, cookies, and teacakes. 51And, as this ethnography reveals, Dhaka addas are frequently accompanied by dinner invitations and songs52 as well. Thus, another distinctive 45 The consumption of cigarettes frequently figured in Calcutta addas. 46 See fn. 36 and fn. 37. 47 A salted, spicy mixture of groundnuts and fried gram flour sticks, similar to ‘Bombay mix’. 48 Onion bhajis or onion rings fried in seasoned gramflour balls. 49 Acid-curd cheese or cottage cheese. 50 A type of salted milk curd cheese found in Dhaka. 51 Most of these foods are ‘finger food’, and their consumption is very often marked by a paucity of cutlery. 52 Dinner invitations (dawat) frequently included the phrase "gan hobey, adda hobey" (there will be songs, there will be adda).

element of adda is its attachment to normal food — here food is perceived as the normal materiality of adda. It follows from what has been said so far that the elements of adda distinguish it from ‘pub talk’. Pub talk does not ‘congeal’53 in the way an adda does. The word ‘jomano’ (to set, congeal) is used for adda, so that talk, like yogurt, sets (in), or, like blood in black pudding, congeals rather than takes place. The adda congeals or sets in and the words fill you (words as filling food; the phrase used is "kotha boltey boltey pate bhorey gelo”= lit. uttering words or talking has filled the stomach) so that talking becomes eating, and language becomes food. Food for thought becomes thought for food. Moreover, pub talk is limited by its setting; one cannot have pub talk at home. One can engage in adda in a college canteen, tea shop, office, or at home. Adda relaxes across spatial, and temporal, orientations.54 Finally, there is yet another element of adda that marks it off as distinctively ‘Bengali’: it is perceived as “normally Bengali”, both by Bengalis themselves and by “non-Bengalis” 55 — Bengalis are said to have a ‘feel’ Bourdieu (1990 [1980]) for adda. Now, the adda of coffee houses and tea shops is characterised as the ‘modern’ adda in a public place in Chakrabarty’s aforementioned account of the variegated history of the 20th century adda. In to the majlish,56 described as a form of gathering in a wealthy patron’s baithakkhana (parlour/living room), 57 the modern adda is

contrast

53 One does not say “pub talk sets in”. 54 This contrasts it with coffee drinking in the United States, for example, which is stimulating rather than relaxing: ‘It (coffee) is the liquid with which one wakes up in the morning. It is what the workers and the professionals drink on “breaks” or sip along side their work. Although physiologists disclaim the ability of coffee to eradicate the effects of alcohol, it persists as the symbol of contrast — the food with which we return from the world of leisure to the world of work’ (Gusfield 1991 [1987]: 83; emphasis mine). 55 A term used by Bengalis to designate all groups that are not Bengali, that is, who do not eat normal Bengali food and do not speak the language. As one consultant or respondent put it, “For the Bengalis the world is divided into only Bengalis and non-Bengalis!” 56 Lit. a sitting, a meeting, a gathering; a party; an association, a society, a club (Samsad Bengali–English Dictionary 1982: 724). 57 ‘(U)sually, the word is also associated with a place where some kind of performance takes place — singing, dancing, recitation of poetry, and so on. Conversation here, even when it was not directly sycophantic, could never be totally democratic, for the very presence of a patron would influence the speech pattern of such a group in all kinds of ways’ (Chakrabarty 1999: 120).

‘democratic’: the speech pattern is characterised by a ‘democratic sensibility’, though he concedes that the 20th century democratic adda perhaps ‘carried within its structure a nostalgia for the majlish’58 ( Chakrabarty 1999: 124). Chakrabarty opposes adda/majlis as public/private. The ethnography here reveals that such a distinction is too simplistic, and overlooks the fact that the idea of the public59 is historically specific, referring to ‘a particular configuration of commonness that emerged in the capitalist-democratic West in the course of the eighteenth century’ (Kaviraj 1997: 86).60 The public/ private distinction has been placed on a preexisting conventional grid in Bengal, gharey/bairey, which as Kaviraj rightly points out, translates as inside the house/outside (as opposed to literally the world). The Bengali distinction gharey/bairey is ‘closely linked to apan/par (or apna/paraya in Hindi) (mine/not-mine or self/not-self)’ (ibid.: 93). The two pairs are neither autonomous nor are they in a dialectical relation; each is ‘the starting point for the form which the other takes’ (Strathern 1997: 48). So the ‘democratic’ adda at the dawat in the house of the two sisters in Dhaka could be seen as the public of the inside (private in Chakrabarty’s terms). By the same token, adda as discursive intimacy enacted between friends in Promod da’s canteen could be described as the inside (private in Chakrabarty’s terms) of the public. The adda, for Chakrabarty (1999: 144), came to ‘symbolize — in problematic and contested ways — a particular way of dwelling in modernity, almost a zone of comfort in capitalism’. He further adds that the current Bengali nostalgia for adda is an index of their anxious engagement with globalised capitalism today, an ambiguous (I add) and anxious engagement through ‘care’-less (!) 58 Indexed by the peculiarly Bengali expression for “going Dutch” — "jar jar tar tar" (“His his, whose whose”) which, in Chakrabarty’s (1999: 124) view, enabled a tea shop adda to accept ‘the death of the patron’ and overcome the middle-class unease, created by the ‘individualism’ that such a ritual entailed, in transactions that include ‘(t)he deep association between food and munificence in Bengali culture’. 59 It is interesting to note that there is no indigenous term for ‘public’. 60 The notion of public has some associations like ‘universal access and ... openness, which might not be expected to exist universally in ideas of common space’ (Kaviraj 1997: 86; brackets removed from ‘openness’). See Fraser (1992), for example, for a clear discussion of Habermas’s work on the notion of ‘public’ as it emerged in the modern West, revealing the historical specificity of the concept.

talk. This is a limiting approach to a complex phenomenon; the sense of lostness and nostalgia are attached to wider collaborative networks as described below. These vignettes reveal the emergence of adda as a particular mode of sociality that requires the gathering of normal food as an actant in its specific forms: sensory–corporeal–discursive61–affective. The agency of normal food, for example, emerges in its distinct sensory and corporeal forms: in the smell of the fish that makes the girl edge away and the boy to remark on fish and Bengalis in the college canteen adda, the aromatic Makaibari tea that coaxes the man to shut his eyes in utter contentment in the apartment afternoon adda, the ‘sour’ food that conducts the discourse on Sylheti food habits, and the influence of Indian food consumption practices on those of Bangladesh in the dawat adda. The agency of the normal foodscape reveals itself yet again in its specific discursive and affective modes: the appearance in the dawat adda of egg as ‘deem’ and ‘aanda’, of water as ‘jol’ and ‘pani’, of meat as ‘gosht’ and ‘mangsho’ that triggers the debate, sometimes rather heated, on differences between Bengali Muslims and Hindus in terms of the production and consumption of meat, vegetables (including the search for the ‘kinship’ of Labda), and ‘sour’ foods. The multifaceted capacity of desh as normal foodscape to evoke the distinctiveness of Bengali Hindus and Muslims is also revealed by the manner in which it conducts the dawat adda in terms of religion, economics, and Partition, Bengali Hindu and Muslim food lexical terms, relations of caste, relations between village and city, and between India and Bangladesh. These multiple forms of agency of normal food combine in shifting ways in a nexus of figure–ground interplays that blur into ‘synesthesia, “the transposition of sensory images or sensory attributes from one modality to another” (Marks 1978: 8)’ (Feld 1996: 93). And it is through these shifting combinations of sensory–corporeal–discursive–affective modes of agency in a nexus of figure–ground engagements that food evokes the forms in which person-, thing-, and place-actants are compelled to emerge. The piquant humour of the woman, evident in her comment on how much Bengalis love to discuss food when the discourse on ‘gosht’

61 Discourse is defined by Feld (1996: 97) as ‘the production and circulation

of topic through speech styles and genres’ that cannot be abstracted from ‘the embodied voice, the site of verbal articulation’ (emphasis mine).

and ‘mangsho’ becomes tense, while clearing the remnants of the salty biscuit that cling to her lips; BG’s sour discourse on ‘sour’ foods consumed by the inhabitants of Sylhet and north-east India after being put down by S because of his ignorance of the impoverished everyday existence of villagers instantiate this. The woman who offers a “commonsensical” explanation for the origins of Labda while sipping on her cool burhani; the songs of the Liberation War that follow in the footsteps of the spicy biryani and tangy burhani and have young and old swaying from side to side, charged with emotion in the dawat adda; the singer from Calcutta who gushes over the beautiful saris of Tangail while nibbling on her sweet in the apartment afternoon adda are also cases in point. Normal food, with its layered subjectivities and multiple modes of agency ‘bleeding’ (Taussig 1993) into each other, brings forth a particular configuration of relationships between persons, things, and places, a specific form of sociality, adda, which congeals. Adda, then, is a congealed trace of the performance and effect of normal food as a thing-actant. Wherein lies the Bengaliness (Bangalitto) of the process? Or, how does the normal foodscape bring forth its various actants with particular identities perceived as Bengali? The different lexical terms for the same food items used by persons from the correspondingly different sides of the border, or desh, recall past relationships in the present that compose these persons, places, and things. If Bengalis were nameless persons, the various linguistic terms that are used for the same food items on either side of the border would distinguish them as East or West Bengali Hindu or Muslim because they contain networks of historical of Partition and colonial rule. Furthermore, the emergence of the 20th century adda as normally Bengali is entangled in uneasy negotiations with networks of European Enlightenment through colonial rule.62 Its fraught associations with a ‘democratic sensibility’ and ‘individualism’, as Chakrabarty puts it, contrast with the practices of patronage and munificence of the majlish: indexed, for instance, by the peculiarly Bengali expression for “going Dutch” — "jar jar tar tar" (“His his, whose whose”).63 The terms used in the adda, then, are ‘condensed networks’ of specific relations and relatedness that configure as East and West Bengali Hindu and Muslim identities.

associations

62 As described in chapter 2. 63 See fn. 58.

The distinct food lexical terms enable person-actants on either side of the border to separate so as to ‘perceive (“personify”)’ (Strathern 1988: 180)64 and bring forth relations as ‘Bengali’, ‘Hindu’, ‘Muslim’, ‘Indian’, and ‘Bangladeshi’. It is the consumption of these food lexical terms particular to desh ruptured by Partition and colonial rule, with their spatial–temporal–affective relations of uprootedness and transrootedness, which generate the sense of a lost place, practice, and identity, of adda 65 as being lost.66

Conclusion To engage in adda as intimacy is to be Bengali then; a ‘certain degree’ of engagement in adda or ‘idle-talk’ is perceived as normally Bengali. This Bengaliness emanates from the particular materiality of adda.67 Adda emerges in the arduous collaborative work of normal everyday and hospitable food in its sensory–corporeal– discursive–affective–spatial–temporal forms which combine in variegated ways in networks of historically specific associations. Adda, therefore, is evoked as an effect of the gathering of the normal foodscape as an actant in its distinctive forms. However, here the emergence of the myriad forms of the agency of food is in itself compelled by the assembling of adda as a distinct configuration of relationships. That is, the form and effect of the agency of food cannot be separated from the form of sociality (adda) associated with it; they are emergent in each other’s becoming. 68 Thus, so far, following food on its peregrinations, we have come to understand what is distinctive about Bengaliness. But to delve deeper into the elements of Bengaliness brings us to issues of ownership, which I discuss next.

normal

64 Also see Strathern (1992: 189, fn. 2). 65 The Bengali singer Manna Dey’s song "Coffee Houser shei adda ta aar nei, aaj aar nei ..." (That adda of the Coffee House is no longer there, today is no longer ...) evokes this sense of nostalgia.

66 I return to this sense of lostness and nostalgia in chapter 7. 67 Cf. Miller (2001) who describes liming through the internet with the creators of Trinidadian websites, indexes of the ‘distributed personhood’ (Gell 1998) ofthe creators that ‘trap’ (ibid.) the visitor, and expand the ‘fame’ (Munn 1986) of Trinis.

68 Cf. Leach (2002: 715).

7

Normal Food and Ownership in Contemporary Bengal The description I offer here depicts how food, in its ongoing assembling and reassembling of normal everyday and hospitality relations (both commoditised here), elicits modalities of ownership. These modes of ownership encompass claims to ‘identity’ indexed in ways of ‘belonging’ (Edwards and Strathern 2000: 149), and notions of property recognised or disputed within a field of relationships. Such forms of ownership are attached to wider networks of ‘authenticity’ and associations of history. Here I seek to describe the types of claims that are contested in food-centric conflicts 1 in which emerge perceptions of relatedness as Bengaliness (Bangalitto).

7.1 Going Out to Eat "Ghoroa (Home) Ranna (Cooking)": A Normal "Authentic Bengali" Meal in Bengali Restaurants in Calcutta and Dhaka Here I focus on two “Bengali restaurants”2 in Calcutta and one in Dhaka, that is, restaurants that serve what is perceived as normal Bengali food. What it reveals is the commoditisation of normal ghoroa (lit. home or related to the inside of the house) food that is served everyday or when guests are invited to eat at home. Going 1 Cf. Dirks (1988) for relationships between food supplies and seasonal rituals of conflicts, and Ember and Ember (1994) for food supplies and the frequency of war. Cf. also Appadurai (1981b: 495) who describes ‘conflict or competition over specific cultural or economic resources as it emerges in social transactions

around food’ as ‘gastro-politics’. 2 Such restaurants differ from the bhaat–machch (rice–fish) hotels that refer to roadside stalls, with benches (and sometimes tables), that serve limited fare, and cater to a rather different clientele. Food normally served in these ‘hotels’

includes rice, fish, lentils, and one or two vegetable dishes. The clients are mostly the poor classes, and sometimes lower middle-class office goers.

Transactions in Taste out to eat Bengali home-cooked food in Bengali restaurants3 is a relatively recent phenomenon. Suruchi, the first Calcutta restaurant described, was established in the 1960s, while the other, Aaheli,4 and the Dhaka restaurant, Kolapata, became operational in the 1990s. In what follows, I describe the food served in these restaurants, the clientele they cater to, and the associations they have for contemporary Bengali sociality and ‘identity’ in a state of flux.

7.1.1 Calcutta Bengali Restaurants Suruchi Suruchi,5 on Eliot Road, serves a clientele that consists predominantly of men, belonging to “all classes, madhyabitta (middle) and lower”, working in nearby offices, who place orders everyday that are collected by their “office bearers” (peons), or come everyday to eat a “Bengali lunch”.6 “Robibar aar onno chutir diney ora poribarer shathey aashey,” (On Sundays and other holidays they come with their families), puts in one of the staff members of Suruchi who manages the till. She then continues: “Ekhaney, aamader Bangali ranna; shudhu Bangali ranna noy, Bangali ghoroa ranna ebong Bangali ghoroa poribesh. Sheta jarai eshechen, potrikaguliteyo dekhben — bola hoyechey jey Bangali ghoroa poribesh, Bangali ghoroa ranna erokom aar kothao nei. Ei jonnei ‘Suruchi’, shobai Suruchi tey aashey.” (Here, ours [is] Bengali cooking; not only Bengali cooking, Bengali ghoroa [home] cooking and Bengali ghoroa [home] poribesh [lit. environment or surroundings]. That whoever has come ... even in the newspapers and magazines [you] will see — it has been said that Bengali ghoroa environment, Bengali ghoroa cooking such as this is not to be found anywhere else [that is, in any other restaurant]. Because of this [the restaurant] is ‘Suruchi’ [good or refined taste], everybody comes to Suruchi.) 3 Cf. Sutton (2001) for Greek restaurants, and going out to eat Greek food on the Greek island of Kalymnos. 4 There are also other restaurants in Calcutta that serve Bengali food such as Kewpie’s and Kasturi. Though they have not been discussed here, I refer to the cookbooks authored by the late foundress of Kewpie’s, Minakshie DasGupta or Kewpie. 5 Literally ‘good or refined taste, fine taste’ (Samsad Bengali–English Dictionary 1982: 894). 6 The restaurant also sells various sweetmeats and snacks apart from lunch but does not serve dinner.

Normal Food and Ownership

‘Ghoroa’ includes within its semantic field ‘pertaining to a family; internal; homely;7 domestic; intimate, one’s own’ (Samsad Bengali– English Dictionary 1982: 290; emphases mine). It is the adjectival form of ghorey, literally inside the house as opposed to bairey (the outside), and this division is intimately related to apan/par (mine/ not mine or self/not-self), as already delineated in chapters 4 and 6. For my respondent at Suruchi, the staff member at the till, the restaurant replicates not only the process of cooking, serving, and consuming normal everyday food at home but also the perceptual ambience, aura of intimacy and belonging, affective quality that cohere as ‘home’: normality itself perceived through the filter of the ‘domestic’ foodscape. Various axes or measures of normality and not-normality emerge in her description of the performance of everyday Bengali ghoroa cooking and surround: spatial–temporal– corporeal–affective–moral. “Aamader meyera ranna korey bhetorey. Koekjon bairey thekey jatayat korey ekhon; aagey ekhaney Home ei chilo. Tachada, aamader ekhaney working hostel aachey. Jara ranna korey, jara helper, tarao okhaney thakey. Jara ranna korey tara bohudiner purono. Aagey, Home er canteen bibhagey oder shekhano hoto; beshir bhag ekhon bohu din kortey kortey obhiggota eshey gechey. Aagey, service ditey jeto bairey jokhon eta khola hoi ni; ekhon kwyu bairey jai na. Bajar korar aalada lok aachey, bajar meyera korey na. Porishkarer jonno aalada cheley aachey, sweeper aachey. Tachada, ekhaney shobai meye. Tader jara porichalona koren tarao meye. Ekhaney shobi ghoroa bepar.” (Our girls ranna korey [do cooking] inside. A few travel from outside now; before they were here in the Home. 8 Besides that, we have here a working hostel. Those who do cooking, those who are helpers [that is, help the cooks and serve9 the food], even

7 In the British English sense of ‘simple but comfortable’ (The Concise Oxford Dictionary 1999: 679). 8 The restaurant is attached to a women’s shelter. The consultant was very reticent about the details and background of the women who live there, and the secretary she sent me to for further information on that front was unavailable. 9 It is to be noted that not all Bengali restaurants, in Calcutta or Dhaka, employ women to serve food. In this instance, as also in the case of the Dhaka restaurant discussed later on, the employment of women in this capacity is part of what is perceived as a normal Bengali “home” by the restaurateurs and staff in such restaurants serving Bengali “ghoroa (home)” food. This has been described in greater detail as the chapter proceeds.

they live there. Those who do cooking, they have been here for many years [she says this in a long drawn out manner that indexes the long drawn out years]. Before, in the canteen division of the Home they used to be taught [how to cook]; now mostly by doing [cooking] for many years experience has come [they have become experienced]. Earlier, they used to go bairey [outside] to give service [to cook] when this [restaurant] had not been opened; now no one goes outside. To do bazaar [to buy things from the bazaar] there is a separate lok [person, that is, man], the girls don’t go to do bazaar. For cleaning there is a separate boy, there is a sweeper. Besides that, here all are female. Those who administer them are also female. Here everything is a ghoroa matter.) Thus, the restaurant here is described as an extension of relations and activities that are female: an inside, inward orientation, or interiority, and an affect, a sense of belonging, of one’s own, that cohere as a normal Bengali ‘home’ that is demarcated from the outside (bairey). In contrast to the restaurant, the bazaar is perceived as part of the outside, and is constituted as not female. On being questioned whether the cooks are Bengali Hindus or Muslims, she interjects: “Musholmanrao to Bangali. Home ey ei shob nei. Musholman meyerao aagey ekhaney chilo; ekhon bortomaney Musholman kwyu nei, shobai Hindu aachey ...” (Even the Muslims are Bengali. In the Home we do not have all this [that is, we do not discriminate]. Even Muslim girls were here before; now at present no one is Muslim, all are Hindu ....) As to the desh of the various cooks accounting for possible differences in the food cooked by them, she explains: “Ekhaney jara ranna korey, tara to kwyu notun nei, shobai purono. Kajei, tara Kolkatar na holeyo ... shey Birbhumi hoke, Bankurai hoke ... tader hat set hoye gechey. Ekhaney, dhorun, standard jhal deoa hoi jatey shobai khetey parbey. Suruchitey rannata shobar khabar moton hoi — khub rich o hoi na, khub halka o hoi na — medium.” (Here those who do cooking, none of them are new, all are old [that is, have been here for years]. Hence, even if they do not belong to Calcutta [their desh is not Calcutta] .... even if it [desh] is Birbhum, Bankura [districts in the Indian state of West Bengal] ... their hand has become set [that is, they have learnt to cook or continuously replicate Bengali food that is perceived as normal in Calcutta]. Here, for instance, standard chilli [powder] is given [added to the food] so that everyone can

eat [it]. In Suruchi the food cooked is such that it can be eaten by all — [it’s] not very rich, [it’s] not very light — medium.) Normality then is defined here as the capacity of the cooks to exclude their respective desh as an actant in their continuous performance of the strategic replication of ‘standard’10 or ‘medium’ Bengali food that is normal in Calcutta in the perceptions of the restaurant staff. Normal Bengali everyday food in Calcutta as perceived by the restaurant staff then emerges as a ‘standard’ that dissolves differences of desh (for instance, region, district, city), and yet configures as ‘Bengali’ food. That is, food ‘belonging’ to the ‘desh of Bengal’, in that it gathers multiple spatio-temporally distributed person-, place-, and thing-actants in a manner that is ‘normally Bengali’. A case in point would be food prepared by using thing-actants such as the bonti (a curved blade)11 and shil-nora (a large flat block of stone with a pestle)12 with their particular corporeal–spatial–temporal orientations,13 fresh ingredients bought from the bazaar everyday 14 and the non-use of leftovers,15 and served by Bengali women in clean surrounds that have the character and attributes of a ‘Bengali home’. Thus, measures and components of a normal everyday foodscape

various

10 As Appadurai (1988: 17) notes, ‘[I]n restaurants or other public eating contexts ... the subtleties of (an ethnic or regional) cuisine (which are often domestic) ... [are] pared down.’ 11 Also see chapter 4, fn. 9 and fn. 10. 12 See also chapter 4, fn. 5 and fn. 6. Both thebonti and shil-nora have been described in chapters 3 and 4 in detail. The consultant at Suruchi, however, points out that the “traditional unan’’ (a clay stove fuelled by wood, coal, or peat that had to be fanned periodically to keep it alight) has now been replaced by “commercial gas” (butane gas that is used to fuel cooking ranges). 13 As described in chapters 3 and 4. 14 For instance, she emphasises that fresh fish is bought everyday from the bazaar, though these days a supplier comes everyday with fresh fish. On being questioned about the presence of a freezer, she explains (in a matter-of-fact tone) that even if you buy fresh fish it needs to be stored in thefridge. She also adds that only when large orders are placed, fish is stored in the freezer: ‘‘Sheta aalada bepar." (That is a separate matter.) 15 As the consultant or respondent puts it: "Aamra ekta aandajey ranna kori jatey bashi na thakey; ja hoi ta protidin ranna kora hoi." (We cook according to certain approximations [that is, an approximate amount based on an estimated number of customers] so that there is no stale [leftover food]; whatever is done is cooked everyday.)

constitutive of, and constituted by, Bengali middle-class homes16 also perform in the kitchen of the Bengali restaurant, assembling Bengali everyday food, though in a modified form, and seeking to replicate it continuously everyday “for years”. Among normal Bengali foods prepared in the manner described, the respondent at Suruchi includes in her listing vegetarian dishes such as mochar ghonto (ghonto17 made with banana flower), jhingey paturi (ridge gourd cooked in banana leaves), begun bashonti (lit. aubergine vernal),18 beguner tokjhal (sour-hot curried aubergine), kanchkolar kofta curry19 (plantain balls curry), thor ghonto (ghonto made with banana pith), aloo jhingey posto (ridge gourd cooked with potato and poppy seeds), and various dals or lentils such as mushoor (whole/split dried red lentil), moong (whole/split dried mung beans/ green gram), and aurhor (red gram). When asked to describe begun bashonti (aubergine vernal) she says: "Ota money hoi South Indian karon doi diye kora hoi ... doi, shorshey bata, tomato." (That I think is ‘South Indian’20 because it is done [cooked] with yogurt....doi (yogurt), bata (wet-ground) shorshey (mustard), ‘tomato’21.) She describes posto (poppy seeds) as "edeshi" (West Bengali), for West Bengalis are perceived as having a distinct predilection for posto, which causes drowsiness after consumption and arouses the desire to have a siesta after lunch. This elicits East Bengali perceptions of West Bengalis as “lazy people who love their siesta”. On the other

normal

16 See chapter 3. 17 Ghonto = ‘vegetables, with or without fish, cooked together to a soft mush often with the addition of a little milk’ (DasGupta et al. 1995: 37). 18 Bashonti refers to spring, and is also another name for the Goddess Durga who is worshipped in Bengal with great pomp and splendour, especially during autumn, and also in spring. When asked if the dish had any particular associations with the goddess, the consultant gave no clear answer. 19 ‘Curry’, as Appadurai (1988: 18) has noted, is ‘a category of colonial origin’. Though for most non-Indians curry is synonymous with Indian food per se, ‘the karvaypillai or curry leaf, which translated, means the leaf used in cooking, [is] an essential South Indian seasoning’ (DasGupta et al. 1995: 300). 20 The term is used frequently to refer to the cuisines (also people and places) belonging to the states of southern India ‘which, taking a distinctly northern perspective, collapse(s) the distinctions between Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, and Malayali cuisines and lump(s) them together as South Indian cuisine’ (Appadurai 1988: 16). 21 There is no indigenous term for tomato which is not very frequently used in Bengali cooking, and the use of the English term perhaps also indexes what another consultant pointed out as the “foreignness” of the fruit/vegetable.

hand, mocha (banana flower) (Plate 19) and paturi (fish or cooked in banana leaves) are preferred by “odeshis” (people belonging to that desh, that is, East Bengal or Bangladesh): "Mocha, paturi, jatiyo jinish odeshira beshi pochondo korey." (Banana flower, food cooked in banana leaf, type of things odeshis prefer them.) The banana flower has to be “prepared”, before it can be cooked, using a long and complex process 22 requiring great dexterity. Similarly, the process of cooking food carefully wrapped in banana leaves necessitates skill, experience, and patience. Thus, the consultant or respondent’s23 association of East Bengalis with banana flower, and food cooked in banana leaf “type of things” indexes a perception of East Bengalis who are dexterous cooks, and not averse to hard work in contrast to West Bengalis. As the consultant or respondent, the lady at the till, continues to run through the “lunch menu” offered at Suruchi, she emphasises the variety of foods prepared and served. She talks of khichudi24 (kedgeree) made with rice, split pulses, together with spices and often ghee, to which are added seasonal vegetables — cauliflower and potatoes in winter and potato during the monsoons. It is served with a variety of fries: potatoes, aubergines, papod (poppadums), rui (carp), ilish (hilsa), and pabda (Indian butter fish) fish. She points out that there are “a minimum of ” four “varieties” of fish offered everyday: rui (carp), ilish (hilsa), pabda (Indian butter fish), together with bhetki (beckti), chingri (prawns), chitol (feather back), koi (climbing perch), topshey (mango fish) and “whatever small fish are available in the bazaar”. The “varieties of fish preparations” 25 range from chitol muitha (lit. fisted feather back fish),26 rui kalia (carp curry)

vegetables

22 See DasGupta (1998: 84) for a lucid description of the complex process. 23 The consultant or respondent herself was East Bengali. 24 It is interesting to note that she adds, "Jetakey aamra hotchpotch boli," (What we call hotchpotch) since hotchpotch is now an archaic British English word that refers to a mutton stew with mixed vegetables (The Concise Oxford Dictionary 1999: 687). 25 When asked whether shutki (dried fish) is served at Suruchi, she says, "Otai ekta hoi na." (That is the only one that is not done [cooked here].) Shutki, as discussed in chapter 6, is perceived as “typically” East Bengali, and is consumed by East Bengalis from particular parts of Bangladesh, Chittagong and Sylhet. 26 This fish preparation requires long, arduous hours of work that entails picking the innumerable bones of the fish, shaping the de-boned fish by using one’s fist, and cooking it. This dish makes a significant appearance again in the section on the other Bengali restaurant in Calcutta described, Aaheli.

to bhetki mouli (beckti cooked in coconut milk) and shorshey ilish (hilsa in mustard sauce) (Plate 18). She emphasises that the hilsa fish is the restaurant’s “speciality” and “customerra Suruchitey aashey ilish machchtai khetey” (the customers come to Suruchi to eat the hilsa fish). When prodded on the vexed issue of the hilsa fish,27 she volunteers, with an obvious degree of pride: “Ilish, o deshey, Poddar parey, aamader odesher beshi bhalo!’’ [Hilsa, in that desh [that is, East Bengal], across the Padma 28 (river), that belongs to our that desh29 is much better.) On the “non-vegetarian front”, 30 apart from fish, both chicken and “mutton/pathar mangsho’’ (goat’s meat) are served. She warms to the theme of mangsho, and describes the “new variety of mangsho preparation” that they (the restaurant administrators) have named “Mutton Shorshey ’’ (goat’s meat in mustard) so that “the customer can understand”31 what is being served and consumed. The dish, “jar nam chilo magazine ey Mutton Goan ... shomudrer side thekey eshchey recipe ta tai hoyoto namta’’ (whose name was in the magazine [which contained the recipe] Mutton Goan32 ... the recipe33 has come from the seaside, hence perhaps the name34), is cooked with mustard, poppy seeds, and other ingredients. Continuing to lay emphasis on the variety of foods that Suruchi

boasts of, she expands on the “special items” that are offered during festivals such as Noboborsher din (Bengali New Year’s day) and 27 The contentious character of the hilsa fish will become clearer later on in this chapter. Also see chapter 2, fn.12. 28 The river Ganga is called Padma when it flows through Bangladesh. Also see chapter 2, section 2.2.2. 29 As it gradually emerged in the course of the interview, the consultant in question “belonged” to that desh or East Bengal/Bangladesh. 30 As she puts it, “Non-vegetarian itemguli shobi a la carte” (All the nonvegetarian items are a la carte). The use of the non-indigenous terms, especially, “item” and “a la carte” is to be noted. 31 She also talks of another dish, Potoler Mudi Ghonto (Wax Gourd Mudi Ghonto; Mudi Ghonto normally refers to a highly seasoned dish prepared with fish, goat, or sheep head, minced vegetables, and some rice), that has been similarly renamed by those running the restaurant as Chal Potol (Rice Wax Gourd) to make the dish “comprehensible to the customers”. 32 Goa is located on the Arabian Sea coast in western India; Goan cuisine has been strongly influenced by that of the Portuguese who first landed in Calicut on the western coast of India in 1498. 33 The use of the non-indigenous term ‘recipe’ is to be noted. 34 The name of the dish indexes its apparent place of origin.

Jamaishoshthi.35 During such festivals, the restaurant draws large crowds36 desirous of eating “special Bengali food” that is perceived as normal on such occasions: ilish machcher paturi (hilsa in banana leaves), chingri malai curry (prawn coconut curry), pabdar jhal (hot curried Indian butter fish), mutton kosha (meat singed in oil and spices), chicken dopiaza37 (chicken cooked in onions), fried rice, aamer chutney (mango chutney), and payesh (sweetened rice and milk). It is worth noting that the listed “special items” served during festivals celebrated by Bengalis include dopiaza with its Mughal roots, and ‘fried rice’, a Calcutta Bengalised version of Chinese fried rice.38 There are also “special items”, raita39and dahi vada, 40 as normal ‘North Indian’ and ‘South Indian’ food respectively, that are served at Suruchi as accompaniments to normal everyday Bengali food. Moreover, ‘‘notun kono item pelam paper ey, Sananda ey ... sheguli o kora hoi ’’ (if some new item is found in the newspaper, in Sananda [a “women’s” bi-monthly magazine41 popular in Calcutta and Dhaka] ... those are also done). The variety of food, then, is, on the one hand, attuned to the attributes of place, the bazaarscape availability and seasonality that are characteristic components of desh as foodscape. On the other hand, this variety is also in tandem with the broadening of culinary horizons and proliferation of the 35 ‘The sixth day of the waxing moon in the month of Jaistha when the sonin-law is received and blessed by his parents-in-law’ (Samsad Bengali–English Dictionary 1982: 349). Jaistha is the second month of the Bengali calendar from the middle of May to the middle of June. 36 She also includes in her list of festivals, that draw large crowds that wish to eat “special” Bengali foods, “first January” and “pochishey December (25th December)’’. 37 ‘The Do Piaza has been an attraction on the dinner table from the days of the Nimat Nama’ (DasGupta et al. 1995: 119), the Nimat Nama being ‘an exquisitely illustrated pre-Mughal book of recipes’ (ibid.: 99). Dopiaza, meat cooked in ghee with twice (do) the quantity of onions (piaz), is an index of the culinary creativity of Mullah Do Piaza, one of the Nine Jewels in the court of the Mughal emperor Akbar. See DasGupta et al. (1995: 99) for further details of the story of the ‘accidental discovery’ of the recipe. 38 For a brief socio-historical rendition of Chinese food and restaurants in Calcutta, see DasGupta et al. (1995: 261–266). 39 A side dish of yogurt containing chopped cucumber or other vegetables and spices. 40 Deep-fried ground lentil balls tossed into yogurt with spices. 41 Published in Calcutta.

culinary other brought forth by the agency of the mediascape — magazines, newspapers, and cookbooks — and networks of past transactions recalled in the present (indexed, for example, by dopiaza, curry, and begun bashonti), and transformed (incorporated as part of a “special Bengali” meal) so as to be reincorporated for future assemblages. Such variety that is offered is seductive. It a foray in the moment of consumption into “new” or different modes of relating, others’ perceptions of normality, that one makes one’s own so as to reaffirm what is one’s own. And what emerges as one’s own, in the consultant or respondent’s description of a normal everyday Bengali meal, is a predominantly Bengali Hindu meal. This is indexed by a complete absence of beef, and a relative paucity of meat dishes on the menu:42 rice–dal–fish, with the odd meat dish, emerge as intrinsic components of a “normal everyday Bengali meal”.

induces

Aaheli A similar notion of a normal “basic Bengali meal” (basic Bengali middle- and upper-class meal, I add) emerges in the manager’s43 descriptive rendering of the kind of food served in the “upmarket Bengali restaurant” named Aaheli, one of the restaurants contained in the four-star hotel, Peerless Inn, 44 on Dharmatala Street in the heart of Calcutta’s commercial district. Such a meal served by this restaurant comprises of dal–bhaat–torkari–machcher jhole (lentils– rice–vegetables–spiced fish stew/fish in a light gravy) (Plate 20), “preferred by the many Bangladeshi (that is, Muslim) guests who eat either biryani, gosht biryani, or traditional Bengali food”. “Traditional Bengali food”, conflated here with normal Bengali Hindu food, then, is marked by the absence of meat. This perception of normal Bengali food is reinforced by the non-vegetarian (aamish) section of the “menu card” of the restaurant that contains one goat’s meat, and two chicken “items” as opposed to eleven fish “preparations”. It is to

42 This has been described at length later, especially in section 7.1.2. 43 I interviewed the now erstwhile manager of Aaheli in 2001. 44 The hotel “started” on the first day of the Bengali new year 1400 (April 1993), and Aaheli on the 25th day of the month of Baishakh, the Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore’s birthday, which is celebrated in both West Bengal and Bangladesh with great fanfare and is earmarked as an important day that celebrates “Bengali culture” for both Bengali Hindus and Muslims.

be noted here that here the Bengali culinary horizon is defined by its separation from, in contrast to the partial incorporation of (in the case of Suruchi), culinary others. This is indexed, on the one hand, by the exclusion of gosht (Bengali Muslim term for meat) from the “basic Bengali meal” and the relative paucity of meat dishes listed on the “menu card”. On the other hand, it is evidenced by the presence of a multi-cuisine restaurant, Bichitra, 45 alongside Aaheli in the same hotel, that serves “Indian, Chinese, Continental food together with alcohol” as “opposed” to Bengali food. The exclusivity of the Bengali culinary horizon here is also embodied by the founding intention of the director of the hotel board: he was desirous of “opening a Bengali restaurant because there is a Punjabi restaurant, South Indian restaurant ... I want to promote Bengali food”. Moreover, here one finds a momentary foray by others, Bangladeshis and “nonBengalis”,46 including Punjabis, Gujaratis, and Marwaris, into Bengali (Hindu) assemblages of normality indexed by their consumption at the restaurant of the “basic Bengali meal”. Elaborating on the process of preparing perceived normal

“traditional Bengali food” at Aaheli that invites the “non-Bengali47 guest”, the manager emphasises, vis-à-vis fish, the dictates of the bazaarscape availability and seasonal calibration48 of the variety of dishes offered, comparable to the point made earlier by the at Suruchi vis-à-vis vegetables. “Machcher preparation guli kori season ey jerokom bhalo machch bazaarey paoa jai, shei rokom kori. Ekhon dhorun borsha, ekhon koi machch bhalo na, ilish machch ekhon bhalo na — aar ektu borsha poduk tokhon

consultant 45 Feminine form of bichitro = multi-coloured, variegated.

46 According to the consultant, their market survey shows that 60 per cent of Aaheli’s “guests” are non-Bengalis though the restaurant “was started for Bengalis”. 47 Also see chapter 6, fn. 55.

48 This also comes through in his description of the ‘Mango Festival’ that had been organised by the hotel at the time of the interview in May 2001, May being one of the hot summer months when the best mangoes make an appearance in the bazaars, homes, restaurants, fruit juice shops and roadside stalls in Calcutta

and other parts of India. Elaborating on the ‘festival’ further, he quotes the rhyme associated with it: ‘‘Aamer diney, Peerless Inn er upohar, Aam jonotar, aam dorbar.’’ (In the days of [that is, belonging to] the mango, the gift of Peerless Inn, [to] the mango public [that is, mango loving public], [is a] mango durbar [that

is, court of a ruler, the word playing on the image of the mango which is often perceived in India as “the king of fruits”].)

ilish machcher preparation badiye debo.” ([We] do fish preparations according to the kind of good fish available in the bazaar during a season, that kind [we] do. Now for instance [there is] rain [the rainy season, that is, monsoon], now koi fish is not good, hilsa fish now is not good — let it rain a bit more then [we] will increase the preparation of hilsa.) Continuing to elaborate on fish, he adds: “Aamra machchey–bhaatey Bangali keno? Machcho paoa jaye, bhaat o paoa jaye. Aar keno paoa jaye?Nodimatrik desh ... Khabarer shathey nodi shobhbhotar ekta shomporko aachey karon food habit nirbhor korey on availability of food.” (Why are we fish–rice [eating] Bengalis? Fish is also available, rice is also available. And why are they available? [Because] desh is mothered by rivers ... there is a relation between food and a river[ine] civilisation because food habit depends on availability of food.) Hence, what is revealed here is the agency of desh as normal foodscape, the nexus of placeactant, with its riverscape and various seasons, and food-actant, which evinces a particular configuration of relations defined as “Bengali food habits”. Food also reveals its agency in bringing forth temporal of the process of preparing normal Bengali food “traditionally” everyday in the restaurant. It makes time, a facet of food as a thingactant that emerges in its collaborative work of normality in a Bengali middle-class home as described earlier. For instance, the manager at Aaheli, switching between English and Bengali linguistic registers continuously, points out that the nature of mochar ghonto (ghonto49 made with banana flower) is such that “shokaley korey, aapni bikeley serve korley taholey that will stink. Sheygulo onno restaurant ey korajaye kintu aamader ekhaney kora jaye na. Aloo posto shokalerta shokalei kortey hobyey, fridge ey dhokaley taste ta aalada hoye jabey. Jar jonno aamra mochar ghonto, aloo posto, ei shobguli shokalerta shokaley ranna kori, bikelerta bikeley ranna kori. Traditionally boltey geley, Bangali khabar reheat kora jaye na, onno shob khabar korajaye. Gravy tai noshto hoye jaye, taste ta paltiye jaye.” (If you do it in the morning and serve it in the evening then that will stink. All that can be done in other restaurants but in our place [it] cannot be done. The morning aloo posto [potato with poppy seeds] has to be done in the morning, if [you] put it in the fridge the taste will become different [will change]. That is why we

calibrations

49 See fn. 17.

cook mochar ghonto, aloo posto, all these for the morning [meal] in the morning, for the evening [meal] in the evening. Traditionally speaking, Bengali food cannot be reheated, all other foods can be done [reheated]. The gravy itself will spoil, the taste will change.) Thus, “traditional” Bengali food that cannot be reheated, as opposed to all other foods that can, necessitates that food that is served and consumed in the morning has to be cooked in the morning, the same holding for food in the evening meal. Furthermore, the fridge here emerges as a thing-actant 50 insofar as it transforms normal “traditional” Bengali food into what is notnormal: it ruins the gravy, and changes the taste. When questioned about how the restaurant provides food cooked in such a manner for especially large crowds during festivals such as Durga Puja, Bengali New Year’s day, and Jamaishoshti, he adds that on such occasions they “start” the kitchen earlier than they do everyday. Moreover, “half-done korey rekhey di: dhorun futiye rekhey dilam, ketey rekhey dilam”. ([we] do [the food] half-done: for instance, [we] boil [the food] and keep it, cut [the food] and keep it.) Thus, a partial concession is made in part of the normal process of preparing Bengali food “the traditional way”, such a concession only being occasional, and a matter of expediency. So, the food served in the restaurant is “authentic Bengali food”, and, hence, the name Aaheli, which, as the manager points out, “is a Persian word that means ‘authentic’’’, and has been incorporated into the Bengali language. He chanced upon the word while leafing through the pages of a Bengali dictionary in search of an unusual name for the restaurant. “Ta aamio dekhlam jey khanti khabar jokhon khaoabo, ta restaurant ai khanti. Aamar uddeshshota ki? Khanti Bangla khabar — authentic Bengali food — poribeshon kora.” (So I too saw [thought] that if [I] make people eat khanti [pure] food, so the restaurant too is khanti. What is my goal? To serve khanti Bengali food — ‘authentic’ Bengali food.) (It is interesting to note that he translates khanti as ‘authentic’ rather than ‘pure, unadulterated, genuine, real’ [Samsad Bengali–English Dictionary 1982: 242.]). Expanding on the trope of ‘authenticity’ organising the creation and performance of the restaurant, he elucidates the design of the “menu card” shaped as a kulo (a bamboo winnower, especially for 50 See also chapter 4, section 4.4.

rice) (Plate 21). The kulo bears a Jamini Roy painting, depicting a mother feeding her son a handful of rice from a mound of rice on a thala (plate), with bowls containing other foods. “Ei sketchta kintu Jamini Rayer kach thekey dhar kora. Aami shobaikey boli, aami press conference eo boley diyechilam jokhon jiggesh kora holo ‘Ko thekey ei idea ta pelen? ’ Eta Jamini Raier kach thekey copy kora chobita. Etakey ... I try to relate to my restaurant. Mayer thekey khanti prithibitey kwyu nei ... jey jonmo dei, mayer thekey khanti to aar kweyu nei. Taito? Ta ma konodin tar shontankey kharap khabar khaoabey na. Sherokomi Aahelio ma: Aaheli tar guestkey konodin kharap khabar khaoabey na. Shei concept ta.’’ (This sketch however has been borrowed from Jamini Roy. I tell everyone, I had even said at the press conference when it was asked ‘Where did you get this idea from?’ This picture has been copied from Jamini Roy. This ... I try to relate to my restaurant. No one is more pure than a mother on this earth ... the one who gives birth, nobody can be purer than a mother [his tone softens here, taut with emotion]. Isn’t it? [he asks me and my Bengali Hindu companion 51] So a mother will never feed her child bad [that is, not-pure/adulterated] food. Just like that even Aaheli is a mother: Aaheli will never feed her guest bad [that is, not-pure/adulterated] food. That [is the] concept [embodied in the menu card]). The “menu card” then captures the subjectivity of the restaurant: purity, nurture, care, affection, belonging as embodied in motherhood. The use of the word “guest” as opposed to “customer” heightens the sense of the restaurant as a “home” (badi): it evokes the notion that the normal “traditional Bengali food” offered at the restaurant is the food that one would serve at home when one invites a guest, that is, it elicits the agency of normal Bengali food in its hospitality mode. 52 Further aspects of the bamboo winnower or kulo-shaped “menu card” seek to capture the intrinsic properties of “home” (badi). Explaining the intention that made the “menu card” to assume the form of a kulo, he looks at my Bengali Hindu companion and addresses her: “Aapnar jedin biye hoyechilo, aapnar shashudi tokhon aapnakey boron koreychilen kulo diye. Kulota hochchey shubho ebong welcomer protik. Shei jonnoi ei menu card ta hochchey 51 A 28-year old woman who has lived in Calcutta all her life. 52 This also comes through in the description of the consultant in the Dhaka restaurant discussed in section 7.1.2.

kulo — kulo diye boron kora, as if we are welcoming you to our abode. Aamader baditey, Aahelitey, aapnakey welcome korchi. Ki khelen, sheta shudhu bodo kotha noi, kothai khelen, shetao hochchey bodo kotha ... how you are treated, how you are welcomed ... poribesh boddo kotha. Ekhaney dhorun alcohol not allowed karon Bengali food does not go with alcohol — aapni postor shathey beer khelen, sheta hoi na, mushoor daler shongey vodka cholbey na. Aar ditityo karon hochchey, aamra chai jey badir lokera, ma-bonera ekhaney aashuk ... tara drinks er gondho onek shomoi shojjo kortey parey na ... Aapni dhorun aamader multi-cuisine restaurant aachey, Bichitra, jekhaney Indian, Chinese, Continental, alcohol serve hoi. Sheikhaney aamader dhorun traditional jara badir bou ba mayera, they don’t feel comfortable. Aamader ekhaney onekey poribesher jonney kintu aashey.’’ (The day you got married, your mother-in-law then welcomed/accepted you ceremonially [boron kora] with a kulo. The kulo is auspicious and a symbol of welcome. That is why this menu card is [in the shape of] a kulo — to welcome ceremonially with a kulo, as if we are welcoming you to our abode. In our house, in Aaheli, [we] are welcoming you. What [you] ate is not the only big [significant] thing, where [you] ate, that is also a big [significant] thing ... how you are treated, how you are welcomed ... poribesh [lit. environment, surrounding] [is the] significant thing. Here, for example, alcohol is not allowed because Bengali food does not go with alcohol — you drink beer with posto [poppy seeds], that is/cannot not done, mushoor [whole/split dried red lentil] dal cannot be accompanied by vodka. And the second reason is that we want that home people (that is, families), mothers–sisters53 can come here ... they often cannot tolerate the stench of drinks. You take for example our multi-cuisine restaurant that we have, Bichitra, where Indian, Chinese, Continental, alcohol are served. There, for example, those who are wives or mothers from our traditional houses [that is, belong to traditional families], they don’t feel comfortable. Many come to our’s [our place] for the poribesh.) Eating in Aaheli then is akin to eating in a normal Bengali home (badi) where one is made to feel welcome and is accepted as one’s 53 It is to be noted that the “guests” at Aaheli include women, in contrast to the clients at Suruchi who consist predominantly of men (during the work week) as described earlier.

own. Consumption of “alcohol” (the use of the non-indigenous word indexes the ‘foreign’ nature of its consumption) with normal Bengali food is not-normal, and is, moreover, a gendered activity. Normal food then brings forth perceptions of “traditional” Bengali homes with their “traditional” Bengali women who are often even overwhelmed by the “stench” of alcohol. Moreover, in consuming normal food, one also consumes the attributes, character, and the ambience of the place where the food is prepared, served, and eaten: the fact that many come to Aaheli to eat because of its home poribesh makes visible the agency of foodscape. There is yet another aspect of the kulo-shaped ‘menu card’ which sports the name ‘Aaheli’ in “alpona54 style” that indexes home (badi). Describing in detail the manner in which the name ‘Aaheli’ is printed on the menu card, the manager, continuing in a mix of English and Bengali, says: “Ei lekhata kintu aamader trademark registered. Etar karon hochchey ektu beki beki lekha. Bangali culturerer shathey ekta alponar jogajog aachey. Baditey kono utshob holey, aamra baditey ektu alpona di, Lokkhi pujotey ... chaler gudo diye ektu alpona kori. Ta shei culturetakey dhorey rekhechi, Bangali culture ... shei jonnei eirokom ‘Aaheli’ — eta hochchey alpona style.” (This writing [referring to the way in which the name is written] however is our trademark registered. The reason for this is that it is written in a slightly flowing manner. There is a connection between Bengali culture and alpona. If there is a festival or ceremony at home, we give [do] a bit of alpona during Lokkhi puja ... with ground rice [paste] we do a bit of alpona. So [we] have held onto that culture, Bengali culture ... that is why it is this way ‘Aaheli’ [that is, written in this way] — this is alpona style.) Hence, the name of the restaurant is written in a manner that is intimately related to the worship of gods and celebration of “Bengali culture” at home, and it seeks to “hold onto” the “Bengali culture” that is perceived as being lost. Moreover, it does so by using a discourse that is not indigenous, a Euro-American legal discourse of intellectual property rights; a trademark, a form or domain of intellectual property, whose

relations,

54 Alpona, ‘apotropaic patterns’, ‘auspicious threshold designs’ (Gell 1998: 84), similar to the kolam in Tamil Nadu, and also drawn in other parts of southern and eastern India, index the agency of women who make them free-hand, normally with rice powder in Bengal.

contemporary doctrine ‘holds a legally protected mark ... to be a distinguishing marker of origin for the product or service with which it is marketed’ (Coombe 1998a: 60). So, performing “traditional Bengali food” perceived as normal, brought into conjunction with the use of the “alpona style” of writing the name of a restaurant serving such food, here constitutes a private and exclusive55 right. This right intends to prevent confusion or potential confusion in the ‘public mind’ as to the singular source that replicates such food continuously: “authentic”, normal Bengali food that captures a mode of relations that emerge as Bengali interiority or “home”. That is, food that evokes ‘relations of difference that are constantly in articulated circulation’ (Coombe 1998a: 165, emphases mine) as Bengaliness (Bangalitto), a particular (Bengali) form of being-withall-kinds-of-others perceived as normality.

specific

However, the normal, “authentic traditional Bengali food” that is

cooked, served, and consumed in the restaurant is not so “authentic” or “original” after all, for it derives from a “balance” that has been struck between East and West Bengali (odeshi, or that desh, and edeshi, or this desh) cuisines. This is necessitated by the fact that the restaurant caters to both East and West Bengali “guests” who normally consume what they perceive as “their” respective normal, everyday Bengali foods. As the manager puts it, “Dui Banglar cooking style ey onekta tofat aachey. Aamader kintu ektu bebshatao dekhtey hoi to. Aapni dhorun aamar baditey aamar bou jerokom ranna korey telkoi, thik shei telkoi aami ekhaney poribeshon kortey pari na. Tar karon hochchey aamakey dekhtey hobey aamar client kara. Ta aamakey kortey hoi ki, I have to strike a balance. Aapni jodi bolen aami khanti Bangali badir khaddo poribeshon korchi, aami bolbo na. I will be honest karon aamakey to ektu generalise kortey hoyechey, recipe takey paltatey hoyechey: dhorun ektu mishti beshi ditey hoyechey. Oi ekta balance maintain korey kori aamra.” (There is quite a difference in the cooking styles of the two Bengals [that is, East and West]. But we also have to look a bit into our business [that is, we have to make certain modifications required by 55 Of course, apropos Coombe’s (1998b: 207) note of caution against defining domains of intellectual property as providing absolute rights of exclusion, it has to be borne in mind that these domains ‘are premised on a social bargain that grants specific rights and imposes specific responsibilities on holders who exercise these rights in the public sphere’.

the exigencies of the hospitality industry]. You take, for example, the way my wife cooks telkoi [climbing perch in oil] at home, that telkoi I will not be able to serve here. The reason is I have to see who are my ‘clients’ [the switch from ‘guest’ to ‘client’ indexes his concern here with networks of commercial associations]. What I have to do is, I have to strike a balance. If you say that I am serving khanti [pure, genuine, for him “authentic”] Bengali home food, I will say no. I will be honest because I have had to generalise a bit, [I] have had to modify the recipe: for instance I have had to add a bit more sweet [that is, sugar]. We do [cook the food] by maintaining a kind of balance.) Giving examples that further evoke the differences in the cooking styles on either side of the border between West Bengal and Bangladesh that necessitate modifications in parts of the process of preparing the food served in the restaurant, he adds: “Aamar Borishaley jerokom aamra moshla ektu beshi khai, jhal thik na. Aami ektu telkoi-toi beshi khai because I belong to Borishal although I was born here. Aamar jonmo ekhaney kintu aamar bap-thakurdar desh Borishal. Ta aamader khabarerstyle aalada. Aamra, jemon dhorun, shutki machch khai na, aamar gondho lagey. Kintu aamar stri jehetu Noakhali–Chittagonger lok — they prefer shutki. Shobaiyer jonnoto ota kora jaye na. Aami jodi shutki kori gondhor jonney onno lok khabey na — shutorang onno guest tadiye diye aapnakey khali dekhbo shetato cholbey na. Shei jonney motamoti ekta jaigaye balance kortey hoi.” (In my Borishal,56 for example, we eat a bit more of spices, not exactly chilli [food]. I eat a bit more of telkoi etc. because I belong to Borishal although I was born here. My place of birth is here [that is, Calcutta] but my ancestors’ desh is Borishal. So our cooking style is different. For instance, we do not eat shutki machch [dried fish] [ Plates 22 and 23], I find it stinks. But because my wife is a person from Noakhali– Chittagong — they prefer shutki. That cannot be done for all. If I do [prepare and serve] shutki, other people will not eat because of the stink — hence looking after only you [that is, catering only to your preferences] by driving away other guests is not something that can be done. That is why approximately a balance has to be done [maintained]). And, of course, what the customers or “guests” prefer 56 ‘Such idioms ... make manifest a commonality between those who are able to claim the same (place) as “their own’’’ (Edwards and Strathern 2000: 163).

is indexed by their purse, that is, what they actually purchase and consume at the restaurant. Thus, the “traditional Bengali food” that is served in the Bengali restaurant is a modified form of normal food performed at home. It emerges as an “approximate balance” attuned to the exigencies of commercial networks, a point that resonates with that made by the consultant at Suruchi. Paradoxically, then, it is the agency of desh as normal foodscape itself, for instance in its olfactory (stink) and gustatory (spicy) modes (shutki is preferred by people belonging to Noakhali–Chittagong, more spicy food is by those from Borishal), that demands the “balance” or “generalisation”. Normality in its everyday mode requires a in normality in its hospitality (here commoditised) mode. That is, the restaurant, with certain private property rights vested in it, acquires power to reconfigure normality, and convert desh as normal foodscape into a manipulable object entangled in market transactions (commodify it). Finally, the manager’s description of Calcutta Bengali recipients of the restaurant’s perception of “authentic traditional Bengali food” is rather revealing in that it makes visible present notions, recalling the past, and protending into the future, of the ‘domestic’ domain and normal gendered relations.57 Describing the “fast-moving items” 58 on the menu card, he picks on one, chitol muitha (lit. fisted feather back fish). This requires a long and complex process of preparation that includes picking the innumerable fine bones of the fish, squeezing the back portion of the fish in one’s fist, and then cooking it. “Baditey shei didimara janey kintu aapni banatey janen na.” (At home the grandmothers know but you don’t know how to make it [he addresses my Bengali Hindu companion, M, confidently stating this rather than questioning her]). When M, on being asked whether she cooks, shakes her head in negation, the manager continues: “Taholey? Uthey jabey! Aaamra na thakley to aagami diney Bangla rannata to uthei jabey!” (Then? [It] will disappear! If we are not there, in the coming days [that is, the future] Bengali cooking will disappear!) Then looking at me, he says, “Aajkal husband–wife chakri korey, era ranna janey na ... eder to fast food culture eshey gechey. Dujonei chakri korey, kay aachey? Bairey giye rastaye puchka khabey, ei khabey ... bodojorey

consumed modification

57 See also chapter 3, section 3.4.

58 That is, those which sell really well.

baditey giye noodles-phoodles diye kichu banabey.” (These days husband–wife do jobs, they don’t know how to cook ... for them fast food culture has come in. Both do jobs, who is there? [They] go outside on the streets to eat puchka,59 to eat this [that and the other] ... at the most [they] will go home and make something with noodles etc.) Continuing his discourse on “today’s young couples”, he points out that they are the regular “out-eaters”, who have the money to go out and eat, as opposed to him and his wife, who “konodin poisha khorcha korey bairey khabo na. Sheirokom obostha nei karon aami to petuk lok, aamar bou ranna kortey janney. Kintu ekhonkar jara ... uni jar bou, tar to kopaley dukhkho! Karon shey to tar ichchey thakleyo to tar khaoar upaye nei, kenona shey kothai jabey? Tar jodi ichcheyo korey jey bhalo telkoi khabo, ba pabda khaborey aar banabar shomoi nei kenona TV dekhbey, magazine podbey, onno jaigaye jabey. Na, bolchi, baditey hoyoto nacher class aachey, ganer class achey, bachchakey niye podashunar bepar aachey — rannato bhulei gechey. Ta jabey kothai? Ei class tar hatey poisha aachey, aamar aar aamar bouer poisha nei Aahelitey giye khabar khaoa. Kintu they can afford. Shutorang, ei ekta market aamra peyechi.” (will never spend money to eat outside [that is, go out to eat]. [My] condition is not like that because I am a gourmand, my wife knows how to cook. But those of present times [that is, the young men “these days”] ... whose wife she is [looking at M], he is an unhappy man! Because he cannot eat [“traditional Bengali food”] even if he so desires because where will he go? Even if he has the desire that he will eat good telkoi or pabda — she does not have the time to cook because [she] will watch TV, read magazines, will go elsewhere [rather than cook]. No, [I am] saying [that is, I mean]60 perhaps there are dancing classes at home, singing classes, 61 there is the matter of children’s studies — [they, that is, young Bengali women “these days”] have forgotten how to cook. So where will [the young men wishing to eat “traditional Bengali food”] go? This 59 Semolina or flour balls stuffed with spicy mashed potatoes, gram seeds, and tamarind water, normally eaten as a snack. 60 Explaining his previous statement in a placatory note to tone down his

scathing criticism of young Bengali women “these days”. 61 Referring to the fact that there are Bengali women who give lessons in music and dance at home, often to children, thereby contributing to the household income.

class has money in its hands, my wife and I do not have money to go to Aaheli and eat food. But they can afford [it]. Hence, this is one market that we have got.) When I point out, however, that “this class”, that is, middle-class Bengalis, can afford to employ rannar lok (cooks) who can cook, he predicts that in the future, one will not be able to employ such cooks. This is simply because they will not be around seeking employment. The Left–Front government62 will have generated employment in “the rural areas from where these women actually come to the city to look for work”. According to him, the people that are now employed as cooks and domestic helps in the city of Calcutta are “all Bangladeshis”, and not “original village people” (that is, people from the villages of West Bengal). Thus, the “economic development of rural West Bengal”, also indexed by the sharp decline in the number of “real” beggars63 on the streets of Calcutta crying out “phen din, kwyu khetey dao go’’ (give [me] phen [the water in which rice is boiled],64 somebody give me to eat), according to him implies that “after this” (in the future), one will not find people who can be employed as cooks. ‘‘Rannar lok petey geley pishimakey dhortey hobey, ba karur thakurma, didima, erai thakbey. Aar aapni jokhon didima hoben, aapni to rannai janen na. Aapnar to kono kajey lagbey na! Sheikhaney aamra aachi.” (To get rannar lok [cooking people] [you] will have to get hold of aunts, or somebody’s paternal grandmother, maternal grandmother, they will be the ones. And when you [addressing M] will become a [maternal] grandmother, you don’t even know how to cook. You will not be of any use! There [that is, to cook normal “traditional Bengali food”] we are there.) Thus, young women “these days”, who work (have a vocation) outside home, “watch TV, read magazines, ... go elsewhere”, do not have the capacity to cook or replicate “traditional Bengali food”. Such 62 The communist Left–Front government has been in power in West Bengal

since 1977. See also chapter 2, fn. 58. 63 The beggars that one now finds begging on the streets of Calcutta are, according to him, “professional beggars”, that is members of organised begging rackets.

64 An allusion to the Bengal Famine of 1943–44 when millions of people begged on the streets of Calcutta for phen. Almost all consultants or respondents, who either had faint memories of the event, or of the stories handed down to them by those who had lived through it, described this begging for phen, when

asked about the Famine.

women, with their present dis-capacity to retain and replicate the normal performance of “traditional Bengali food”, do not, therefore, embody ‘traditional Bengali womanhood and domesticity’ but rather an emergent “fast food culture”. This, coupled with the development of rural West Bengal that implies the future unavailability of villagers who can be employed as cooks, will necessitate the performance of normal Bengali “traditional” food by present grandmothers and aunts with retained memories of, and capacity to, replicate such performance. And the making of such normal food will be undertaken by restaurants such as Aaheli that will emerge as keepers of a “tradition” that would otherwise be lost or “disappear” when the present ‘not-traditional’ young Bengali housewives become grandmothers, that is, in the future. Hence, Aaheli, mediating wider networks of commercial and historical associations, and with its capacity to protend the performance of “traditional Bengali food” as an “approximate balance” between East and West Bengali foods, emerges as the inside of the outside (bairey) that seeks to prevent normal Bengali interiority (ghorey) from being lost, albeit in a “modified” form.

economic

7.1.2 Dhaka Bengali Restaurants We now move to a Bengali restaurant in Dhaka that serves normal hospitable food that is prepared for guests at home in Dhaka. This illuminates the emergent definitions of what is perceived as Bangladeshi Bengali home food vis-à-vis West Bengali Bengali home food, as entangled in the networks of the critical events that characterise the biography of this region. That is to say, it brings forth elements of similarity and contrast between normality as assembled by Bengali home food in Calcutta and Dhaka, and the work of such food in evoking conjoined relations of Bengaliness and Bangladeshi ‘national identity’.

normal

Kolapata Located in Gulshan, one of Dhaka’s plush up-market areas, Kolapata (lit. banana leaf) is a “Bengali” restaurant that serves “authentic Bengali fare” that “we would normally offer in our homes when we invite people” (that is, hospitable food), 65 as one of the four owners

65 This has been described in chapter 5.

of the restaurant put it. The consultant or respondent, 66 a Bengali Muslim who “was brought up in Dhaka, been here all my life” but is “from Noakhali” (that is, his desh is Noakhali), points out: “Kolapata is perhaps the only restaurant in town with a philosophy, the philosophy being to bring the best of authentic Bangla food, that we are still in the process of defining, ...and defining.” Describing the emergent normal “authentic” Bengali food prepared and served at the restaurant, he emphasises all the work that has gone into “developing” what they now offer, though underlining that this is “our (that is, his and his partners’) own understanding of what Bangla food is. I personally have spoken to many many Bangla baburchis (cooks),67 Christians, Hindus, Bangalis68 (that is, Bengalis). Because the Christian baburchis are a link with our past. The Hindu pachoks (cooks) have left, and the Bangalis, the Musalmans have no clue. So we have sort of tried to ... We are four partners. Each one of us tried to remember what our mothers used to offer, what used to be offered at our table. So we initially came up with those. And then, we spoke to old people, Christian chefs. And then developed what we have now.” Thus, “authentic” Bengali food perceived as normal by the emerges as a processual definition that entails a continuum of continua of retentions and protentions (Gell 1998). 69 It entails their memories of what their mothers continuously retained and protended as normal Bengali food, the old cooks’ recalling of what they retained and replicated as such food in the past. Normal “authentic” Bengali food in the present here is also elicited as an effect of the historical associations of Partition, in that it indexes the Christian cooks’ notions of normal Bengali food, given that the Hindu cooks left in 1947. It is noteworthy that the part-owner of Kolapata describes Christian “baburchis” as “a link with our past”,

restaurateurs

66 He speaks mostly in English but switches periodically to Bengali. 67 ‘Baburchi’ is a Hindi word that refers to ‘a Muslim cook or chef’ (Samsad Bengali–English Dictionary 1982: 650). It is to be noted that the consultant uses the word ‘baburchi’ when talking about Christian cooks (later on he uses ‘chefs’) but uses the word ‘pachok’ when talking about Hindu cooks.

68 It is interesting to note that while most of the consultant’s speech is in English, he frequently uses the Bengali word ‘Bangla’ throughout, rather than the English word ‘Bengali’. 69 Gell (1998), after Husserl.

that is, the past of East Bengal/Bangladesh, in that here “Bengalis/ Bangalis” encompasses Christians70 as well as Hindus and Muslims, which differs from what emerges in the consultants’ or respondents’ definitions of Bengalis in the Calcutta Bengali restaurants. The use of “baburchis”, a term referring to Muslim cooks, in connection with Christian cooks, as opposed to Hindu “pachoks”, also serves to reinforce the encompassment of Christians in the category “ours”, and the othering of Bengali Hindus. Moreover, the word “link” evokes a sense of past as being lost, a theme also revealed by the Aaheli (Calcutta) consultant’s rendering of normal Bengali food. The Christian cooks then emerge as a ‘conduit’, a point of passage for keeping a hold on that which is flowing (away, that is, past relations as perceived normality), ‘stopping the flow’ (Strathern 1996) so as to redirect it, transform it in the present for future ongoing relations of normality. The consultant or respondent at Kolapata further describes the food now served in the restaurant for lunch as “ghoroa ranna” (home cooking/food), that is, food prepared, served, and consumed in Bengali homes. This resonates with what the two consultants or respondents at the Bengali restaurants, Suruchi and Aaheli, in Calcutta delineated as being done there as well. Describing the indexes of normality as “ghoroa ranna”, he says, “Hygiene is a very important factor in Kolapata; we ensure that.” A further attribute of the restaurant that indexes it as a “ghoroa bepar” (a matter pertaining to ghor/ghorey, that is, interiority) is that only women are employed to serve the food which contrasts with other restaurants in Dhaka. “These girls really are from the villages, and it has taken us a long time to train them. They are from all over Bangladesh, and aastey aastey korey aamra oder develop koreychi ” ([we] have developed them slowly slowly). And “our original cook was a Bangali Hindu woman from Rajshahi. She was a wonderful cook but she left because her former employer wanted her back. She was very good ... and she was fat but I think a cook has to be fat. A slim cook does not enjoy eating, and anyone who does not enjoy 70 0.31 per cent of the total population of Bangladesh is Christian (Census Report 2001, Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, Dhaka: http://www.bbs.gov.bd), while in the neighbouring Indian state of West Bengal Christians constitute 0.64 per cent of the total population (2001) (Census of India 2001, C-Series at http://-

www.censusindia.net).

eating can’t be a good cook.” Thus the restaurant, with its emphasis on “hygiene”, here conflated with cleanliness, and indexing the agency of women as cooking and serving Bengali food, with the former fat chief cook71 also embodying the ‘defining ideals of womanhood and motherhood (as) nourish(ing) and life giving’ ( Janeja 2003: 125–126),72 seeks to replicate a normal Bengali home. This resonates with the similar work in eliciting interiority attempted in the two Calcutta restaurants. Describing some of the future plans of the restaurant to serve “authentic Bangla fare (which) we are still developing”, the or respondent adds, “East Bengal had a lot of station fare where the British saheb73 was pleased by the local cook’s rendering of … a mixture of our concept of British khana74 (cooked food) and Bangla spices. For instance, spicy stews unlike the bland British ones. Those came out of the station ones. And then we had the famous rocket steamer which used to ply between Dhaka and Khulna, and Goalondo and ... Now rocket had a very special cuisine. Again it was a melding of British and Bangla tastes and flavours where you had fried bhetkis (that is, beckti fish), not in a bland pattern but with a tangy pattern, and soups and stuff that were served. My partners did not let me try that plan but we have now agreed that we are going to ... Right now I can’t recollect the details but basically that is what I have come up with.” Hence, the emergent “authentic” Bengali food projected into the future recalls past networks of transactions and negotiations between “British food” and “Bangla spices”, “tastes and flavours” at stations and on steamers transporting people and things between places, ‘networks of movements and stoppages’.75 This emergent “authentic”

consultant

71 Her agency, as a Bengali Hindu cook, is still indexed by the distinct and wide range of vegetarian foods that the restaurant offers. In the words of the consultant, this was “her contribution”. 72 For more on Bengali perceptions of fat or abundant bodies, and particularly fat female bodies, see Janeja (2003). 73 ‘An Englishman or a European’ ( Samsad Bengali–English Dictionary 1982: 885). 74 An Urdu word. 75 Cf. Gell’s (1998: 242–51) analysis of Duchamp’s artworks, including ‘The Network of Stoppages’. Allsen’s (2001: 127–140; 189–211) study of Mongol Eurasia in the 13th century reveals that the work of food in incorporating, filtering, and excluding the ‘foreign’ is a very old activity in Asian cultural arenas.

Bengali food though is not normal Bengali “home food”. However, the restaurant intends to serve this food in a surround that seeks to replicate the ambience of a Bengali “home”, thereby expanding the horizon of the inside to include the outside (bairey). The consultant or respondent continues further on future plans for the restaurant, “Right now I am in the process of trying to develop a dinner menu, and I have decided to stick to Dhaka (that is, Dhakaiya food).76 Because I found out that we don’t have a dinner menu per se in Bangla cuisine: we eat the same things that we eat for lunch. Except for breakfast which is panta bhaat (leftover rice soaked overnight in water and consumed the next morning)77 which one wouldn’t offer in a restaurant ... we have the same food for all occasions. So, for a different fare for dinner we have to resort to Dhaka which is again what a Dhakaiya would eat at any time of day or night. But that sort of falls in place with our concept of having a richer meat-based dinner ... Lunch would probably be more fish and vegetable-based.”78 Elaborating on the kind of food he describes as Dhakaiya food, he says, “I am differentiating between Bangla and Dhakaiya. Dhakaiya is more influenced by north and central Indian Muslim cuisine.” When I ask him whether he is referring to Mughlai cuisine,79 he elucidates: “Yes but Mughlai is not beef-based but Dhakaiya is. So it is not really Mughlai north Indian but uniquely Dhakaiya. The basic ingredient in Mughlai fare, the spices, are very different in Dhakaiya ... Dhakaiya dishes are less spicy and maybe not so rich in oil. Dhakaiya food is lighter than Mughlai. And the difference between Dhakaiya and north Indian is that the tandoor 76 Here he conflates the place, Dhaka, with the food of Dhakaiyas, perceived inhabitants of old Dhaka, living on the other side of the river Buriganga, whose dress, speech, and food are very distinctive. For instance, “They have tehari (a rich beef biryani) for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.” 77 Usually consumed by the poor. Also see chapter 3, fn. 93. 78 Similar to perceptions of a normal Bengali meal (lunch) that emerge in the descriptions of the two consultants in the Calcutta Bengali restaurants. 79 As Appadurai (1988: 13) describes it: ‘Mughlai cuisine is a royal cuisine that emerged from the interaction of the Turko-Afghan culinary traditions of the Mughal rulers with the peasant foods of the North Indian plains. [It was] diffuse[d] through the royal courts of North India, and … is the cuisine of reference for the great restaurateurs of northern and western India … [I]t’s Indic base is restricted to the north and west of the subcontinent. It derives nothing of significance from the cuisines of Maharashtra, Bengal, Gujarat, or of any of the southern states.’

in Dhakaiya has taken the form of grills, open ones whereas in north India you cook in a closed oven. And the flavours that come out are quite different.” Thus, normal “Bangla” food performed at the restaurant expands to incorporate a culinary other, Dhakaiya, that has emerged out of negotiations with north Indian Muslim cuisine. The latter itself is an effect of the negotiations between Turko-Afghan culinary forms of the Mughal rulers, who came to India in the first half of the 16th century, and the ‘peasant foods of the North Indian plains’ (Appadurai 1988: 13). The consultant or respondent, however, delineates, on the one hand, the uniqueness, and hence separateness, of this tobe-incorporated culinary other from Indian (north) food through a descriptive rendering of the agency of thing-actants employed in the two culinary processes and the predominance of beef,80 which reflects the history of Partition (discussed below). On the other, he describes the manner in which this to-be-incorporated culinary other “sort of falls in place with our concept of having a richer meatbased dinner”, that is, Bangladeshi Bengali Muslim perception of a normal dinner. 81 For the restaurateur, not only is Dhakaiya food, that the intends to offer on the dinner menu in the future, distinct from north Indian Mughlai and tandoori food, normal Bangla/Bengali food in Dhaka is differentiated from West Bengali (Indian) food. Explaining why Bangladeshi Bengali food is not marked by a predominance of vegetables in contrast to West Bengali food, he says, ‘‘Poshchim Banglar (West Bengali) vegetarian fare would definitely be better because we have the impression that vegetables are for poor people, and if I have vegetables on my table, it would be beneath my dignity. Aamra subconsciously jani jey gramey jokhon gorib chilam tokhon to shakshobji khutiye niye ranna korechi. Ekhon bodolok hoye gechi, ota kortey jabo keno? Aamar aaro tel dorkar, aaro machch, aaro mangsho … Aamra meat, fish, poultry, social statuser shathey identify kori. Aamra gosht khai, machch khai, shakshobji khai na ... More expensive food, not cheap food. Ekhon shikhkhar shathey, better health knowledgeer shathey aabar

restaurant

80 The absence of beef in a normal meal for Bengali Hindus has already been described in chapter 4, section 4.4. 81 Cf. Noguchi (1994) and Allison (1997) on how lunch and lunch-boxes can become part of national identity.

shobji khaoata shuru hochchey.” (We subconsciously know that when we were poor in the village then we have meticulously looked for edible creepers–vegetables and cooked [that is, we were so poor that we had to painstakingly gather creepers and vegetables, that is, even cheap foods]. Now we have become rich, why should we do that? We will eat more oil, more fish, more meat ... We identify meat, poultry, fish with social status. We eat gosht (meat), eat fish, don’t eat creepers and vegetables ... More expensive food, not cheap food). 82 Thus, the present emphasis on meat and fish, at the expense of vegetables, perceived as normal “Bangladeshi cuisine” (middle class), emerges as an effect of remembered scarcity in present ‘abundance’ indexed by the “fantastic rate” of urbanisation83 and increase in wealth.84 It also emerges as an effect of the efforts to “have our own culture, our own identity, our own definitions that we are still defining” as distinct from West Bengali (Indian) ‘identity’, which recall the critical events of the Partition of India in 1947, and the 1971 Bangladesh War, a point which he elaborates at great length. “From the early 20th century we realised, Banglakey jhokhon bhag kora holo jey united Bengaley aamader kono ostitto, porichoy chilo na — aami bolchi Musholmander pokhkhey. Aamader ekta tremendous identity crisis chilo: aamra economically shanghatik deprived chilam; socially we belonged to a much lower rung. There were some upper-class Muslims who identified themselves with what was then Calcutta-based culture. East Bengaley tokhon aamra ki, aamra nijey jantam na. 47ey prothom aamra ekta identity pelam, je aamra ekta shadhin desh aar aamader ostitto deoa hoyechilo jey aamra Musholman from Bengali. Tokhon dekhlam jey aagey Calcutta-based cultureer shathey identify kortey hoto, ekhon Pakistan desher shathey identify kortey hobey: aamader kichui holo na, by and large the lot of the Bangladeshi Bengalis remained the same. In 1971 aamra prothom nijederkey establish korlam as an independent entity. Tokhon rejection of Pakistan became synonymous with rejection of ourselves as Bengali Muslims. Tokhon aar ekta confusion aarambho holo: taholey aamra ki? Karon aamra dekhlam jey Poschim Bangalider shathey aamader 82 Though now, he adds, “with education, with better health knowledge again the eating of vegetables has started”. 83 As the consultant or respondent points out, “In 1970 Dhaka’s population was 700, 000 of which 500, 000 were Bengalis. Today, it is 10 million.”

kono meel nei; aamader bhashao onek aalada. Aami monay kori ei state of fluxta ekhono aachey. And that is reflected in our food habits also. Aamader aagey jerokom machch prochur chilo, ekhon sheta nai. Aagey jerokom gramer lokera shoptahey ba mashey du–ekbar meat kheto, ekhon machch paye na, daily meat khaye. So aamader ekhono Bangladeshi cuisine boley kichu identify kora is very difficult. (From the early 20th century we realised, when Bengal was partitioned,85 that in united Bengal we had no existence, identity — I am talking about Muslims. We had a tremendous identity crisis: economically we were extremely deprived; socially we belonged to a much lower rung. There were some upper-class Muslims who identified themselves with what was then Calcuttabased culture. Then what we were in East Bengal, we ourselves did not know. In ’47 [that is, 1947] we first got an identity, that we are an independent country and we were given an identity that we were Muslim from Bengali [that is, Muslim rather than Bengali]. Then we saw that earlier we had to identify with Calcutta-based now we had to identify with the desh of Pakistan: nothing happened for us [that is, we gained nothing], by and large the lot of the Bangladeshi Bengalis remained the same. In 1971 we first established ourselves as an independent entity. Then rejection of Pakistan became synonymous with rejection of ourselves as Bengali Muslims. Then another confusion started: then what are we? Because we saw that we have nothing in common with West Bengal; even our language is very different. I think this state of flux is there even now. And that is reflected in our food habits also. Earlier for instance we had a lot of fish, now we don’t have that. Earlier for instance the people in the villages used to eat meat once–twice in a week or month, now they don’t get fish, [they] eat meat everyday. 86 So to identify something as Bangladeshi cuisine even now is very difficult.) The consultant or respondent’s statement about the absence of fish in the normal everyday meal of the poor is to be noted. For,

culture,

84 In the words of the consultant, “We have become richer, very rich. Some

people are so rich, you have no clue how rich they are.” 85 Here referring to the first partition of Bengal in 1905, which was later revoked in 1911. See also chapter 2, fn. 4. 86 This contradicts what the two live-in domestic helps, Lisa and Latika, in the Dhaka household described in chapters 3, 4, and 5, say they eat in their desh (villages) everyday.

while fish, which is an intrinsic component of a normal Bengali meal, continues to be consumed by the middle classes, it is now an increasingly significant absence in the everyday meal of the poor in Bangladesh. This is attributed by most of my consultants to the increased exports of fish caught in Bangladeshi waters, and the lack of restrictions on fishing all the year round, that does not allow sufficient time for breeding. As some of my consultants pointed out, amongst the Hindus in West Bengal, for example, there are religious injunctions on the consumption of hilsa fish from around September to February, which allows the fish to replenish their dwindling numbers. Continuing in the same vein, the part owner of the restaurant says, “West Bengal aar East Bengaler basic difference (that is, the basic difference between West and East Bengal) is that we are still developing, we don’t know where we are. In West Bengal you (that is, West Bengalis) have developed, you know your past ... Ekhon (now), now you are lost because you are identifying yourself with western India. You see, what was happening to us with Pakistan, is what is happening to you now. We don’t have that confusion anymore. We have political parties who are trying to create but apart from that we are a very defined people. That being granted, we now have to define other parameters, in our culture, in our food.” Hence, the agency of normal “Bangladeshi cuisine”, attached to wider historical networks is elicited in the process of seeking to define the ‘identity’ of a nation and its people “in a state of flux”. The continuous process of defining its foodscape as a trope for perceiving normality recalls the past transformed in an ongoing present and bodied forth into the future as potential that configure as ‘Bangladeshi Bengali identity’.

problems

relations 7.2 'Owni g' Normal Food: Notions of Belonging, Property, and Identity

What emerge in the descriptive renderings of the Bengali in Calcutta and Dhaka above are relations of ownership: (1) as belonging, that food generates between persons, places, and things through the work of mediation; and (2) such relations of belonging that are recognised/disputed, and appropriated as rights of possession. That is, normal food elicits relations of belonging that divide, and relations of property that disown (Strathern 1996:

restaurants

531). It is in such relations of ownership that forms of relatedness as Bengaliness and Bengali identity are emergent. Now, in the collaborative work of normality, food gathers together multiple spatio-temporally dispersed actants — persons, places, and things — in a particular configuration perceived as desh so that they belong to one another as desh. The network here is ‘homogeneous in so far as (it) presupposes a continuity of between human and non-human forms’ 87 (ibid.: 525; emphasis mine). Thus, food performed in a particular way, the way it is done in one’s desh, the place where one or “one’s ancestors were born”, say for example Sylhet, is named after the desh, and is called Sylheti food, that is, food belonging to the place or desh Sylhet. And the persons enacting the process of preparing and consuming such food emerge as Sylhetis, a collectivity belonging to or named after the foodscape or desh Sylhet, identifying themselves as such. The process of continuous replication of Bengali food crystallises people’s affinities, connectivities, and separations along a shifting and transactional divide between those who belong and those who do not to a particular desh, to East Bengal (Bangladesh)/West Bengal and specific regions or cities and villages within it, to such as bhadralok/poor, Hindu/Muslim. Persons thus expand their sense of belonging as relating and relatedness by belonging to a desh, through the food, and other thing-, person-, and place-actants that food gathers into itself. Persons belong to other persons as a particular collectivity through this hybrid entity, desh as normal foodscape, that belongs to them. 88 Desh as normal foodscape then indexes, partially, the agency of a collectivity: no one person can encompass it.89 That is to say, a collectivity that continuously replicates its normal foodscape successfully, in that that foodscape is recognised by others as belonging to that collectivity, reveals its power or agency. Knowing how to assemble the normal foodscape in this manner then is of tremendous importance, a point that is highlighted further. Copying of normal food belonging to the desh of another collectivity is always a copy, food which is like theirs or that has

identities

collectivities

87 Which presupposes the work of ‘purification’ (Latour 1993) as described in chapter 2, section 2.2. 88 Cf. Edwards and Strathern (2000).

89 Cf. Leach (2000).

been cooked like they do. Thus, the personhood of the other inheres even in the copy, 90 and is identified or recognised as such. For instance, the East Bengali consultant or respondent at the Calcutta restaurant, Suruchi, describes aloo posto (potato with poppy seeds) as West Bengali. Again, the manager at the Calcutta restaurant, Aaheli, who “belongs to Borishal” (in East Bengal), talks of eating more telkoi (climbing perch in oil) as East Bengali. To give yet another example, the part-owner of the Dhaka restaurant, Kolapata, speaks of “better vegetarian fare” as characteristically West Bengali, and describes the variety of vegetarian dishes served at the restaurant as the erstwhile Hindu (conflated here with West Bengali) chief cook’s “contribution”.

collectivity

There are, however, disputed transactions. For instance, East

Bengalis, that is, Bengali Hindus and Muslims from Bangladesh, do not fry the hilsa fish before making a curry out of it. Frying it is sacrilegious for them, for the smell and taste of the prized hilsa are so unique that one must not destroy it by frying. They contend that the West Bengalis cannot cook the fish. Moreover, in the perceptions of East Bengalis, the hilsa of the river Padma that flows through Bangladesh is far superior to that of the Ganga flowing through West Bengal. This debate over the superiority and techniques of cooking the fish on either side of the border emerged in many addas I attended and interviews I conducted but was never resolved. Such conflicts reveal forms of essentialisation that are drawn by the specific connections various collectivities make between food, and other things, persons, and places. That is, by the ways in which knowing how to assemble normal food is elicited as generating identities of persons and other actants. Additionally, these conflicts also illuminate forms of closure that the performance of normal Bengali food activates. Thus, West Bengalis do not, by definition, 90 Cf. the understanding, under copyright laws, of ‘(t)he expressive works of authors and artists increasingly perceived (in the history of copyright) in Romantic terms of individual genius and transcendent creativity — … as embody(ing) the unique personality of their individual authors’ (Coombe 1998a: 219), even though ‘in a postindustrial age … individual Romantic authors are increasingly difficult to find in the bureaucratic and corporate structures of today’s culture industries’ (ibid.: 379, n. 56). ‘The work carries the imprint of the author’s personality and always embodies his persona, wherever it surfaces, and whatever the sources of its content or the quality of the ideas it expresses’ (ibid.: 220), and is protected as such.

have access to knowing how to prepare the hilsa fish in the ‘proper’ or normal way. They are, therefore, excluded from being defined as good cooks of this fish. There are also other forms of limitations or restrictions on access

to the performance of normal Bengali food that the ethnography makes visible. For instance, the discussion of chitol muitha (fisted feather back fish)91 by the manager of Aaheli reveals the guarded closure of this dish: the “grandmothers” embody the knowledge of preparing this food, and their death will imply the death of this dish, given that young women “these days” “don’t know how to make it”. Again, it is cooks preferred from desh, and additionally from a particular caste or professed caste,92 who can assemble normal Bengali food. All these instances describe the bounded circulation of such embodied knowledge practices of normal food. So much so that one is led to examine the existence of something akin to a form of intellectual property93 rights — copyright94 — in preparing, serving, and consuming normal food in its everyday and hospitality modes. Thus, as pointed out, the process of normal food entails copyrighted capacities since it is only Bengali cooks, whether belonging (or allegedly belonging) to a specific caste, Brahmins, or belonging to desh, who can bring forth the repetitive replication of such food. Again, in the case of restaurants like Aaheli, one sees attempts to appropriate the ‘copyright’ of the process of making normal Bengali (read Bengali

performing

91 Also referred to by the consultant or respondent at Suruchi. See fn. 26. 92 As described in chapter 4. 93 However, it is to be noted that the use of the term ‘intellectual property’ here does not imply the separation of knowledge from the materiality of mediation, the processual performance of normal food, for the knowing is embodied in the very performance of the techniques and act of cooking itself (as discussed in chapter 3 especially), or emanates from a specific form of practical engagement with all kinds of others as ‘being’. 94 Copyright, as delineated earlier (see fn. 90), is one of the intellectual property domains that are dominated by ‘the expressive, inventive, and possessive individual, legitimising personal control over the circulation of texts’ (Coombe 1998a: 220). That is, it brings forth the bounded circulation of an authorial composition to protect its originality by ensuring that the author or creator of a work is the copyright-holder. The copyright-holder is to be distinguished from the license-holder (the publisher) who has the ‘license to publish’ which entails that all right to sell the work (on paper or online) are held by the publisher (Strathern 2001: 9; 57 n. 22).

Hindu middle class) food with the assistance of “grandmothers, mothers and aunts”, whose death would imply that these restaurants would retain exclusive proprietary rights over making “authentic” and “traditional” normal Bengali food. This will be so, given that young Bengali middle-class women “these days” do not know how to prepare such food, and the poor Bengali women in the villages, who do know, will be unavailable in the cities in the future. A similar development is revealed in the restaurant Kolapata in Dhaka, which seeks to gain the ‘copyright’ of the process of making normal Bengali (read Bangladeshi Muslim middle class) food. Here, it draws on the assistance of “old people” and “Christian chefs”, whose death would imply that these restaurants would retain exclusive proprietary rights over assembling “authentic” and “traditional” Bangladeshi Bengali food, given that the Bengali Hindu pachoks have left, and the “Musalmans have no clue”. Attributes of property rights in normal food emerge clearly when their ownership is in dispute,95 as in the example of the hilsa fish. Such disputes emerge in specific networks of historical and intersubjective associations. In this sense one can speak of a regional economy of culinary property rights comparable in some respects to a prestige economy as the Kula system. The nature of property rights in normal food is also revealed when the of entitlements to perform normal food are backed by formal legal discourse, as in the Aaheli case, where the “alpona style” of writing the name on the menu card of the restaurant that serves normal “traditional Bengali food” is “trademark registered”. The Aaheli case is particularly significant in that it reveals a move towards formalisation of such property relations, drawing their legitimacy from the arena of Euro-American regimes of intellectual property rights. This implies the introduction of a form of property ownership based on individualistic notions of property with ‘the legal “person” 96 identified as inventor or author in whom the property rights are invested’ (Strathern 2000: 50). This form is where ownership is based on modalities of transactions,

normal

recognition

introduced

95 Cf. Harrison (1992: 236). 96 ‘Such persons are legally individuals (“juridical persons”), a concept which can include corporate bodies such as government agencies or research institutes’ (Strathern 2000a: 50). Thus, in the Aaheli case it would be the board of directors of the hotel as a legal individual or single entity.

of relationships that gather multiple actants, and index the partial agency of the collectivity as described before. Thus, as the region has undergone a process of radical political transformations, not only have configurations of normality been transformed (embodied in expressions like “aageykar diney ... ” [in days gone by], “authenticity”, “originality”) but also the forms of ownership of such relationships. These have implications for future potential transformations. Since land in the form of place-actant is one of the components of desh, one such implication would be for border disputes and ownership of land. More specifically, it would have consequences for the of enclaves 97 in this region, 98 and the Indo-Bangladeshi dispute over the Farakka barrage and the distribution of the waters of the river Ganga, with its associated significance for the availability of the hilsa fish99 already alluded to before. Further implications for potential transformations would include: the transfer of the making of normal Bengali home food from the “home” to the restaurant, with its own plenitude of possibilities for reconfiguring interiority and exteriority, and the identities of Bengali Hindus and Muslims. The performance of “traditional” and “authentic” Bengali food is perceived as female, so that the employment of women in cooking and serving food in the restaurants is an extension of an interiority or inward orientation that configures as a normal Bengali “home”, that is, demarcated from the outside (bairey) elicited as not female. The strategic adoption of practices evoking a ghoroa poribesh (home environment), the perceptual ambience, intimacy, and belonging that cohere as “home”, makes the restaurants emerge as the inside of the outside. Thus, the restaurants can be described as appropriating the agency of Bengali home food in bringing forth normality, albeit in a modified form. Now, the modification of Bengali food, as indexed by the words “standard”, “balance”, and “developing”, used by the consultants or respondents at the three restaurants, is evinced in part by commercial networks. This commodification of normal Bengali home cooking/food (ghoroa ranna) not only elicits modifications but also entails the cutting of potential extensions, for example the exclusion of shutki (dried fish) from the “basic

existence

97 See chapter 2, fn. 14. 98 Cf. Leach (2000). 99 See chapter 2, fn. 12.

Bengali meal” offered by Aaheli because its smell would drive nonshutki-eating customers away. That is, associated with commercial calculations, restaurants, as opposed to domestic cooking, force the grounds on which the claims of ownership of the performance of “authentic” Bengali food emerge. Of course, the materiality of the mediating entity, the bowl of fish as a ‘condensed network’, for example, in addition to the cost, also ‘cuts the network’ of spatiotemporally dispersed actants that can potentially be drawn into the normal basic Bengali meal: the material availability of the varieties of fish in the bazaar, and the seasonality of such food, as described by both the respondents in the Calcutta restaurants.100 In any case, ‘cutting the network’ also generates relationships: ownership includes in the moment that it excludes ( Strathern 1996). For instance, the exclusion of beef in both the Calcutta restaurants causes the normal “basic Bengali meal” to emerge as a Bengali Hindu meal, as opposed to “a richer meat-based” dinner that is perceived as a normal Bangladeshi Bengali Muslim meal (dinner), as described by the part-owner of the Dhaka restaurant. That is, it is in this process of bounded circulation and control over desh as normal foodscape that social differences and identities emerge.

Conclusion Thus, what a foray into the arena of normal Bengali food reveals is the current state of fluid and contested networks of relations within Bengalis as a collectivity: within, and between, Bengali Hindus and Bengali Muslims in different parts of contemporary Bengal. These struggles are an integral part of emergent definitions of Bengali food that seek to demarcate boundaries. Alternating socialities, Indian/ Bangladeshi, East/West Bengali, Hindu/Muslim, bhadralok/poor are elicited in the emergence of normal Bengali food as a nexus of intersecting claims, so that they are perceived to rest in it. These conflicts reveal the assertion of competing claims of ownership over the same network or segments of network that normal food gathers into itself. Both West Bengalis and Bangladeshi 100 Another limitation of the food nexus in the case of restaurants would also be that there is little that can be done to prevent prospective clients from grazing, for example, which has implications for distinguishing claim makers (restaurateurs) and clients, stronger and weaker actants.

Bengalis (East Bengalis) lay claim to ‘Bengali identity’ or Bengaliness. Hence the continuous conflict over defining the measures of Bengaliness, for example, the basic Bengali meal. As Harrison (1999: 239) rightly points out, ‘what ... has less often been noted is that processes of ethnic opposition and boundary formation may be accompanied by inflated perceptions, not only of but also of resemblance. In other words, ethnic groups may sometimes conceive themselves as in conflict, not so much because they have irreconcilably different identities, but rather because they have irreconcilable claims or aspirations to the same identities. In these situations, it is the perceived similarities of the ethnic Other that are experienced as threatening, rather than the differences.’ What are being negotiated in these disputes are the entitlements to specific forms of engagement or relationships with all kinds of others, desh as normal foodscape, and the recognition of these entitlements as Bengali, East and West Bengali Hindu and Muslim. Knowing how to assemble normal food becomes an arena of and contestation because ‘expressing such knowledge amounts to claiming inclusion in the relationships ... which generate that knowledge’ (Leach 2000: 165), that is inclusion in a specific form of relationships, desh as normal foodscape. Lack of emplacement in such ongoing relationships is perceived as a sense of lostness, as instantiated in the Aaheli manager’s discourse on chitol muitha (fisted feather back fish). In the assertion of claims of ownership over the performance of normal food, then, is revealed the potential control or appropriation of social relationships, of being-with-allkinds-of-others, of future possibilities of forms of sociality and animation, of life itself.

dissimilarity,

conflict

8

Postprandial Ruminations Food has shaped the contours of this book in this particular form. The description offered here makes visible the manner in which food gathers other thing-, place-, and person-actants to generate specific modes of everyday and hospitality relations. These actants emerge, in this very process of gathering, as composites of myriad networks of relations that combine in variegated ways: spatial, temporal, corporeal, sensual, affective, moral, discursive. Such are dynamic: they are fragile and, therefore, in a constant state of renewal through circulation. They are constantly purified into historically associated normal and not-normal forms, with their own emergent measures, in the very act of being assembled and reassembled. In the course of this conjoined generation and there is ongoing modification of such relations through an attempt to replicate their purified normal forms which, however, is not entirely faithful. Not only is this faithlessness elicited by the fluid processes of retention and protention but also by surprise acts of betrayal. These relations are, therefore, fraught relations of collaboration. The agency of food in bringing forth normal everyday and hospitable transactions then emerges as hazardous work. It is in this very performance of such ambivalent forms of agency that food acquires subjectivity and evinces the subjectivities of other things, places and persons. It evokes particular configurations of intimacy as sociality. Thus, the form and effect of the agency of normal food cannot be separated from the forms of sociality that emanate from it; they are emergent in each other’s becoming. These emergent socialities acquire particular forms in the wider networks of this region ruptured by critical events that generate a sense of lostness, and thereby an acute preoccupation with through food and commensality. Food reveals its capacities to connect and to divide assemblages of social relations through collaborating with changing forms of ownership. Disputes over ownership of such collaborative networks of relations

relations

purification,

collaborative

differentiation dynamic

Postprandial Ruminations

engender specific configurations of Bengali identity. Such disputes make visible conflicts over inclusion in forms of engagement with all kinds of others that ‘cohere’ as desh as normal foodscape in future possibilities of sociality, of life itself. Food thus emerges as an event that brings forth other thing-, person-, and place-actants which collaborate to perform forms of mixing as becoming that come to ‘crystallise’ as normal/notnormal. Trust, and therefore risk, anxiety, and conflict are integral to such collaborative networks. Food then emerges as internal and external audit,1 auditing emergent forms of relations and relatedness as normal/not-normal. It audits identities, all kinds of identities, in their myriad forms. The description offered here that has made visible these connections is of course partial. What it reveals here can only be described as an approach towards a theory of everyday life through a study of food as agency. For, to claim that it has captured the variety and possibilities, the shifting and ambiguous flux of normality, in finite and bounded terms, is absurd, and would go against the grain of this culinary enterprise. Attuned to the unfinished character of normal everyday life, this book then does not claim to ‘conclude’. In what follows, I touch upon some paths, orientations, and directions that have been adumbrated, perhaps for future peregrinations.

multiple

8.1 Culinary beginnings An area to be explored further is the multiple ways in which, and the extent to which, the agency of food allows people to engage with larger networks assembled as ‘global’. Such assemblages would include circulation of emergent nutritional and health standards,

1 Cf. Strathern (2000b), writing on audit as a cultural form of accountability that has increasingly found its way into higher education for example, points out that ‘audit does not just impinge upon the academic’s conditions of work but also interpenetrates it’ and ‘the “external” mechanisms by which products are valued are also internalised’ (ibid.: 280), leading to an endorsement of a particular approach to knowledge (ibid.: 285). The increasing expansion of audit regimes in the public sector since the 1980s reflects institutionalised distrust and wider social anxieties, argues Power (1997: 135, 121). That is, while accountability and account-giving are integral to human interaction, explicit checking becomes necessary when trust is subverted (Douglas 1992).

Transactions in Taste changes in the kind of cooking oil used, the use and perceived risks of GM foods, the increasing number of slick food columns and cookery shows. Furthermore, I have examined the work of poverty, frugality, and famine in configurations of normality/notnormality. We live in a ‘food-abundant’ world today where faminelike situations are imminent and malnutrition widespread, given the recent ‘food crisis’,2 and the processes which attempt to patent both the product and the process of production. Is not the very definition of ‘abundance’ problematic then? It would be productive to examine the ways in which perceived ‘abundance’ and ‘scarcity’, food ‘security’ and insecurity’ (FAO 1996a ),3 engage with emergent notions of identities, particularly in countries like Bangladesh, where food aid is a crucial consideration. The food crisis today necessitates that we take a closer look at the manner in which food mediates regimes of normality/notnormality. Most food and famine relief policies tend to overlook the critical collaborative work that food performs; such neglect frequently contributes to policy failure. 4 There is a compelling need for such policies to be ‘audited by food’. The issues that have been dealt with in this book, and the potential domains of further delineated here, have important implications for debates on new types of food policy initiatives and crises intervention that are more sensitive to the collaborative lives of food. These are stories yet to be told.

research

2 Despite world cereal production increasing by 4.7 per cent in 2007 (FAO 2008), the prices of staple cereals such as wheat, rice, and corn have risen, leading to an increase in overall food prices of 83 per cent in the last three years according to the World Bank (www.bbc.co.uk). These sharp price rises led the FAO to declare on 13 February 2008 that 36 countries are in crisis. Price rises have led to disputes over food rationing in West Bengal, unrest and food riots in several countries such as Haiti, Mexico, Cameroon, Indonesia, and Egypt. There have been bread riots in Egypt, for example, where the government is struggling to continue to subsidise baladi bread, part of Egyptian everyday meals; thousands have marched in protest in Mexico City as it is becoming increasingly difficult for most people to afford tortillas, integral to normal Mexican everyday meals. 3 ‘Food security exists when all people at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs andfood preferences for an active and healthy life’ (World Food Summit Plan of Action, Rome Declaration on World Food Security, 1996; emphasis mine) 4 Cf. Pottier (1999).

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Consumption, Transformation

Websites Consulted http://www.bbc.co.uk http://www.bbs.gov.bd http://www.censusindia.gov.in http://www.citypopulation.de http://www.fao.org http://www.state.gov http://www.virtualbangladesh.com

Index aazan 42, 73, 73 fn. 28, 76, 76 fn. 44 abundance, agricultural, 38; notions of 3, 166 accountability 165 fn.1 actants (defined) 22 fn. 22, fn. 24 Actor Network Theory (ANT) xiv, 21

fn. 19 adda 104–26, and passim; and fieldwork 10; distinguished from pub talk 122 alcohol, and Bengali food 137, 141–42 Appadurai, A. 7, 12, 127 fn.1, 131 fn.10, 132 fn.19, fn.20, 152 fn.79, 153 auspiciousness, conventions of 14, 78 fn. 52, 80–81, 86, 88 ‘authentic’ Bengali food 127–62 passim bamboo winnower (kulo) 79, 89, 139–40 Bangladesh War/Liberation War 117, 117 fn. 26, 125, 154 bazaar, kachcha and pukka, 38–39; seasonality of bazaarscape 135, 137 beef, absence of 136, 152, 153 fn. 80, 162; as heat-exuding 95; as taboo 83, 83 fn. 79; predominance of 153 Bengal, anglicised name of 1 fn. 3; partition of 16, 16 fn. 4, 155 fn. 85 Bengal Famine (1943–44) 17, 49, 49 fn. 25, 64, 64 fn. 90, 147 fn. 64 Bengali home, attributes of 131, 141– 42; food 14, 128, 144–61 passim; commoditisation of Bengali home food 3 Bengali restaurants 128–57, and passim; different from bhaat–machch (rice–fish) hotels 127 fn. 2 bhadralok (‘respectable people’), defined 27–36

border disputes 18, 161 Bourdieu, P. 2 fn. 11, 5, 6, 7, 29, 30

fn. 57, 36 fn. 80, 66 fn. 95, 120 fn. 44, 122 Brahmanical Hinduism 28 fn. 45, 76, 83, 84 Brahmins, and sacrifice 84, 84 fn. 80; as preferred cooks 83 Callon, M. 20–22 passim, 78 caste, and Bengal 33– 34 fn. 70; and

Muslims 33 fn. 70, 108 fn. 33 Chakrabarty, D. 60 fn. 72, 81, 81 fn. 68, 120–23 passim, 125 Chatterjee, P. 1 fn. 5, 16 fn. 2, 23–34 passim, 79 fn. 56, fn. 57 chilli hot food, and East Bengalis

94; and poor classes 36, 58; and promiscuity 91; and rage 61, 92 commodity, afterlife of 82; commoditisation of normal Bengali home food 3,14, 128, 161–62 consumption, of food as gendered performance 59–60; of food and visual presentation 58–59; of posto (poppy seeds) 132; ‘conspicuous consumption’ 46 fn. 33 cookbooks 128 fn. 4, 136; and fieldwork 11; Bengali cookbooks 4, 4 fn. 13, 11, 23–25 passim, 28, 50–51 fn. 36, 57 fn. 58; Bengali cookbooks as different from western cookbooks 23 fn. 28 cookery shows 11, 166 Coombe, R. 143, 143 fn. 55, 158 fn. 90, 159 fn. 94 copyright 158 fn. 90, 159, 159 fn. 94, 160 copyright-holder 159 fn. 94 cosmopolitanism 3

Index Counihan, C. xv, 4 fn. 14, 6, 60 fn. 74 Cow Protection Movement 83 fn. 79 curry, as a colonial category 132 fn. 19 cutlery, paucity/non-use of 59, 59 fn. 70, 121 fn. 51

food, anthropology of 4, 7, 9; as audit 165, 166; kachcha 79, 86; lexical/ linguistic terms xx, 104, 124, 125, 126; pukka 79; stale (bashi) food 77, 79, 131 fn. 35; vegetarian 25

fn. 36, 69 fn. 10, 78, 86, 113, 132, desh (defined) 50–51, and passim; not-desh/bidesh, defined, 23 fn. 29, and passim Dhakai poneer 96, 121 dirt 45, 54 fn. 49, 70, 80, 80 fn. 61, 81–82, 93 fn. 7; and stale food 79; some forms as ‘not-pure’ 74 fn. 36 dis-capacity 13, 52, 55, 57–58, 66, 101 ‘distributed personhood’ 94 fn. 9, 100, 126 fn. 67 distrust 165 fn. 1 domestic helps, and ‘prestige’ of household 95 fn. 35; houses of 44–45; kitchens of 47; types of 34, 48–49; women preferred over men 60 domesticity 60, 60 fn. 72, fn. 73, 148 Douglas, M. 4, 5 fn. 16, 6, 7, 81, 83, 93 fn. 7, 103 fn. 4, 165 fn. 1 Dumont, L. 6, 7, 74 fn. 36, 75 fn. 40, 78 fn. 55, 79 fn. 60, 83 fn. 76, fn. 78, fn. 79 Durga Puja 10, 34, 139 ‘East Bengal’, use of term 16, 16 fn. 4 embodiment 8 fn. 25, 19, 37 fn. 84, 75 fn. 41, 86–87 enclaves 18, 18 fn. 34, 161

famine relief policies 166 FAO 166, 166 fn. 2 Farakka Barrage 18, 18 fn. 32, 161 fasts and fasting xv, 63–64, 64 fn. 88, 67, 119 fn. 41 fat bodies 151 fn. 72 fat cooks 150–51 feasts xv, 38 fn. 86, 59 fn. 70, 63 fn. 87, 90 fish, fresh xvi, 38, 39, 56, 69, 131 fn. 34; dried fish (shutki) 94, 133 fn. 25, 144, 161

151 fn. 71, 153, 158; also see vegetarianism, vegetarians food crisis (2008/2009) 166, 166 fn. 2 food policies 15, 166 food security, Rome Declaration 166; insecurity xv, 166 foodscape (defined) 2, 51, and passim Fruzzetti, L. 7, 51 fn. 37, 75–76 fn. 41, 78 fn. 53, 94, 95 fn. 31, fn. 33 garbage 8 fn. 25, 54 fn. 47, 71, 81, 81 fn. 67, 82 Gell, A., theory of agency 19–20, and passim ghee (clarified butter) 39, 85 fn. 85, 96 fn. 38, 111 fn. 20, 133, 135 fn. 37 ‘good cook’ 24, 51–52, 57, 101, 151, 159 ‘good hand’ 57, 82

‘good mistress’ 24, 25, 55 guest 77, 96–101 passim, 117 fn. 31, 118, 127, 136–44 passim, 148 Hadith 74, 76 fn. 43, 80 halal 14, 39, 80, 86, 107 haram 14, 80, 80 fn. 62, 86, 93 fn. 7 haunches xvi, 47, 53, 54, 54 fn. 50, 72, 73, 118 Heidegger, M. 52 fn. 44, 86 hilsa fish 59 fn. 69, 62, 62 fn. 84, 65

fn. 93, 133, 135, 138; and Farakka Barrage 18 fn. 32, 161; and religious injunctions 156; debates/ disputes over 37, 134, 134 fn. 37, 158–59, 160 hospitality, and reciprocity 99–101; failed hospitality 101 host 99–101 housewife 24–25, 60 fn. 72 humoral theories of gestation 36 fn. 79 hygiene 82, 150, 151

Transactions in Taste ‘idle-talk’, see adda intellectual property 14, 142–43, 143 fn. 55, 159–60, 159 fn. 93, fn. 94 invention and convention 86–87 Kaviraj, S. 27 fn. 43, 54 fn. 50, 60 fn. 72, 81–82, 81 fn. 68, 123, 123 fn. 60 Khare, R. S. 7, 8 fn. 25, 10 fn. 31, 74, 75 fn. 40, 78 fn. 52, fn. 55, 80 fn. 61, 83 fn. 76 kitchen (described), of middle classes 46–47; of poor classes 46 Kolkata 1 fn. 5 Kula 9, 19, 160 language, ‘chaste’ Bengali 23, 23 fn. 27, 28; Language Movement 17, 17 fn. 6 Latour, B. 2, 7, 20–22, 26 fn. 42, 92 fn. 6, 157 fn. 87 Law, J. 20–22, 66 fn. 94 Left–Front government 31 fn. 58, 147, 147 fn. 62 leftovers 63, 63 fn. 87, 76–77, 101, 113, 131 leftover food 76– 77, 79, 86, 98, 101,

115, 131 fn. 35 Lévi-Strauss, C. 4, 44 fn. 4 ‘like everyday’, as a continuous mimetic process 57, 66 Lokkhi/Laksmi 75, 75 fn. 40, fn. 41, 95 fn. 33, 142 lunchboxes xvi, 25 Malamoud, C. 76, 76 fn. 45, fn. 46, 77 fn. 48, 79 fn. 59, fn. 60, 83 fn. 77, 84 fn. 80, fn. 82, fn. 83, 85 fn. 84 Marriott, M. 6, 7, 36 fn. 79, 77 fn. 49, 83 fn. 76 measures, of normality/not-normality 56–57, 99, 129, 131–32, 164, and passim memory xiii, xv, 19, 32 fn. 63, 57, 64 fn. 90, 66, 102 menu card 136–42, 145, 160 Merleau-Ponty, M. 6, 64 fn. 89, 87

middle classes, defined 30–35, and passim; middleness of 26, 26 fn. 41 middle-class respectability (bhadrata) 32 fn. 64, 35, 60–61, 89–93 migrants 18, 18 fn. 31, fn. 35, 48, 50, 50 fn. 35 migration 3, 18 fn. 31, 44, 49 fn. 25 mistress, as manager 66; also see ‘good mistress’ Munn, N. 5–6, 5 fn. 18, 7, 100, 100 fn. 29, fn. 30, 126 fn. 67 monotony 24–25 networks, defined 21–22; ‘condensed’ 51, 87, 125, 162 non-Bengalis 12, 30 fn. 55, 34, 104 fn. 1, 122, 122 fn. 55, 137 fn. 46; and consumption of the ‘basic Bengali meal’ 137 normality, as a temporally extended field 57 nostalgia 3, 119, 123–24, 126 fn. 65, fn. 66 not-normality, and suspicion 55, 67 Östör, A. 7, 76 fn. 41, 78 fn. 53, 94, 95 fn. 11 ownership, as relations of belonging 156–57 Partition of India (1947) 1, 16 fn. 4, 17, 18 fn. 11, 49, 64 fn. 90, 116, 124–26, 149, 153–54 pavement xvi, 41, 42 fn. 102; dwellers 38 fn. 86, 47, 63 pollution 6, 14, 79, 83 poor classes (defined) 29, 33–36, and

passim; also see kitchens of poor classes pork 80, 93 fn. 7 poverty 1, 13, 35, 63, 67, 166 Power, M. 165 fn. 1 property regimes 3, 160 public distribution system 64 fn. 90 public/private 39 fn. 91, 123 ‘purification’, defined 22, 22 fn. 23

Qu’ran 93 fn. 7 Rabindrasangeet 64 fn. 92, 117 fn. 30 rationing 64 fn. 90, 166 fn. 2 refrigerator, as actant/patient 45 fn. 12, 78–81, 85–87 rice, and time 58, 58 fn. 62; leftover 63, 65 fn. 93, 77–78, 152; rice water (phen) 64, 64 fn. 91, 71, 147, 147 fn. 64 rickshaws, auto 40, 40 fn. 98, 41; cycle 41, 41 fn. 99 risk xv, 25, 60, 165, 166 River Ganga 18, 36, 158, 161; and River Buriganga 37; and River Padma 37, 134; and Shakti 37 fn. 84 sacred/sacredness 3, 6, 13, 14, 37, 68–88 sacrifice 14, 76, 79 fn. 57, 80, 84–88, 118 fn. 36; also see Brahmins and sacrifice scarcity 3, 154, 166 seasonality, of the bazaarscape 135, 137; of fish 63; of food 162 senses, anthropology of 7, 7 fn. 20

Seremetakis, C. N. 8, 56 fn. 57 Sharia 74 slums 31 fn. 58, 32 fn. 65, 35, 35 fn. 76, 39, 42, 44, 45 fn. 10 smell xv, 14, 42, 56, 56 fn. 57, 57, 90–92, 95–96, 104–105, 105 fn. 8, 124, 158, 162 soundscape xx, 8 fn. 24, 40, 41, 44 fn. 2, 47, 55, 55 fn. 53, 58 fn. 64, 104 sound, panoptical quality 55 sour foods 59 fn. 66, 109, 109 fn. 36, fn. 37, 110, 112, 124, 125, 132 spices, advertisements of 60 fn. 73; five whole spices 73 fn. 32; grinding of 53; hot spices (gorom moshla) 69 fn. 7 Srinivas, M. N. 6, 46 fn. 34, 78 fn. 55, 83 fn. 76, fn. 79

Stoller, P. 7 fn. 20, 8, 8 fn. 21, fn. 23 Strathern, M. 7, 16 fn. 1, 20 fn. 37, 51, 52 fn. 44, 94 fn. 9, 100, 123, 126, 127, 144 fn. 56, 150, 156-65 passim street food vendors xvi fn. 2, 34, 39, 40, 42 subjectivity/subjectivities 14, 89-102, 120, 125, 140, 164 sweet foods and West Bengalis 57 fn. 60, 93–94 taboo xv, 6, 80 fn. 62, 83, 83 fn. 79, 93 fn. 7 Tagore, R. 1, 11, 18, 18 fn. 10, 38 fn. 85, 64 fn. 92, 111, 117 fn. 28, fn. 30, 119, 136 fn. 44 teapot 117, 118 fn. 34 traditional Bengali food-concession in 139; as modified/standard/ approximate balance 130–31, 143, 145, 148, 161 trust 20, 22, 80 fn. 63, 165 fn. 1; lack of 67; trustworthy 60 utensils 24, 26, 44, 45, 46 fn. 16, 47, 54, 55, 60 fn. 73, 71, 76, 81, 85, 87, 90, 118 vegetarians 95 vegetarianism 64 fn. 88, 78 fn. 54, fn. 55 Wagner, R. 12, 94 fn.9 waste 8 fn. 25, 24, 54 fn. 47, 81, 81

fn. 67 water, and desh 24 fn. 33, 50; purifier 47, 47 fn. 21, 69; and soundscape 55 fn. 53 Weiss, B. 2 fn. 8, fn. 11, 5, 6, 7, 8, 8 fn. 22, fn. 25, 9, 52 fn. 43, 81 fn. 67 working class, concept of 34 fn. 72, 35 Westernisation 32, 46 fn. 34, 59 fn. 70