1st Anniversary Special: Femme Fortitude

10^th May 2014: The day my Graduation exams got over and the entire evening that I spent creating my blog. The long discussions that I had with my sister over the URL of the blog, the title and look of the blog all seems fresh in my mind. I still feel that same excitement which I had then, when I published the first write-up on my still embryonic blog. The fervor to express my mind on the blog grows every time I post something. And this exhilarating journey continues further. Since my sister has been a driving force behind my rhetorical style of writing and today we celebrate Mother’s Day as well, I wish to dedicate this write-up to all women….. (Read: To Men readers, I hope you join me in my feminine eulogy!)

Recently I finished reading a novel. As I closed my book, a question crossed my mind. Which was the best novel I had ever read? I got my answer in no time. It had to be ‘A Thousand Splendid Suns’ by Khaled Hosseini. The characters Mariam and Laila of that book are two of my most favourite characters among all the characters that I came across in novels. Each page, each description seemed real. It was as though I was experiencing affliction of Mariam and Laila as they suffered at the hands of their acrimonious husband and further the immense courage that they show to ameliorate their lives. Though the book was a work of fiction, I wondered how many women would be there all over the world, who are silent sufferers of injustice and whose screams for help are lost deep in this ruthless world.

In one of my college events, we performed a street play on the theme domestic violence. My friends and I discussed the apparent reasons of domestic violence. We came up with situations like harassment for dowry, domestic violence by drunken husbands, women tormented by husbands and in-laws in want of a male child, not only in low strata families but also in well educated families. Domestic violence reminds me of Sudha Murthy’s encounter with a woman who was set alight by her husband’s family for her inability to pay dowry. This burnt woman, who was admitted to the hospital for the mishap of ‘stove burst’, had further committed a ‘crime’ of bearing a girl child, which resulted into such heinous deed by her in-laws. According to Indian National Crime Record Bureau, India has by far the highest number of dowry related deaths in the world. A bride is burned every 90 minutes, or dowry issues cause 1.4 deaths per year per 100,000 women in India. Women are still valued like commodities and are sent to the bidder-like families who quote a whopping price for the bride entering their home. I wish if there is someone like Ananya Swaminathan of Two States in every family or is one such friend to women, who can really find question the man’s true worth for his bride!

There are some movies based on true stories which are capable of touching the human minds. I saw one such movie few months back: Philomena. The movie was based on the life of Philomena Lee, who was an unwed mother and was separated from her son when he was an infant. The film shows the 50-year struggle of Philomena to find her forcibly adopted son. In 1950s England, being an unwed mother was a matter of disgrace. In India, it still is. This reminded me of another Sudha Murty’s vignette on unwed mother. She describes how there is a difference between the outlook of the western countries and India towards unwed mothers. On one hand, one of her students commits suicide when she finds out that she is pregnant before marriage and her boyfriend and his family refuses to accept her with her child, on the other hand, there is a young Norwegian girl who has a son which is born out of her affair with a college classmate. Though they split up, the little boy’s father assumes full responsibility of his son. The child’s parents lead separate but happy lives. The western society does not look down upon or raise eyebrows at unwed mothers, which so not the situation in India. I read an article ‘When young girls are at risk’ in one of the magazines. It focused on how girls are ignorant about sex and pregnancy making them vulnerable. These girls are usually in the age bracket of 15 to 19 who then go for abortions. Some girls who accidentally get pregnant belong to the educated class of the society in which the level of awareness is believed to be high. In our country where sex and sex education is taboo, such cases are bound to happen. Parents are uncomfortable about discussing such issues with their children. As a result, girls become susceptible to unwanted pregnancies. It happens that girls offer sex for love and boys offer love for sex. For girls, love is an emotion while for some boys love is a sexual conquest. This mindset needs to change and girls need to be alert and wise before falling in love with someone. Love should not be so blind that we fail to see the possible ramifications.

Africa as a continent interests me a lot. Certain African tribes’ customs towards women brings me shivers. I had seen a video of the Hamar tribe in Ethiopia, where there is a ceremony of female whipping. The whipping is consensual and women go begging to whip them. They do not show the pain they feel and they say they are proud of the scars. One effect of this ritual whipping is to create a strong debt between the young man and his sisters. If they face hard times in the future, he’ll remember them because of the pain they went through at his initiation. Her scars are a mark of how she suffered for her brother. In Mauritania, girls are forcefully fed so that they find suitable husbands in future. A plump girl in Mauritania is a symbol of family’s prosperity and wealth. A frail looking girl would therefore not get good marriage prospects. Togo is one of the poorest countries in the western part of Africa, yet polygamy is legal and widely practiced. Practice of polygamy is frequent in the rural areas than in towns and cities, and a Togolese woman’s level of education is also directly linked to whether she will choose polygamy or not. Even the health of African women is highly at risk due to the gruesome customs and lack of better health facilities. For example, I had seen a case of a pregnant African woman who had to go on a motorcycle with her husband on the hilly road till the clinic where she could deliver her child. In Rwanda, 18% of menstruating women miss on an average 35 days of school and work because they cannot afford sanitary napkins. Therefore they resort to unsafe alternatives like rags, leaves and mud which can lead to infections and diseases. Thanks to organizations like the Desert Flower Foundation started by the Somalian woman Waris Dirie, that fights against female genital mutilation and other issues which women face.

One of the most prevalent dangers that Indian women face today is that of rape and sexual harassment- be it at home or at workplaces. Such inhumanity does not depend upon the kind of attire a woman wears. It is the sick, diabolical mentality of men who want to prove their chauvinism over women by imposing such atrocities on them. Such men emerge from families where women are treated as inferiors and these young boys grow and mistreat women in the same way. They cannot reckon the fact that women can and should step out of their homes to get educated and stand on their own feet. Sadly men with such sordid mindsets hail from the elite class of people too. This shows how education fails to illuminate the minds of all. Women trafficking are also one of the lurid cruelties against women. The shocking fact is that there is underage prostitution too, wherein there are an estimated 1.2 million children involved. God knows where our society is headed and how far can these merciless acts against women go.

We have been living in a patriarchal society where women are subjected to male dominance. But the times are changing and we the transformation happening in form of an upsurge in women getting educated and excelling at jobs. The myth that rural women are far from development is slowly changing as we see a number of women being superb managers at self help groups to run their families and earn a living. For those who feel that ‘women can’t have it all’, there are glorifying examples of women who are not only wonderful homemakers but also dedicated professionals. Being a feminist is not tantamount to misandry. It is an attempt to elevate women’s status by exonerating them of all the society’s unfair set of rules against them. It is a means to promote the fairer sex of the society to a venerable level, just like we respect our Goddesses. It is a movement which will not be successful without the encouragement, sensibility and support of men. I believe the feminist movement will only be successful if boys are imbibed since childhood to treat women with dignity; they will surely turn into fine young men who will be excellent sons, brothers, husbands and fathers. 

Cordon Bleu- Pampering the Taste Buds

For me, the fun ersatz to my afternoon siesta has always been movies, most of the times the good and the sensible ones. Today I happened to watch one such ‘mouth-watering’ movie, if that is a non-lecherous way to describe a movie. Julie and Julia, starring my favourite Meryl Streep and Amy Adams, was a movie based on Julie Powell’s book “Julie & Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen”, where Julie (Amy Adams) excellently cooks Julia’s (Meryl Streep) French dishes from her recipe book ‘Mastering the art of French Cooking’ and shares her experiences of the same on her blog. Some of the French dishes that were shown were amazingly tempting which of course, required a lot of meticulous effort on the ingredients and the method of cooking to be obediently followed. French cooking was epitomized in the film ‘A hundred foot Journey’ as well. The reason why ‘La Cuisine Francaise’ is considered best in the world is probably attributed to the geographical and climatic variety of France. The reasons for the supremacy of French cooking have a great deal to do with religious attitudes to pleasure, high-powered political patronage of cooking over the centuries and straightforward economic reward. So much so, that the words ‘restaurant’, ‘gourmet’ and ‘Bon appétit’ have not found any English equivalents. It is as though cooking and France share a tautological relationship.

Food is one of the basic necessities of all living creatures. But this basic necessity when blended with sterling culinary skills can result into a healthy being. Recently my sister got for me a walnut cake. Each bite of that cake tasted like heaven. The adage “One must eat to live and not live to eat” seemed momentarily hazy for me as I could live to eat such tempting confectionaries. I have a sweet tooth for few selected sweet dishes circumscribed to Sheera, Seviyaan, Gulab Jamun and of course, cakes. Indian sweet shops are loaded with a panoply of sweetmeats and the rush for them during festivals is at peak.

I consider India as one of the best places to savour and devour food. If variety is the spice of life, then welcome to India as Indian food is a potpourri of rich ancestral heritance and a variety of spices and ingredients, which one cannot procure anywhere else in the world. When I enjoy the delectable dishes of various states of India, I silently thank my country for its diversity. The cuisine of each Indian state acts as a liaison of the unique traditions, culture, language, religion, geographic and climatic conditions of that state. To give a simple example of people living in north India who prefer fatty and highly carbohydrate oriented diet owing to the chilling weather conditions, in contrast to their Southern counterparts who prefer less fatty and light diet due to the sea coast in its propinquity. The bountiful Mother Nature in India has assured that man uses her edible resources to satiate his eating needs and therefore we enjoy diverse cuisines and distinct cooking styles.

Being a Mumbaikar I enjoy my country’s diverse food here as Mumbai is a city where people of almost all states reside. Hence, there is no dearth of any cuisine in Mumbai. A gourmet like me can enjoy food of all kinds here- both continental and Indian. Mumbai’s status of the ‘commercial hub’ of India is a feather in the cap as you can taste the food here which is found globally, without losing the original essence of the dishes. Mumbai is also famous for its street food and chaat which every Mumbaikar relishes. The dishes which Mumbai can call rightfully its own are Pav Bhaji and Vada Pav. It is believed that no person in Mumbai can starve as he can thrive on a vada pav. The laborious work style of the mill workers in the olden times of Mumbai necessitated a wholesome and heavy meal and thus Pav Bhaji came into existence, the variations of which we enjoy today. It is a perfect example of:  creation of need --> identification of need --> ways to fulfil the need --> creation of a profitable business model.

I believe traditions, ancestral inheritance and culture play a major role in shaping the cooking style of a family, a state or a nation. For example, I have noticed that there is a tremendous difference between the South Indian dishes prepared by people other than South Indians and the same dishes prepared by a South Indian family. Similarly Puran Polis made in a Maharashtrian home taste better and original than in a non-Maharashtrian home. Also the Biryani that is cooked by the Muslims has an original charm and unique taste. It is as though the food is analogical to a state. When we say Dhokla, it’s Gujarat, Chole Bhature – Punjab, Daal Baati Churma- Rajasthan, Rasgulla- West Bengal, so on and so forth.

Thanks to globalization, we are exposed to international cuisines. Successful chains like McDonald’s, Burger King, KFC, Subway, Starbucks, Taco Bell etc. attempt to introduce Indians to western lifestyle. Many dishes at these outlets are designed to suit the Indian tastes, keeping the religious sentiments in mind. Therefore we enjoy vegetarian burgers, French fries, sizzlers, pizzas, tacos and cakes which are normally non-vegetarian in their countries of provenance. Where else would you find paneer on a pizza or aloo tikki in a burger? Well, that’s truly the east meeting the west! As a result, vegetarians like me are not deprived of such delicacies!

In India, there is a rift between the vegetarians and non vegetarians. Vegetarian food eating people may not like to eat food in a restaurant where non vegetarian dishes, too are served. The vegetarians see the non-vegetarians as carnivores, bloodthirsty people. On the other hand, the non vegetarians view their vegetarian counterparts as cattle, eating ghaas-phoos!

Though I am a connoisseur of various vegetarian continental and Indian cuisines, for me the best cooks in the world are my mother and grandmother. My Grandmother’s signature recipes of puran polis, jhunka, modak and every other simple dish that she cooks are worth devouring. Despite her old age, I see the immense efforts and dedication that she invests in making that dish. For her, cooking is her forte and every dish that she cooks, her piece de resistance. My grandmother honed her culinary skills under my great grandmother’s tutelage, she says. That’s what I call bequeathing the food habits from one generation to the other. My mother’s expertise, as a working woman, lies in cooking tasty food in a short span of time. Though my sister is an amateur when it comes to cooking, I can proudly say that she is getting an excellent hand at cooking for I appreciate every dish that she prepares lovingly for the family. My sister is the one who introduced me to the world of continental dishes because she is a foodie who loves to taste and experiment various dishes.

Like I said earlier, food being a necessity, no person can live without it – rich or poor and hence the food industry will never cease to exist. Lot of innovations and variations are possible to make food taste better every time. Cooking provides lucrative opportunities to so many, especially the housewives who possess excellent culinary skills.  This can be a paradigm where you can transform your métier into money making successful business proposition. And what can be better than you being your own boss?

I believe that our body is a representative of our diet. While pampering one’s taste buds, one should not forget the nutritional enrichment or pernicious repercussions that affect the subsequent stages of life. Choosing to have a vegetarian diet or a non-vegetarian one or both, omnivores that we humans are called, one must always keep in mind the diet’s influence on the body. Faulty and miscalculated eating habits in addition to the stressful lifestyle can cause several ailments. To avoid that, we must relish the gifts of nature in their original form so that we enjoy a healthy, disease-free, long life. The food prepared and the eating habits adopted, not just bearing to please the tongue but to the well being of the entire human body can ensure that. So readers, watch your tongue!