SHAILAJA GANGULY analyses food and the way we approach it at different times according to the ambience and our mood
Arrayed artistically in attractive stone bowls circling a multi-coloured fountain spouting from a glass cherub’s pout — a rainbow assortment of crunchy salads and mouth-watering dishes emitting sensuous flavours from brass cauldrons snuggling on baby-flames, a widespread main course, an epicure’s fantasy of hot ’n’ cold desserts waiting patiently for their turn to get noticed all at a banquet hall brimful of gastronomes ready to surrender to a sinful Sunday afternoon….
A famished traveller waiting on a steaming South Indian platform for a train delayed for the third time. A lungi-clad, bare-chested vendor holds forth a cane basket carrying neat packets fashioned from plantain leaves. Ravenous eyes and hasty hands discover a huge globule of snow-white curd-rice within, embellished by a fiery scoop of lime pickle. Here, the belly begs for more gobble-time….
A sedate queue of seekers with international identities waiting for the prasad-lunch while four volunteering sevaks dole out rice, plain, boiled daal, salt-free cucumber chunks and unsweetened yoghurt onto recyclable plates….
Vignettes of three worlds inhabiting the same planet, visited by the same individual at different times, but centred around one of the most important and impacting of human preoccupations — food! So what sets apart each experience, when all three had catered to my basic need — that of filling an empty tummy demanding nourishment?
At the first venue, where abundance reigned, need was swiftly displaced by greed and decision by confusion. Seeing choices abound, judgement wilted, discipline disappeared, while the wild mind did a monkey-dance between pasta and pani puri, biryani and bature, hot gulab jamuns and icy rasmalai. While the pan–supari counter tried painfully to make peace with the tumult raging within, the Buddha arose from the upheaval of my tortured mind to remind — had I not told you that excess is the worst form of poison?
On that blazing May day on Mettupalayam’s platform, when the idlis I had devoured before dawn had dissolved and the body and mind were in banshee-mode, the curd rice instantaneously conjured an igloo within, while the pickle tickled taste-buds made it much easier for my satiated brain to accept why that teaser-train was delayed, yet again….
The spotless marble floor, the hint of burning camphor, the serene-eyed idol, the awesome aarti in tune with harmonious chants had ironed out every furrow of sorrow and added a mysterious sparkle to every sense. Eyes danced, smiles came easy, every word glowed with unabashed ananda, and hugging a fellow devotee felt like coming home. Squatting in that vast bhojanaalay with an instantly manufactured family, the untempered dal and saltless cucumber turned into glorious titbits prolonging the peace of a blissed out afternoon….`
That party plethora of endless choices had made my bewildered tummy mutiny, the welcome curd-rice had assuaged the blazing heat in body and mind, while the no-fanfare prasad after a spirit-fuelling satsang had been like the soothing touch of a mother’s hand.
What do these three dissimilar experiences tell me about this basic need called food — first, we must eat regularly to keep all the ‘apparatus’ — our qualifications, designation, wisdom, what-have-you that we identify ourselves by, well-lubricated and at premium efficiency. They also tell me that enjoying what is placed on our plates to its fullest depends entirely on the ambience, the acuteness of hunger, or an elevated state of consciousness which automatically minimises our normal nit-pickiness about what we want to put into our mouths.
There is a very beautiful prayer in Marathi which tells you to remember the Divine (Shri Hari) when you begin a meal. Just taking this Name is as meritorious as performing a havan. This food which nourishes and nurtures is equivalent to Brahman. Realize that this act is not just about filling your stomach. It is akin to making a sacred offering to appease that fire within. When you ‘uplift’ the acting of eating with this intensity of intent, you will naturally welcome discrimination about what you eat, discretion about how much and common sense about how often. Eating thereby becomes a holy and positive action done with mindfulness and awareness and not while playing a video game, watching a soap or even worse, cutting to size people who, you are sure, are ‘no good’ or should ‘know better’.
Eating with total awareness also heightens pleasure immensely. Try handing a skinned mango to a baby whose chubby palms have just learned to hold it and whose toothless mouth has just learnt to love it… and you will quickly master the art of eating ‘in the moment’, of being ‘here’ and ‘now’.
In a country where hundreds go hungry, it is not just unmindful, it is sinful to disregard, or worse still, waste food. Let us learn to give this wholly positive life-giver lifelong respect instead. Give it the time, attention and regard that you like others to give you. Drink that tea, or lick that candy nice and slow when you are cheating and say a grateful prayer as a precursor to sensible eating.
The Tattiriya Upanishad says plants that feed humans, draw sustenance from the five cosmic elements – earth, air, fire, water and ether. The human body, which is sustained by food, merges back into those very elements after death. Thus, the cycle continues and hence it advises Annam na nindyaat or never criticize food. Give and get from it the love that nurtures you…positively!
Shailaja Ganguly is a journalist, writer, voiceover artiste, anchor for classical music and dance by India’s best, and a fitness fiend who loves children, yoga and food. She is the recipient of the award for excellence in journalism from the Kanara Saraswat Union, and the Woman Icon of Navi Mumbai Award from the Smiles Foundation, an Economic Times prizewinning NGO. She lives in Mumbai.
Featured photo: Image by RitaE from Pixabay
Photo of Indian food from Wikimedia Commons by Kaman7580