The Buddhavarapus, my father's side, are a generous, gregarious clan. Historically, we were brahmins whose realm was outside the repositories of traditional, Vedic knowledge, outside the temple and priestly services. We were ministers in the courts of kings, accountants, clerks. Individually though, we're mostly shy, mild-mannered (but privately, and famously temperamental) folks, but when they come together - this clattering, stumbling wave of family, especially in times of death and mourning - they're a hive mind of comfort and laughter.
My father's family was a lot less well-off than my mother's when they were growing up. He tells me about how they used to save their rotis as kids, hoarding them, unsure of when they'd get to eat them again. It wasn't all through their childhood of course, just that he knows the feeling of going hungry -- something my brother and I don't. It's because it was a joint family, mostly of unemployed young men at the time, a victim of their own ill-fitting education and the times. Ironically, it is the niyogi brahmins (which is what the Buddhavarapus are, apparently), who emphasise upon the necessities of modern education, eschewing the power and tyrannical jurisdiction over knowledge that is typified, and by now caricaturized, of this caste. And in a family where the contours swung wildly to accommodate as many relatives as possible, averaging around 20, it was only my father's father who brought in any money as a prosecutor for the CBI. (He would hold that job down for 50 years.)
My mother's side - Kuchibhotlas - were more educated, fragmented as they were into more sustainable models of nuclear families. They're extremely private, tending towards reticence. Brilliant economizers, deft at "making do" with the money they have. Where my father's side are hearty, unafraid spenders who value the feeling of a good (spontaneous) buy over the permanence of money, my mother's side is frugal, but lenient. While they never had any money to spare, my mother says they didn't go hungry.
"Amma could afford to cut corners because there weren't so many mouths to feed," my amma tells me.
***
Interesting then, that my brother and I have in us, like an evolutionary trait, ingrained a sense of respect towards food. Hours spent agonizing over wasted food on plates have been scribbled guiltily inside diaries, whispered as confessions to parents. So I end up eating, and this is typical, everything on my plate in the train. It gets mistaken for gluttony, but it really is an unconscious anxiety of leaving food on my plate. My stomach is full, but there's a little bit of dahi left. I don't want it to be carelessly splattered around some train track somewhere. It is food. It is a luxury.
Another habit, I notice with surprise and bemusement, is how my father and I clean up and organize table clutter post meals, especially when being served outside our house. We polish off our plates, stack the spoons and plates and cups together, go around the table collecting wares, organizing them in neat piles that can be picked up easily by whoever is serving us. Unlike my mother and brother, we find it unbecoming and disrespectful to throw rolled up, used tissue papers in dregs of gravy, little balled up representatives of our power over their service.
"So I've noticed," my dad says at the end of one such meal, "we're one of the few people in this restaurant, if not the only people, who look a waiter in his eye and smile when refusing or accepting whatever they're serving us."
***
Having grown up in a family that believes in cooking more portions than necessary at any given time, especially when guests come over (there should always be enough food), it always makes us a little awkward to eat at a house where the portions appear small. The serving bowls are tiny, so each of us quickly, mentally calculates and approximates how little to serve ourselves so that no one is stuck with the horror and ignominy of finishing the food. Unsure, I suppose, of whether this is all there is, or there is more of each back in the kitchen. The balance is nerve-wracking. What is supposed to be a comforting meal becomes instead one of calculations to avoid any embarrassing moments. What if one of us asks if there is more daal? What if we're eating this sparingly, but there is a lot more food inside and we're only making our hosts distraught at how little we're eating?
Back at home, you see, it's the visual of huge portions that we use, as symbol, as sign, as signifier, to convey this: do not approximate, this is feeling, not mathematics, eat till your heart bursts.
So when we eat our meals at Surya uncle and Jai aunty's, we're a little thrown off by the portions placed on the table. The Raos begin their mental maths.
"This rice and atta comes from Jai's mother's farm," Surya uncle tells us while signalling the house help to refill all the bowls with more food.
Turns out the rice and atta have been grown using minimal to no fertilisers. Turns out it was only the appearance of frugality.
My father's family was a lot less well-off than my mother's when they were growing up. He tells me about how they used to save their rotis as kids, hoarding them, unsure of when they'd get to eat them again. It wasn't all through their childhood of course, just that he knows the feeling of going hungry -- something my brother and I don't. It's because it was a joint family, mostly of unemployed young men at the time, a victim of their own ill-fitting education and the times. Ironically, it is the niyogi brahmins (which is what the Buddhavarapus are, apparently), who emphasise upon the necessities of modern education, eschewing the power and tyrannical jurisdiction over knowledge that is typified, and by now caricaturized, of this caste. And in a family where the contours swung wildly to accommodate as many relatives as possible, averaging around 20, it was only my father's father who brought in any money as a prosecutor for the CBI. (He would hold that job down for 50 years.)
My mother's side - Kuchibhotlas - were more educated, fragmented as they were into more sustainable models of nuclear families. They're extremely private, tending towards reticence. Brilliant economizers, deft at "making do" with the money they have. Where my father's side are hearty, unafraid spenders who value the feeling of a good (spontaneous) buy over the permanence of money, my mother's side is frugal, but lenient. While they never had any money to spare, my mother says they didn't go hungry.
"Amma could afford to cut corners because there weren't so many mouths to feed," my amma tells me.
***
Interesting then, that my brother and I have in us, like an evolutionary trait, ingrained a sense of respect towards food. Hours spent agonizing over wasted food on plates have been scribbled guiltily inside diaries, whispered as confessions to parents. So I end up eating, and this is typical, everything on my plate in the train. It gets mistaken for gluttony, but it really is an unconscious anxiety of leaving food on my plate. My stomach is full, but there's a little bit of dahi left. I don't want it to be carelessly splattered around some train track somewhere. It is food. It is a luxury.
Another habit, I notice with surprise and bemusement, is how my father and I clean up and organize table clutter post meals, especially when being served outside our house. We polish off our plates, stack the spoons and plates and cups together, go around the table collecting wares, organizing them in neat piles that can be picked up easily by whoever is serving us. Unlike my mother and brother, we find it unbecoming and disrespectful to throw rolled up, used tissue papers in dregs of gravy, little balled up representatives of our power over their service.
"So I've noticed," my dad says at the end of one such meal, "we're one of the few people in this restaurant, if not the only people, who look a waiter in his eye and smile when refusing or accepting whatever they're serving us."
***
Having grown up in a family that believes in cooking more portions than necessary at any given time, especially when guests come over (there should always be enough food), it always makes us a little awkward to eat at a house where the portions appear small. The serving bowls are tiny, so each of us quickly, mentally calculates and approximates how little to serve ourselves so that no one is stuck with the horror and ignominy of finishing the food. Unsure, I suppose, of whether this is all there is, or there is more of each back in the kitchen. The balance is nerve-wracking. What is supposed to be a comforting meal becomes instead one of calculations to avoid any embarrassing moments. What if one of us asks if there is more daal? What if we're eating this sparingly, but there is a lot more food inside and we're only making our hosts distraught at how little we're eating?
Back at home, you see, it's the visual of huge portions that we use, as symbol, as sign, as signifier, to convey this: do not approximate, this is feeling, not mathematics, eat till your heart bursts.
So when we eat our meals at Surya uncle and Jai aunty's, we're a little thrown off by the portions placed on the table. The Raos begin their mental maths.
"This rice and atta comes from Jai's mother's farm," Surya uncle tells us while signalling the house help to refill all the bowls with more food.
Turns out the rice and atta have been grown using minimal to no fertilisers. Turns out it was only the appearance of frugality.
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