At the Table, Indian Style

For my stay in Madurai, I am living with Pradeep and his family in an adjacent building to the main house where other volunteers for the program live as well. Pradeep informed me that this was his parent’s house and that he was the tenth of eleven children, who amongst them have twenty-one grandchildren and that every Christmas time (Pradeep is actually one of the minority Christians in the Shaivite-dominated South), the entire family gathers in this house.

By European and American standards, it is a modest home, though by Madurai standards, it is palatial I am sure. Just a couple of homes down, however, you will see families living in abject poverty, with no real furniture, limited water and electricity and a great deal of trash in the streets. There is no division here between the have’s and the have not’s with regards to location.

Part of the benefit that I in this privileged situation is that Jacintha, a middle-aged spinster who is physically deformed in her right leg, thus preventing her from being a desirable bride and is thus fated to remain a spinster, lives with Pradeep and his family and provides home-cooked Indian meals for us. She was very glad to hear that I love Indian food, especially spicy, as many of the volunteers from the UK and elsewhere cannot get used to the food here. Upon arrival, for example, I was speaking with Alex, a twenty-year old kineseology student from France, and they were going to get pizza that evening as he was not able to deal with Indian food any longer because of his stomach. So, I definitely have made a friend with Jacinthe.

One of the many things that I had read about particularities with Indians at home is that often you will be the only one eating while everyone else sits there and watches. This is not an urban legend. Today at lunch, the table was spread and plates were put on, Pradeep and his wife sat down, and I was served, but noone else was going to eat, but rather just sit there. Pradeep said that he was going to have a later lunch and his wife had eaten. OK, so I dug in, though used a spoon for today. However, the tradition is to use thing fingers as Pradeep explained how and said that the rice and food is not supposed to touch below the lowest finger joint and into the palm. Though he said that certain Indians will use the palm.

I ate a wonderful lunch then, alone, while they looked on and conversed at times in Tamil about me, which I figured out as Indians insert quite a bit of English into their language, be it Hindi, Bengali, Tamil, or whatnot. When I was done, I was going to get up, but Gitesh and Alex, two other volunteers come in and sat down. Alex was not eating (had his leftover pizza earlier), though Gitesh did. And, so did Pradeep. So, Pradeep had just waited til 2 to eat, despite that we had already been sitting there with the food and plates, and them watching me. So, then it was my turn, and I sat there and watched them eat. But, now I saw Pradeep’s technique of eating with the fingers, which I will incorporate next time.

Eating at an Indian table is very similar to being in Italy. In fact, I am beginning to see quite some similarities between the two cultures, strangely enough. Family connections are extremely important to both, and the first-born sons are obviously treated vastly better than anyone else, especially daughters. Commercials for food products are also similar to Italian ones with the grandmother cooking a special dish for her grown-up favorite grandson while the entire family looks expectantly on while he takes his first bite and then bursts into dramatic joy when he approves.

The table itself is also similar. For the most part, what is considered “family style” in Italy is quite similar in India, save for the fact that not everyone eats at the same time as in Italy. You will have several pots of various curries, chutneys, and kormas, along with one or two types of rice, vegetables and some form of bread such as dosa, oothapam, naan, rothi, or a variety of others which are used, as in Italy to scoop up the food. In Italy, it is used for scappare, which means to sweep up (as well as a less PG -rated meaning in Bologna). In India, this makes it easier for eating with the fingers as well.

So, when in India, I have found that the food is indeed, finger-licking good, but that I will also need to get used to having a table full of friendly Indian faces watching every bit that I take.