Swami’s friend Rishi eats admirably well. He is almost of the same age of Swami-not less than 65-but senility never holds him back from freaking out on dishfuls of countless gustatory delights, though his skimpy but healthy appearance doesn't presage his sizable appetite. He simply doesn't care what others say; any such criticism would be so mercilessly shrugged off  with a comment that more or less means that a well-placated stomach opens to a good body and a good mind.

Rishi is blessed with tremendous flexibility in terms of the range of eatables he can enjoy and even cook - from some most notorious junks that even the worst food junky would hate to touch to the yields from some endangered culinary 'art forms', the recipe of which are known only to him. Part of the reason for this is that, being a diplomat, he had spent half of his adult life in foreign lands - Mexico, Finland, South Africa and where not! Swami alleges that Rishi had even worked with Indian embassies in Brobdingnag and Utopia – a charge that Rishi politely refuses to accept.

Swami and I used to make a multitude of eludes from Rishi's suburban hide-out in the National Capital Region,  just to save our poor bellies from finding themselves as laboratories of a maverick cook.

It was on one such occasion Swami opened my eyes to something that may be termed as the "politics" of food.

Night. Rishi's home. Swami and me and Rishi.

Swami being a vegetarian, I had been threatened by the prospects of supporting Rishi in his ordeal of finishing off something that looked roughly like a thick staff of life that you would see in old, sub-titled, Eastern European movies. By its side was a large bowl-full of deep red not-sure-what-it-is. It was raining heavily in Delhi then, and we were left with the Hobson's choice of remaining there till the sky cleared.

"Don't worry, I won't compel you to company!" Rishi consoled me : "This is just adequate for me, I didn't have my lunch properly today". he mumbled while thrusting a huge slice of soaked bread into his mouth. "My theory is that eating is also something to experiment with, just as anything else. You know, a human being spends almost 6 years of his life in the process of eating!”

Swami has never been particularly disported by the sight of Rishi taking food. He called me to fly the coop from the scene to take our positions in the withdrawing room.

Unity in Di(v)e(rsi)t(y)

Patience drained, I opened a small-talk with Swami.

"Swami, are we what we think or what we eat?”

Swami smiled, but pronounced something entirely off the point:

"I always wonder why we never take the cultural and political aspects of food seriously"

"..Do you think food is politically important, anyway? "

"Of course it is! See - flexible beings like Rishi can consume anything that responds to their digestive enzymes. But I have seen some true national and international citizens fail to cope with trying out a so-far 'unexplored' variety of dish in a foreign place. They may in fact be possessing a very broad world-view, would get along with any outlander, would assimilate themselves permanently or transiently to a different culture - but when it comes to eating, most of them simply sulk!”

I could hear burbling noise of Rishi filling his glass in a hurry to grease his ingestion.

I was sure that Swami had a point. This is a common problem faced by Indians- especially vegetarians- during their migration to the West. While many of then are ready to get carried away by everything that is western in an effort to conform as fast as they can, they would soon find food can pose a major menace. Worse still, they wouldn't be able to do a good job in flaunting their "westward" loyalty in public parties as the poor old Indian tongue and stomach don't understand what is going on around them.

Again, one doesn't need to go that far to see such a divide. India has got so incredibly diverse comestibles in her palette; I too often find this as important a factor to be reckoned with as linguistic diversity. Some national stuff - like Roti, Dosa or some rice formulations apart, there are tons of other exclusive regional preparations that the rest of India can be least tolerant of. But is food is so important a cultural parameter?

 “Swami”, I asked ” Huntington in his monumental work "The Clash of Civilizations..", successfully establishes that civilization transcends most demographic factors - religious to linguistic, historic to geographical and of course, eating habits. He tells us:

         ..        some where in Middle East, half a dozen young men could well be dressed in jeans, drinking coke ( and eating pizza(?)),listening to rap, and   between their bows to Mecca, putting together a bomb to blow up an American airliner..

This indicates civilization can overstep even religion and language – then how can we even consider food has some significance?”

But Swami had a different view: "But I think you had better draw some other inference from that. Huntington doesn't mind giving dietary preferences the same status as that of artistic or even religious inclinations! Anyway, it is a reality that food is getting a raw deal in most cultural analyses. “

…”It is a food for thought, for sure” I encouraged Swami to open up.

Belly-bound Religions

“It truly is. First off, the religious part of it: food has been a tightly-controlled domain for religions. Interestingly, none of the totalitarian religions is an exception when it comes to cracking the dietary whip. The restrictions are so intense in many cases, that the followers would be considered outcasts for not following these rules verbatim.

Restrictions runs the gamut from absolute adherence to vegetarianism (Hindu Brahmanism, Buddhism, Jainism) to abstinence from having certain forbidden flush (Hinduism, Islam etc), from sticking on to a specified diet for a specific period of an year (Christianity, Hinduism, Judaism, Islam) to partial fasting (Islam, Hinduism), and from full- fledged fasting (Hinduism) to fasting unto death (Jainism - Prayopavesa) ! 

No wonder Khushvant Singh sardonically termed faiths "belly-bound"...

Having said that, can we deny the importance of food in personal and social life? I doubt. Religions mostly adapted the social habits prevalent at the time of their inception, and had strong cultural or historic reasons for doing so.

Let's consider couple of long-familiar cases:

The most noted of all such edicts is perhaps what Islam holds against consuming pork. History says that, in Mediterranean and in West Asia, there had been a stiff social stigma associated with eating swine way back in 1000 AD, largely due to the animal's scavenging tendencies and a series of outbreaks of trichinosis in the region. This antipathy is evident from the fact that there was a written-norm in the Old Testament preventing pig-meat. Islam decided to carry this forward, whereas the early Christian church was not ready to preserve an early Jewish tradition.

But in India, as everybody knows, the most famed religious restriction is the shunning of beef by Hindus. But both the period and cause of the advent of the tradition of keeping cow-flesh off the Hindu menu is still a matter of debate. Most historians agree that ancient Indus-valley inhabitants indeed ate this form of flesh, based on texts like Charaka Samhita that prescribes beef gravy as a remedy for intermittent fever. But at some point, it got evolved into a taboo. One major reason that I see here is the fact that Manu Smriti emphatically forbids beef eating. Other possible historical reasons may include, one-cows were revered due to their service to a large section of society as the primary means of living, and started to be seen as a symbol of fertility and abundance; two- cow-flesh was among the "havan"s in early rituals, and it was thus too special for ordinary men to consume; three-the strong influence of Buddhist and Jainist vegetarianism over later Hindu life-patterns.

Whatever may be the historical seedbeds of these practices, the fact remains that they are all still observed with utmost veneration. We needn't go after them asking why - it hardly matters.”

Food shapes History ?

“You always target religions. Give them a break!”

“All right -but such a discussion is interesting in other respects as well. It is interesting is to think about how food indirectly played the role of a primary catalyst for many changes in the courses of history.” - Swami said.

“I know what you mean. Incidents like India’s first struggle for independence sprouted from the aforesaid religious restrictions, correct? Hindu and Muslim soldiers were up in arms against the prospects of loading their guns - that involved biting the end of the cartridge, which was lubricated in pig fat or beef tallow. That triggered everything that happened in 1857. Is it not a good example of how dietary orientations shape history?”

“Well, it is, insofar as an overt form of food-as-an-agent in historical events. But food has got another much latent potential to manipulate history.  

Science has, by now, caused human being to becoming an creature with effectively little dependency on his physical capabilities for survival. But there was a time - not very distant, though – when everything was decided by muscles and sword, by pure muscular brute force. Certain societies were open to experiment with their intakes for they didn't have any religious or societal restriction that was holding them back from doing so. This was especially true for many Western communities, whose culinary habits were characterized by their extravagance.

The amount of high-protein diet they had had over generations gave them a definite physical edge over other races elsewhere. One up front comparison of European menu in the middle ages with that of India of that time would be enough to see what was happening. Affluent European diet included huge quarters of beef and mutton plus some incredibly fancy verities including wild boar, hedgehog, roebuck, crane, heron, and peacock. It is said that the then diners used to gobble huge quantities of food, sometimes drawing knives from sheaths to saw off huge chunks of meat!

However disgusting these habits may sound, it is almost certain that this protein- rich diet did help them develop stronger physique and heightened stamina. Their diet helped them win wars. That was a time when Buddhist vegetarianism was strengthening its roots in India and rest of East / South-East Asia!

The rest is, well, history.”

“Are you taunting vegetarianism? You are a vegetarian yourself!”

“I would not ever mock vegetarianism, it is a highly respectable way of living – but only as long as you have some more reasons to be a vegetarian than you have just “naturally inherited” vegetarianism. Also, you have to work out a calculated diet to even out the potential protein inadequacy in adolescence. Despite being a Brahmin, I have chosen to become a vegan only at my age of 40, and I had solid grounds to do so. That’s a different topic...”

Metabolic Diversity

I added - “I think it is not only the religious or other restrictions that make it tough for hotter lands to catch up with the colder ones in terms of dietary gains.

There is another insurmountable advantage - one of effective metabolism and consequently, the way nutrients get absorbed in the body. This often gives raise to 'naturally favorable' metabolic- geographies on the planet in terms of ability of their inhabitants to expend energy as well as their physical dimensions. In simple terms, An interesting observation made by William Darlymple as to how the physiques of Mogul emperors have transformed through generations during their stay in India:

    " ..a couple of generations in the withering heat of the Gangetic plains turned the Great Moguls from hardy Turkic warlords into pale princes in petticoats..."

Swami was not very impressed “Interesting point, but not a very important one. It may be worthwhile to talk be about more grievous inequalities...”

Justice through food

Swami got up, neared the window and fixed his gaze on the rainy city outside.

“Dietary disparity is arguably the ugliest form of social inequality and the greatest split in human race. Here, it is not the preferences that generate the mismatch, but the sheer availability and affordability.

The less fortunate in the world who endures their horrendous state of poverty have little to choose from. Being forced to content with whatever is available; they never understand the politics of stomach, but only the agony of it. Hunger topples governments, ignites much unrest through time and casts its ominous shadow over the riches of many an empire, eventually bringing them down. Hunger is one of those human realities that know no cultural, political, ideological or national contrasts, but its perpetuation and prevalence do. History has emphatically proved that if any Queen or any system that has ever attempted to survive on notions like "If they have no bread, then let them eat cake!”, the result would be a revolution with no less an intensity than that of French Revolution. Such is the power of food!

One of world’s cruelest statistical ironies may be that the 10million children die of hunger every year where as around 42 million hit the health clubs every year in US alone to burn off ‘extra input’ !

Malnutrition is a vicious a circle- It creates inferior human beings, who will then be bound to live an inferior life with an inferior income due to an inferior brain and inferior physique, only to pass on their inferiority to their inferior offspring.

Does anybody really take this fact seriously when faulting a section of society for not being smart or competent? Anybody who pines for social equality should first address dietary disparities.”

Handy hands

“But culture takes a more perceptible form when it comes to manners and etiquettes during the real act of having food. No doubt, there would have been a time when every human being used to hold food between their fingers before that getting placed in his/her mouth. But European cutlery and flatware had developed through ages from single pointer to two prongs fork and their final transition to knife and fork. I feel this had more to do with the kind of food they had than with some deliberate manners. Regular Indian preparations clearly don't favor a cutlery by their side - whether it is Indian Roti or Dosa. Not sure how true my theory is, though.

But colonialism had almost little impact on traditional Indian way of eating with hand; unlike it did on many other walks of Indian life. Of course, eating rice with hand in public is now considered ill-mannered of late, but Indian "dexterity" is still alive and kicking.

This Indian habit has been a target of plain ridicule to downright racism. I remember an interview with Satyajit Ray in which he recollected an incident of viewers leaving in good numbers from a Western movie house when his film was screened , unable to stand the scenes of characters having food with their hands . Anyway, Western communities have evolved more tolerantly since then, as they began to acknowledge pluralism of all sorts.

In short, I feel there have not been enough studies on food as a significant cultural barrier. I believe adaptability on each other's cuisines is a key cultural melting point.”

At that moment, a belching Rishi showed up, putting an end to our talk.