Many years ago, I was working on an English translation of filmmaker Nagraj Manjule’s stunning book of poetry in Marathi, Unhachya Kataviruddha. He very graciously invited me to stay over at his and Gargee’s house in Pune during the long hours of back-and-forth, as I struggled to translate it accurately — Marathi is only my third language. One of his poems had the evocative phrase “kulkulit chaha”. Did you mean like kick-ass, strong tapri chai? I asked naively. Nagraj looked at me and said frankly, “We simply could not afford milk for tea.” Translation is not only a question of language and the subtext of the tea, but also the economic conditions in which the tea was made. Filmmaker Mari Selvaraj also turns two glasses of tea, a black tea and a milk tea, with a small mogra flower between them, into an iconic, most heartbreaking image in the climax of his remarkable film Pariyerum Perumal in Tamil.
Not much is widely known about “Dalit food”, and related recipes, stories and culture. But there have been fascinating efforts to highlight this. These include Shahu Patole’s landmark book Anna He Apoorna Brahma (Marathi, 2015), translated as Dalit Kitchens of Marathwada by Bhushan Korgaonkar (Harper Collins, Rs 599, 2024). Gifted artist Rajyashri Goody has created installations Writing Recipes (2016) and Eat with Great Delight, the latter with family photographs and recipe booklets (2018). Born and raised in Pune in a half-Dalit, half-English family, she put together a series of recipe booklets, recipe-poems really, inspired by references to food in Dalit literature. She acknowledged that she was inspired by Shahu Patole’s book, and Isn’t This Plate Indian? Dalit Histories and Memories of Food by the Gender Studies Class of 2009 at Pune University. And there is theatre artist Sri Vamsi Matta, in whose “Come Eat With Me” events, cooking is an act of remembering, performance and a communal experience, by way of asserting his identity and defying everyday injustices.
Shahu Patole’s remarkable book is possibly one of the first published Dalit cookbooks in India. Patole, who grew up in Marathwada, is a writer and retired government officer from the Indian Information Service cadre, who has worked in the Press Information Bureau, Defence PRO, All India Radio and Doordarshan. His book records a range of non-vegetarian and vegetarian recipes from the Mahar and Mang communities in Mara¬thwada, along with the social context, his personal memories and lived experiences as a Dalit. The recipes, like any other, are shaped by locally available foods and ingredients, as well as historical, financial and cultural factors, and “acquired through centuries of discrimination.” He writes of how upper caste Hindus, including Kayasths, Rajputs, and even Saraswat Brahmins, are often non-vegetarian, eating “meat, mainly goat, lamb, chicken.” He observes how, in the face of “vegetarian propagandists”, “non-vegetarians are made to feel immoral and guilty.” And of course, vegetarian moral police are increasingly common: housing societies and landlords won’t allow a non-vegetarian to live in the flat/society. He shares how the democratisation of media and social media has enabled Dalits to share their food stories.
Food is a sensitive, and entirely personal issue. And Patole counters critics with his comment: “If people would really have become ‘satshil’ (good natured) by eating sattvic food, then the caste and class system wouldn’t have survived in this culture.”
Mahars and Mangs traditionally disposed of dead animals, among other professions, and have been eating meat since before the Common Era — long before Muslims arrived in India, writes Patole. Commenting on the hypocrisy and exploitation of lower caste labour by Brahmins, he observes: “Untouchability was not followed while digging and construction work (of wells) was on. Though once they hit water, untouchability kicked in.”
Traditionally, Mahars and Mangs also did a lot of labour for the landlords’ households: cleaning cattlesheds, cleaning the house, repairing plaster, feeding cattle, cutting wood: usually they are not paid money for such ‘minor’ work, but paid in leftover food, that’s how reheated leftovers have become a dish, ambura, meaning fermented, Patole explains. His meat recipes, and stories, include kalij (liver), boka (kidneys), khima (minced meat), rakti (animal blood), and even moholachi poli (honeycomb), the last cooked with onions, chilli powder and salt.
And also vegetarian recipes, including pithla, kandavani (onion chutney), hula (roasted pods), tarvat (a leafy vegetable), ambadi (roselle) bhakri, dodya curry (raw figs) and chigur (tamarind flowers). Thank you to the team — Patole, Suchismita Ukil from Harper Collins and Bhushan Korgaonkar, for opening our eyes to worlds within.
Meenakshi Shedde, film curator, has been working with the Toronto, Berlin and other festivals worldwide for 30 years. She has been a Cannes Film Festival Jury Member and Golden Globes International Voter, and is a journalist and critic. Reach her at meenakshi.shedde @mid-day.com