Of People, Plates and Palates

The sun sets as the car dances its way up and down the Sahyadris. I’m about to doze off when suddenly, the car stops. “We’ve reached Khandgedara,” someone says.

I jump off my seat, negotiating with my luggage, and head towards a hut- my home for the two day trip to this remote village in Maharashtra,Western India. As I walk, cricket chirps and cries of ‘Jai Jai Ram Krishna Hari’ inch closer.

“What’s going on?”
“It’s the Saptah. We eat and sing together,” a little one says.

A festival with food! I already feel better.

In one corner of the pandal, men clink brass cymbals and dance deliriously. Two young men play the mridanga furiously, while the lead singer croaks into an ancient microphone. An audience packed with the mesmerised elderly and fidgety children looks on. Amidst the psychedelic din, a generator chugs indignantly.

A conversation with an old lady reveals that the Saptah is an age-old, annual week-long festival with a twist. Men perform kirtans and cook. The women ‘rest’.

A man gestures me for dinner. A whiff of air strikes my face and then a burst of aromas: dry red chillies, dungcakes, musky rice, wild flowers. But an overpowering sweetness of cardamom from a pot of halva draws my attention.

I sit and watch salt and lemon being thrust rhythmically onto hundreds of leaf plates laid out in horizontal rows. Brown-white rice is topped with fiery red curry, with a dollop of translucent ghee which meanders down to a shimmering semolina and raisin halva. As a guest I receive special treatment-a separate earthen jar of water and extra ghee. I tuck in like a famished ogre,blistering spice and silky sweetness tingling my senses.

For a while, we eat silently. And then voices grow louder. Reticent courtesy turns into hearty discussions on cuisine and culinary practice, followed sometimes by laughter and sometimes by disgust.

I look around. It’s all more familiar than strange.
In fact, I’m no more a guest. I’m somewhere between the observer and the observed.