Vive La Différence

If you’re marrying someone from another ethnic group in India, two things could happen. Either your parents never talk to you again, or if they are nice, normal people, they will mutter hopeful homilies like, ‘Children of inter-caste-marriages are always very clever…’ Luckily, by the time everyone learns of the actual difficulties of living with differences, it’s way too late. As a Malayalee married to a Gujarati, I could tell you a bit about this.

We Mallus believe that drinking hot water boiled with jeera, dhania or sunth in summer actually cools the body down. Anyone wanting to drink ice-cold-water is morally weak – and asking for a sore throat. When we got married, for the longest time, our fridge saw a silent battle. He would put in water bottles to cool, I would take them out. My mum is still bewildered when my husband blanches at the Malayalee summer cooler: hot, pale-yellow, jeera-infused water.

This is probably because he comes from sunny Kathiawad. Where drinking cold water feels like a minor religious experience. My mother-in-law tosses ice-chunks into a large vessel of water and everyone drinks it. Shuddering with guilty joy, so do I.

Likewise, breakfast in a Mallu house is serious business. Idli, dosha, upma, appam, etc. In a Gujju house, breakfast is the time you kill, munching homemade naasta, because lunch – delicious hing-and-gur-tinged – is around the corner. When the sun sets, you want to eat light, and it’s time for a ‘prograam’. A bhel, bhajiya, dhokla or paani-puri no prograam. I watch awe-struck as the elderly polish off homemade fried snacks for dinner. If I gave a Mallu father-in-law bhajiyas for a meal, he’d probably go for the world plate-flinging record. Stuffing my face, I worried about being able to conjure up similar snacks when the in-laws visited us in Mumbai. Obviously, a square meal just wouldn’t do.

Then there are the specific-food-group-related hysterias. Featuring – in our case – rice and proteins. Mallus like their proteins killed, cooked in kilos of cokennut and served with red rice. To most Gujjus, proteins = dals, and dal is eaten not with rice – which is starchy, somewhat debauched – but with wheat.

We found all of it funny – till baby arrived. Then battles-lines were drawn. Rice versus wheat. Oil baths versus just baths. Ragi versus rava. Dal-paani versus rice-paani. Green bananas versus yellow bananas. Picking-a-name-off-the-top-of-your-head versus naming by rashi. Rubbing a stick of scented herbs with a bit of gold inside it and giving the baby a drop of the paste (Mallu colic cure) versus fainting at the suggestion (Gujju reaction).

And food-group snobbery again. My mother-in-law implored, ‘Dal is the best protein, no need for non-veg! At least don’t give her pig-meat!’ My mom enquired, ‘Just when do you plan to start fish-chicken for this child?’ Meanwhile, the fruit of my womb calmly refused Mallu staples like chicken, fish, steamed yellow bananas, jackfruit and rice kanji. She seemed predisposed to sev-gaanthiya, pasta, paneer, pijja, noodles, and still needs her daily Gujju staple: dal-bhaat-shaak-rotli.

Growing older makes you hanker for the ways of your childhood. It makes you want to reclaim some of the future for the past, by teaching your kids things you picked up unconsciously from your parents. I sometimes imagine a family where everybody drinks warm jeera-water and enjoys dried-fish pickle. My husband would probably like a wife who makes chhunda in summer and methi theplas in winter. However, despite our occasional longings for the familiar, it is with the unknown, the different, that we are charting a course. It’s a bit rocky, but it’s fun too.

Our mixed-up Gujyalee or Mallurati kid will, hopefully, find her own path through the minefield of her parents’ combined nostalgias. If she ever marries, though, I hope she goes all out on a limb. Brings home a son-in-law who grew up eating whale blubber or pickled goat intestines. The more different the better, I say.