WE NEED SOME INDIAN SWEETS……
From the time I
can remember I have been fortunate to sink my teeth into the sinfully sweet ‘Indian Sweets’ the sweet people visiting us brought in those soggy mistana bhandar paper boxes.( I can prove it -every time I
stand on my weighing scale I guiltily
eye the needle tipping off into the zone
beyond my BMI). "I got you some Indian sweets" grinned my
sweet Aunty Magdalene and I could kiss her to death. The delish rasgullahs and
the pearly white sandesh stared at me –
hmmm yummy Indian Sweets.I was a hilly billy with an aweful sweet tooth.
They have
been Indian sweets for me all my life till very recently. I realised that these are Bengali sweets.The only difference is their ‘chomchom’ is our ‘chamcham’ and their ‘sondesh’
is our ‘sandesh’( the lip roll will do the trick here),the rest remains the same ! and there are
Gujurati sugar laced snacks
and Rajasthani munchies. These
are not us - these are Indian fare!
Growing up in the North- East of India ; or should I say in the cold lush green gateway to the North-East, with the true blue ( a mix here and there) Indo Mongoloid blood running through my veins. ( I can prove that too - look at my slanty dreamy eyes, my high cheek bones and my pale yellow complexion ) I associate myself with the hardy life, strong men and women , pumpkin seeds, fierce Winters and oxtail soup, walking uphill and downhill, marigolds in the wild , solid calf muscles and those occasional indian sweets and the didi led almost step sisterly state government reminding me that I am an Indian (or is it to create an identity crisis…I wonder).
Have been introspecting since then. Would a girl living
up in the north west of the US of A in Seattle munch on some special ‘american’ candies? or a child
in Balochistan crave for some ‘pakistani’ kebabs? She would just want candies and he would want
kebabs. I wondered. This looks like a very Indian thing. Crazy and divided that
we are. We might not be very vocal about it ( unlike me!) but this runs deep.
Sad but true. I had to look into it. Maybe it was just one of those British hangover still eating us hollow. I asked my mother, ‘Mama why are these
sweets called Indian sweets’? She looked at me and said ‘These are Indian
sweets that’s why, these are eaten in Mainland India’. Whattttttt? Mainland
China- the restaurant and its big red
curly dragon flashed in my highly imaginative mind. I saw myself sitting in some Macau like
corner in India. So we are different, aren't we? We must be, we eat Indian sweets sitting in
India. So that is where the sweets come
from- from Mainland India. So “What are our sweets?”, I prodded. “We are not ‘sweet’
eaters. We eat meat and rice and chillies and stuff that make us strong.” Her words
were final. I agree as my craving for a hotpot of rice and meat overrides all.
As I write this I wonder about my ability to get the
message home. Many years back I met this girl in Delhi and she asked me in all
sincerity ‘don’t you fall when you walk those treacherous hilly roads’? I
looked at her in bewilderment. Maybe the feeling is mutual. So the people from
‘Mainland India’ – I am not asking for much….just try . Indian sweets really?
India is indeed diverse and crazy and all.
Yours Truly
