Language and Identity

Mango Rice

For 8 years, almost every semester I worked at a university in Cullowhee, North Carolina, I remember one of my good friends who worked with me throwing up her arms in utter despair at someone among that semester’s lot of students writing in their essay about the country Africa. Yes you read right. That my friend is a post-colonial scholar of tremendous repute made it all the worse. Africa is a country. And they speak…er…African there. This is the same ilk of student who often knows no connection between Chinese food and China. That most American Chinese food, particularly in smaller towns around America, bears little resemblance whatsoever to food in China…well we needn’t go there right now.

Neither will we go to the fact that this speaks volumes about the American education system.

But it appears that such ignorance is not restricted to the undergraduate classroom of universities in rural America.

I was watching season two of Netflix’s Bridgerton a couple of weeks ago…don’t gasp, yes, I do, occasionally succumb to something totally schlocky. Something that requires little thought. Particularly if that something has some particularly delectable-looking character in it – which the first season did. Boy he was gorgeous. Unfortunately said object of my desire chose not to return to season two. Perhaps he knew something I didn’t when he made that choice. I’m probably giving him way too much credit. Did I mention he epitomizes eye candy?

Well as I watched the episodes on season two, I was particularly curious about the show’s portrayal of two Indian characters in the lead – two ladies. Also absolutely gorgeous, I might add. And I found myself thinking. Not something I usually want to do when watching schlock, but there you have it. And I found myself going back to my friend’s rant about her students’ utter lack of general knowledge.

And I found…er…find it appalling that the creators of the show seem to share this ignorance. Or arrogance, depending on how you look at it. Because it appears that they simply don’t care about details. India is one country, and everyone eats spicy curry. And everyone speaks..er…Indian?

Let me explain.

Now Netflix does do a lovely job of portraying certain aspects of Indians and their lives, Indian customs. The relationship between the two sisters is lovely – with the elder caring (perhaps a bit too much, as is our wont – that was the subject of last week’s post) about the younger; it was really lovely watching the elder lovingly applying oil to the younger’s tresses; this happens all over India, as far as I am aware. Coconut oil is central to healthy hair according to every single Indian mother; this is something I’m willing to bet on. Then there was the fun scene where the mum and sisters have their own private little haldi (turmeric) ceremony the night before the younger is due to marry, a custom that, while varied, does traverse cultural boundaries across India. And the show’s choice of colors for the young ladies’ dresses is exquisite – bright, vibrant, very different from the rather bland color choices for most of the English characters’ dresses. This is all fine. Sweet, even, perhaps.

And then when you look beyond this very surface sweetness (and seeming homogeneity), it is not difficult at all to see just how superficial the portrayal of India is. Now to anyone who knows India even a little, it should be obvious that the two ladies have distinctly Dravidian features; Tamil features. And yes, they come from Tamil families. But their last name on the show is Sharma, a very North Indian name. Why? Well probably because it is easy to pronounce, not easy to butcher. And most Tamil names aren’t.  Now the show, perhaps (although, I think I am being generous), pays homage to Tamil India by the sisters referring to their deceased dad as Appa, the Tamil word for father. Awesome. But they then appear to just throw in some other words, utterly willy-nilly…. The younger calls the elder Didi – a Hindi word for older sister. Huh? There is a perfectly good word for older sister in Tamil, Akka, which, if you call your dad Appa, you’d be more than likely to use on an older sister. And the elder calls the younger “Bon” – double huh??? What the heck is bon? A bastardization of “behen” – which would be a Hindi word for younger sister?? Or a mispronunciation of “bone” (except for the vowel not being a diphthong) – which is younger sister in Bengali? But in one of the episodes, the sisters say they speak Marathi – where does this feature? Confusing much?

With just these small details, the show’s producers have, effectively, stripped the characters of their identities, their uniqueness – lumping them, instead, into this cauldron of supposed Indianness. A cauldron full of turmeric and curry-loving people who wear bright colors, and who speak Indian.

But I don’t need to look just at Netflix for such simplification. Linguistic simplification is a very Indian phenomenon. I wrote many weeks about the fact that in urban India, kids at school learn English as their medium of instruction, possibly do Hindi as a second language. And if not Hindi, more and more urban Indians are choosing foreign tongues – French, Spanish, Mandarin.

And I have spoken several times about the linguistic diversity in India. I think the sheer diversity really hit home when I asked my dad a few weeks ago whether he knew of any Dravidian languages which included a velar fricative within their phonemic inventory. He simply said that the sounds didn’t exist in any of the Dravidian languages he knows – but there are so so many more, he said. I simply don’t know. And this from a man who is an absolute expert on the phonetics and phonology of Tamil. Which even I thought meant some expertise in other Dravidian languages.

And I have also spoken about the immense difficulty of a linguistic identity in India. When one grows up in a multilingual environment, as many, particularly in South India do, what is their linguistic identity? And how does it change over time? Particularly in this age of tremendous movement within (and outside) the country, change, it must.

That Hindi is a link language in India makes sense – linguistically. It is spoken by more than 40% of the population. But the issue is far from just linguistic, isn’t it? Language, as anything else in India, even food, is political. And even the claim that Hindi is spoken by a large proportion of the population is a terribly simplistic one – because, as has been pointed out repeatedly, many distinct languages are subsumed under an umbrella of Hindi.

So my quarrel is not merely with Netflix’s glossing over (and again, I’m being generous) a Tamilian identity, linguistically-speaking, as distinct from a Hindi identity, for example; rather, it is with our (and by using this pronoun, I mean both Indians and non-Indians) propensity for reducing Indian identity to one that is homogeneous, one that is Hindu, one that is vegetarian, one that speaks Hindi. Today I speak of language and identity; my next couple of posts will focus on the thorniness of identity and its connection with food and religion in India.

So Netflix might make an argument for their incompetence in representing India – if India itself wants to make itself more homogeneous, why can’t the rest of the world? And that would be an argument, definitely. Doesn’t justify the ignorance, though.

So once again, today, here is a recipe for a food that is distinctly South Indian, a rice which even many Indians might not be familiar with. Mango rice. Made with green, unripe mangoes. Now while my grandmothers would, undoubtedly, have had a great deal to say about the particular varieties of mangoes one can use in mango rice, I don’t. I know little about different varieties of mangoes, being a very atypical Indian as far as my intense dislike of ripe mangoes goes. But I love raw mangoes, always have, and make mango rice with whatever unripe mango I have access to.

So here goes, mango rice. A rice that my husband, who is not at all a rice lover, could eat every single day.

Mango Rice

Ingredients (yields about 4 portions of mango rice mix)

For the Mango rice mix

1.     2 raw mangoes – about 400g in total. This yields about 250g of mango flesh once the flesh is cut away from the seeds. The mangoes should be really hard, and the flesh shouldn’t be yellow. If it is turning slightly yellow, and still tastes sour, it is fine. If it is sweet, that will alter the taste of the rice altogether.

2.     2 cups of roughly chopped fresh cilantro

3.     1 cup of fresh coconut or unsweetened desiccated coconut

4.     4-6 green chillies (or more to taste)

5.     1 Tbsp salt

Method

1.     Cut the mangoes – they are hard to cut; what you need to do is get as much as the flesh  was you can without the seed, so cut around the seed. You are going to be blending the flesh with the other ingredients, so don’t worry about size and shape.

2.     Blend all the ingredients together in a blender or food processor with about 1 cup of water – try not to add more. If you use a food processor, you can get away with using less – about ½ to ¾ of a cup. Grind to a coarse paste. The blended mixture should be a bit salty, distinctly sour, and quite spicy, if you like it spicy. If you don’t, you can reduce the number of chillies, but don’t reduce the amount of salt you add. This yields2 ½ to 3 cups of mango rice mix. This freezes really well, and I freeze it in meal-sized portions (about ¾ of a cup).

Ingredients for the rice (easily serves 4; vegan; vegetarian; gluten-free)

1.     1 cup rice, uncooked. I use basmati – you can use whatever rice you have on hand.

2.     2 Tbsp oil

3.     ½ Tbsp mustard seeds

4.     1 Tbsp channa dhal

5.     1 Tbsp urad dhal

6.     1 cup raw, unsalted peanuts. If all you have is roasted and salted, by all means use them, but reduce the amount of salt in the dish a bit.

7.     2 sprigs curry leaves

8.     ¾ cup of the mango rice mixture.

9.     2-3 dried red chillies (more or less as per taste)

10.  ¼ tsp asafoetida

11.  ¼ tsp roasted and ground fenugreek (optional, but someone who knows south Indian food would miss this. Toast fenugreek seeds on a low flame, in a heavy-bottomed skillet till dark and fragrant. Allow them to cool completely and then grind them in a spice grinder. This ground fenugreek can be stored in an airtight container for months)

Method

1.     Cook the rice with 2 cups of water and 1 tsp salt.

2.     Heat the oil in a heavy-bottomed skillet. When the oil is hot, add the mustard seeds and allow them to pop. When they start popping, turn the heat down to low.

3.     Once the mustard is done popping, add in the channa dhal, urad dhal, and raw peanuts. Cook together on low till the dhals and peanuts are lovely and golden. If you use roasted peanuts, you can add them in after the dhals are a golden brown.

4.     Now add in the curry leaves, asafoetida, red chillies and ground fenugreek.

5.     Once the curry leaves are done spluttering, add in the cooked rice and the mango rice mix. Stir will together and serve hot!

You can eat this plain, it is delicious. I add as many peanuts as I do to up the protein content of the rice. The night we had it, however, we ate it with a beef curry on the side.