Taste of Life: Food for thought... business, caste and taste, all in this serving

Maintaining caste integrity was, and unfortunately still is, greatly dependent on who cooked or handled the food. It also depended on who you dined with. What you ate decided your social status, your economic worth, whom you marry, and where you live

It’s been almost 25 years since I had my first meal cooked by Chavan mami. She ran a khanaval in a two-room apartment in the famous Khandke chawl in Dadar. Most of her clients were students from my college. They knew where to head to after they could no longer endure the food served in the college mess. Mami was always smiling, and she never counted the rotis her customers, mostly young men with enormous appetites, ate. The chicken curry she cooked on Fridays and Sundays was loved by all.

Most of the workers would come to Mumbai without their wives. When they moved to Mumbai to earn a livelihood, they carried with them the deep-rooted ills of the caste system. They would mostly eat food in khanavals owned by men or women of their own caste. (REPRESENTATIVE PHOTO)

Mami’s husband was 70 and diabetic. He used to work in a mill in Parel and was forced to sit at home after he lost his right foot several years ago. Since Mami found him useless in the kitchen, he would often sit with the diners and regaled them with stories that had local goons and famous gangsters, cricketers, politicians, and union leaders as heroes.

Mami’s father-in-law had come to Mumbai to earn a living in the last decade of the 19th century with his wife and a toddler from a village in Konkan. Proletarian Mumbai had then been flourishing in Parel. The textile mills always needed workers, and migrants from Konkan and Marathwada regions ensured a steady supply. They worked together in the mills and lived together in newly constructed chawls nearby. When it came to food, caste decided who cooked for whom, and who ate with whom.

Most of the workers would come to Mumbai without their wives. When they moved to Mumbai to earn a livelihood, they carried with them the deep-rooted ills of the caste system. They would mostly eat in khanavals owned by men or women of their own castes. A person risked “pollution” if he accepted food from the hands of people of so-called “lower castes” than his own. Eating in a khanaval ran by a person of “higher caste” was sometimes allowed. There were separate seating arrangements for customers of the so-called “lower castes”. They were supposed to eat in separate utensils, too.

As the number of workers increased, khanavals prospered too, but not all could afford to eat in a khanaval. An ingenious system emerged for such people. Families looking for extra income welcomed workers who did not wish to eat in khanavals, to their homes. Each family would take two to three diners at the max. The diners would eat whatever was cooked for the family and paid a fixed amount for the food each month. The monthly charges would be typically 25% less than what they would pay in a khanaval. The women of the families offering food did not mind cooking for a couple of people extra every day since the arrangement was extremely profitable.

The customers not only saved money but also did not worry about dining with people from “lower castes”. There would always be rumours about food being cooked in a khanaval by someone from a “lower caste”, or a diner lying about his caste to gain entry into a khanaval. This deep-rooted mistrust involving food followed everyone everywhere. The families offering food would always know the caste of their customers because admission was strictly based on references provided. This eliminated the risk of “pollution”.

Since some khanavals were “strictly vegetarian”, thus bolstering the notion of “purity” associated with caste, customers had a choice of selecting families which served non-vegetarian food.

Mami’s mother-in-law too fed a couple of workers from their village in Konkan all through her life. This institution and the arrangement have unfortunately not been documented properly to date. It finds a fleeting mention in the Marathi novel “Godu Gokhale”, written by BV Varerkar, in 1932. A friend of the protagonist Godu dines at her neighbour’s house with her husband because she has no time to cook, and wants to save money.

I had often wondered if this system existed in Pune too. There were families who fed students daily, but that arrangement did not involve any monetary transactions. Since Pune did not have a vast proletariat population, and the caste system dominated and controlled by the “upper castes” being rigid, it was highly unlikely that such a system would exist in the city. While documenting khanavals from the 19th and 20th centuries, I had never come across families who offered food to only two or three people for money. Until, Induaji Nalawade introduced me to Tarabai Mahadik.

Nalawade claimed to be 104-years old when I met her five years ago. She sold flowers outside the Kasba Ganpati Temple. Talking to her was delightful. Her memory was razor-sharp, as was her wit. She knew Pune like the back of her hand, and would always answer my questions in detail.

Mahadik was her distant relative who lived in Ganesh peth in Pune. She had come to Pune from a village in Satara district in 1930 at the age of ten, after being married to a vegetable vendor. Mahadik had 14 members in her family, who lived in a three-room block in a dilapidated wada. Her husband and his elder brother were the only earning members of the family. Mahadik started working at the age of 15 after giving birth to a boy. She was employed to wash utensils in a nearby khanaval.

Two years, and another baby later, one of her neighbours asked her if she would cook for a friend of his who worked at the Ammunition Factory in Khadkee. Her husband agreed. Since Mahadik would not go to his place and cook, the gentleman started having his dinner at Mahadik’s house.

Mahadik would cook for the entire family, and the guest, while her husband served food to him in the living room. She soon had two more customers. Mahadik continued this till the 1980s, after which her family forced her to retire.

Mahadik never spoke to her customers. She never ventured into the living room while they had their dinner. They all belonged to her caste.

Maintaining caste integrity was, and unfortunately still is, greatly dependent on who cooked or handled the food. It also depended on who you dined with. What you ate decided your social status, your economic worth, whom you marry, and where you live.

Women like Chavan mami’s mother-in-law, and Tarabai Mahadik, earned for their families and maintained the “sanctity of the caste system”.