Taste of Life: How “haldi-kunku” cuisine reflected women’s social standing
Guests were served “kairichi dal” (a tempered coarse mash made with ground chana dal and grated raw mango) and “kairiche panhe” (a popular summer drink made with raw mango, jaggery, cardamom, and saffron). Raw mangoes were abundant in the season and were the star of the “haldi-kunku” ceremony
The nationalist movement was characterised by a strain of Hindu revivalism in Colonial India, where political agitation often centred at religious festivals. Unlike Christianity or Islam, Hindu religious worship was largely a matter of individual or family worship. But nationalist feeling provided the necessary social cement for congregational worship among Hindus.
In Bengal, Durga Pujo focused on nationalist feelings, while in Maharashtra, political forces promoted, for nationalistic purposes, festivals like the Ganeshotsav. The British largely observed a hands-off policy about religion and allowed people to come together to celebrate their festivals.
In 1933, Umabai Sahasrabuddhe, a member of the Hindu Mahasabha in Pune, launched an interesting initiative. She decided to celebrate the “Chaitragauri haldi-kunku” publicly, albeit with a twist. The expenses for the ritual were to be taken care of from the contribution to a fund by participating women. She named this event “Sanghatit (unified) Chaitragauri haldi-kunku”.
In Maharashtra, Gauri, or the wife of Shiva, was worshipped in the month of Chaitra by every married woman whose husband was alive. This Chaitragauri celebration began on the third day of the bright fortnight of Chaitra and continued until the third day of the bright fortnight of Vaishakha (Akshayya Trutiya). It was believed that on the third of the month, Gauri returned to her home. It symbolised married women returning to their maternal home for their annual visit.
Gauri in the form of “Annapurna” was installed, mostly in small brass swings, in houses for the entire month. She was offered sweetened milk each morning. In some houses, a brass swing containing the images of Shiva and his family was placed on a raised dais, and the images were worshipped every morning with a fresh garland.
During the month, “haldi-kunku” ceremony was organised in many households by women where married women applied turmeric (“haldi”) and vermilion (“kunku”) to each other’s foreheads, along with other rituals like offering perfume and rosewater. Married women and unmarried girls were invited to the “haldi-kunku”.
Women decorated their houses for the ritual. Lamps were lit and rangolis were drawn. All the vases, figurines, and crochet frames in the house were arranged in front of the figure on tiers or stepped platforms. Some well-to-do families displayed artistic arrangements of fruits in front of the Chaitragauri.
Guests were served “kairichi dal” (a tempered coarse mash made with ground chana dal and grated raw mango) and “kairiche panhe” (a popular summer drink made with raw mango, jaggery, cardamom, and saffron). Raw mangoes were abundant in the season and were the star of the “haldi-kunku” ceremony. Germinating gram seeds, too, formed an important part of the event. Fruits, parched grains, sweets, and flowers were also distributed among the guests by those who could afford it. Girls and women received several invitations on one day, and they could be seen going from house to house in their best attire and spirits.
The ritual of the “haldi-kunku” discriminated against widows and women of the so-called “lower castes.” Societal pressure also played a role, where women had to wear as many gold ornaments as they could. They were forced to invite more women than they could within their means. The social and financial statuses of women were judged depending on how well they decorated their houses and the snacks they served. “Kairiche panhe” without cardamom and saffron was looked down upon, and households serving alphonso mangoes received warm admiration.
Satyabhama Sukhatme mentioned in her autobiography “Gele Te Divas” (1964) that several households practised discrimination by serving food according to the financial status of the guests. Rich women were served dishes like “karanji”, “ladoo”, and mangoes, while poor women were served only the “kairichi dal”. The middle class was offered “kairiche panhe” along with the “kairichi dal”.
According to Sahasrabuddhe, hosting a “Chaitragauri haldi-kunku” was costly, and women were compelled to invite many guests, even those they did not know well, since they were invited by the same women for a “haldi-kunku” earlier; houses in Pune were congested and damp and that made the guests uncomfortable. Sahasrabuddhe mentioned that “haldi-kunku” ceremonies were held in Pune during the lunar months of Chaitra and Ashwin. While “haldi-kunku” in Ashwin during the Navratra was celebrated with much aplomb, she felt that women were losing the desire to host “haldi-kunku” ceremonies in Chaitra too. She attributed this to the “lethargy of the educated women” towards the “rich Indian culture” and the rising cost of groceries that made hosting a “haldi-kunku” unaffordable for a significant number of women.
In 1933, she organised the first unified “haldi-kunku” on a small scale at her residence. The “haldi-kunku” ceremony had already transitioned from the private to the public sphere in the late nineteenth century. Sahasrabuddhe’s “haldi-kunku” was based on a financial model where every participant was expected to contribute money to cover the costs of the venue and food, thus being able to invite more guests and offer better snacks. In other public “haldi-kunku” ceremonies organised till then, the cost was borne by a single host or an institution.
Sahasrabuddhe was able to hold a bigger unified “haldi-kunku” ceremony two years later on April 10 at the Tilak Smarak Mandir. Two hundred and forty women were invited. Those not invited were encouraged to participate in the ceremony by purchasing a ticket for two annas. Seven hundred women attended the ceremony, of whom only twenty had bought the ticket. Those without tickets were not turned away.
The guests were of course served “panhe” and “dal”. Children were offered fruits. There was a vocal recital by Ms Sundarabai Apte. Sahasrabuddhe appealed to the guests to help her organize more such events next year. She asked them to donate the money saved by participating in the “unified haldi-kunku” ceremony for “nation building”.
While driving home the point, Sahasrabuddhe, in an article written in the Marathi newspaper “Dnyanaprakash” on April 18, 1937, invoked patriotism by linking Chaitragauri to Mother India - a woman who celebrated the Chaitragauri “haldi-kunku” made Mother India happy; after all, her happiness depended on how well we respected our culture and religion. Women who invited only a few guests for the ceremony were doing a great disservice to religion and culture, and they could invite more women and serve better snacks if they participated in the unified ceremonies, she wrote.
Sahasrabuddhe looked at the unified “haldi-kunku” ritual as a way of bringing women together to preach the ideologies of nationalism and Hindutva. She brilliantly liked it to the unaffordability of gram, saffron, and cardamom.
Reports of the few “haldi-kunku” ceremonies organised by Sahasrabuddhe and her speeches and articles appealing to women to participate in those ceremonies point to the exclusion of women from non-Brahmin castes.
She inspired a few such events in places like Tamhanmala, where Keshav Anant Gokhale, Gopal Krishna Gokhale’s cousin, organized a unified “haldi-kunku”. But she found little support to celebrate the event the following years in Pune.
The last of the unified “haldi-kunku” was organised in 1941. Sahasrabuddhe announced that she was stepping away from organizing the event owing to the World War and inflated prices of foodstuffs.
Chinmay Damle is a research scientist and food enthusiast. He writes here on Pune’s food culture. He can be contacted at chinmay.damle@gmail.com