Taste of Life: How wartime blackouts affected domestic chores, public dining
Restaurants, clubs, tea shops, taverns, liquor shops, and khanavals were affected by the blackout regulations
When Great Britain and France declared war on Germany on September 3, 1939, few Indians believed that it would reach their doorsteps. But India soon had to function as a military, industrial, and logistical base for allied operations.
Unlike previous wars, aerial attacks were the greatest threat posed by the conflict, and the British government established a volunteer organisation—Air Raid Precautions, or ARP—that would stand at the centre of wartime civil defence. Members of the ARP in Britain distributed gas masks to the population and policed the blackout. They played a vital role in shepherding people to shelter, reporting on damage, and rescuing people from wrecked buildings.
In India, ARP Law came into force in August 1939. Each city had multiple ARP wardens and a troop of volunteers to help them with their wartime activities. These wardens were supposed to work with the local police force, and at times with the Indian Army.
Regular drills were carried out by the ARP wardens in conjunction with the police, local hospitals, and the fire department when the Japanese hostility became a real threat. During the ARP practice, sirens would sound the “alert” and the “all clear”, and during the “alert” period, a “total blackout” was enforced by the local authorities. This practice was intended primarily to test the efficiency of the ARP services during a night raid, and incidents were staged as if such a raid were occurring.
Members of the public were expected to cooperate by staying indoors and by turning out immediately on hearing the sirens, all indoor lights. No light was expected to be seen from outside.
An important task assigned to the ARP wardens was to educate people about blackouts. ARP propaganda was put across to the public in a graphic and easily assimilable font using illustrated Press advertisements.
There was a provision to arrest people who did not cooperate with the ARP volunteers. In Bombay and Pune, refusal to take shelter when the “alert” sounded was an offence. After an exercise in February 1942, 150 people were charged in Bombay and 96 in Poona for contravening ARP regulations. Some of them were vegetable vendors and street-food-sellers and were alleged to have stated that the exercise was a farce and that there was no need to seek cover.
Blackout was enforced in Bombay and Pune along with cities like Calcutta and Madras for the first time in August 1941. It operated initially so harshly that proposals were being mooted for daylight saving – an advance of one hour in Indian Standard Time. The idea was to give relief to those who, in the cold weather months, would find themselves in darkness before they could reach home from work.
The proposal was endorsed wholeheartedly by some hotel owners in Bombay as bringing the practice who were losing business owing to the blackout. However, it was rejected.
During the blackout, indoor lights had to be shaded to prevent all direct rays of light from reaching the walls. Windows and doors had to be covered with black paper or black cloth. Lamps had to be shaded with opaque material. Streetlights were hooded. Cars and buses had to cover their lamps and were mostly non-operational. The authorities expected that the blackout was to be aimed at such a degree of obscurity that only at close quarters would there be any evidence of lighting and, therefore, any indication given to the enemy of the situation of a town.
Householders ignoring the indoor lighting regulations were rounded up by the police. “Dnyanaprakash” reported on February 12, 1942, that the question of improperly shaded indoor lights, especially in kitchens, cropped up continuously. A week later, in its column aimed at women, it discussed the effects of blackouts on the domestic duties of women. They had to cook before sunset, and some households had resorted to having dinner before the blackout started. This did not leave any time for women to rest after cooking and serving lunch. Men and children got hungry at night at the regular dinner time, and the newspaper suggested that the housewives prepare large batches of snacks like “chiwada” and “chakali” in such eventualities. They were also advised to feed milk to the children before bedtime because they would have had dinner early. The milk was to be cold because lighting the stove during the blackout was not advisable, since the doors and windows would have to be shut.
Restaurants, clubs, tea shops, taverns, liquor shops, and khanavals were affected by the blackout regulations. They had to be shut down before 10 pm. In Bombay and Pune, hours of operation for theatre showings were reduced substantially since the start of the war, principally because of the blackout and lack of public transportation in the evening hours. Hotels, tea shops, and restaurants near the theatres suffered losses because of this.
Khanavals found it difficult to function during the blackout. Working men and students could not have their dinner before sunset. Several khanavals stopped their dinner services, and some started providing tiffin to their patrons.
The Poona municipality made it mandatory for all households and shops to keep sacks filled with sand near the entrance to protect people from eventual attacks. Restaurant owners in Pune complained that they hardly had any space to store the bags. They had to put them near the entrance, which made access to their shops difficult.
Weddings had to be limited to a one-day ceremony. The late 1930s had witnessed the rise of a few modern wedding halls, pioneered by the Thatte family, that took care of catering and provided almost everything needed for the wedding ceremony, including garlands and “pedhas”. These weddings were typically a two-day affair where the groom’s family was hosted by the bride’s family a day before the ceremony at the wedding hall. The religious rituals started in the evening, and the families and the guests returned to their respective homes a few hours after the wedding the next day.
The blackout ensured that the rituals were compressed to a single day, and the wedding party departed before the blackout was enforced.
In Bombay, Pune, and most other Indian cities, there was no midnight mass to usher in Christmas Day. Instead, there was a string of masses on Christmas morning. Evening church ceremonies of all denominations were advanced an hour or so when necessary. Christmas and New Year’s dinners were cancelled, and breakfasts and luncheons were hosted instead.
The advent of 1943 was celebrated by Europeans and Americans in Bombay and Pune in traditional fashion on the New Year’s morning with an eggnog party at various clubs.
The clear possibility of Japan bombing Indian cities like Bombay, Calcutta and Madras made the blackout regulations stay till the end of 1943.
Durga Bhagwat, the scholar and the writer, once told me how the fascination for the war and Adolf Hitler died down once people started facing the hardships due to ARP regulations and severe shortage of food.
War is a redundant amplification of human suffering. With suffering, hardships, resistance, torture, horror, and terror, the ghosts of the war rarely die.
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
