The great Indian mishmash
The raindrops played truant against the window pane. It was one of those days in Kolkata that we longed for after a hot and humid spell. Like a typical Bengali gentleman, my father would go to the market daily, religiously buying the freshest of veggies and fish. But that day was different. He rushed to the market, in spite of the torrential rains, in anticipation of grabbing the best of the ubiquitous hilsa fish.
It was a day when almost all families in Bengal would relish a hot meal of khichuri (a rice and lentil mishmash), the accompaniments would be hilsa fry, begunis (crisply fried fritters of brinjal) and papad (poppadom).
My son, averse to anything but biryani on rainy days, cried out: “I don’t want kitsch, kitsch...” The grandfather looked at him with burning resentment in his eyes: “Do you even know that the word ‘kitsch’ has nothing to do with khichuri?” Well, it was a mispronouncing of a word that led to much dissension and a heated debate ensued. Somebody from the kitchen shouted back that ‘kitsch’ meant tacky and cheesy! Another nephew screamed out: “It means something that appeals to popular or lowbrow taste and is often of poor quality, I have just ‘googled’ it.” The husband blurted out under his breath, disgustedly: “We eat this stuff in case of illness in Maharashtra.” As luck would have it, my mother heard him. A culinary expert, she declared with a voice laced with expertise: “Taste this Bengali version, you will love it. It is anything but bland!” And the argument continued till lunch was served and
in calming nerves with the enticing accompaniments and the aroma of butter steaming its way out of it. Well, it is a dish that is a mix of rice and lentils. A simple concoction, cooked in different ways in different parts of India.
Thus this discussion had originated a few months back in this household and has now caught on with the nation recently. Did the humble khichuri or khichdi ever imagine that it would taste its share of fame more than anybody would want to taste it? Now it has gained hashtags too! The entire hullabaloo was because the Indian government wanted that this modest dish should be anointed the national dish of India. This led to many interesting debates and information on social media that kept the nation going. Of course I was not surprised as I had seen one wave of argument within a smaller frame already!
One interesting fact that came to light was that the Mughal emperor, Aurangzeb, had written to his son, saying that, “In winters khichdi gives the joy of biryani.” Well, one man’s khichdi could be another man’s biryani or pasta too! Also a team led by an Indian celebrity chef cooked 918kg of khichdi in front of a live audience, in an attempt to enter the Guinness World Records at the World Food India 2017 convention and promote the dish as Brand India’s super food!
Khichdi is also a term used to construe a hotchpotch and a mess as a result of mixing incompatible things together, a painful dissonance of sorts. Like recently a friend said, “What a khichdi they have made of the song! Remix of that old melodious song now sounds so garish!”
Traditional food re-traditioned ... innovation? No, it is described as a khichdi and so are dance forms promptly tainted with a metamorphosed variation. As per the latest list of inclusions, 70 new Indian words from Telugu, Urdu, Tamil, Hindi and Gujarati languages have been added to the Oxford English Dictionary. Indian delicacies like gulab jamun, mirch masala, keema, vada have made the cut to the lexicon of English words. Do you think that khichdi, the meek yet justproclaimed as the super hero amongst all its peers, will make it to the Oxford English Dictionary too.
Maybe it will, because it is said that one day the “meek shall inherit the earth”. In the meantime, I did some research on the various forms of the dish cooked all over India and realised that I could take a 30-day challenge, cooking 30 different forms of it.
Also it’s time that my son pronounced the name right, from ‘kitschri’ to ‘khichdi’ ... an utterance that could hopefully give it a ‘super food’ status in the times to come, at least in my kitchen.
Navanita Varadpande is a writer based in Dubai.