Honouring the Mother and ‘pouring porridge’
“POURING porridge” are two words everyone in my beloved Bangladesh Market district in Chatsworth understands. It refers to the worship of the Mother, the goddess Ammen. She enjoys deep reverence for having defeated a smallpox epidemic sometime in antiquity. It sounds coincidental that the Mother is honoured in the same month that South Africa marks Women’s Month. Those who believe in her power hardly think so.
“Hope you coming by my mother’s house Sunday,” Saloshnee asked quizzically. For that special porridge, I did not need to be asked twice. “Bring your bras too,” added hubby Sherman for good measure.
That generosity of heart could mean any number of people. The quantity of porridge is endless. If more people than expected show up, the host just adds water to the pot until everyone is fed.
The ritual is taken seriously by the faithful. There is a period of fasting. The holy space in which the porridge is left to ferment has to be spotlessly clean. A crisp white sheet knots the lid of the giant vessel firmly in place, while the mealie meal mixture brews. It is liberally dotted with turmeric and a red powder called kum kum. Bunches of green leaves of the disinfectant syringa or neem tree add to the air of reverence.
“You porridge ous just know how to put a jol,” chirped Gora. He was on the button. My ethnicity derives from that distinctive brew. Our nemesis, the bread ous, get their description from the rolled flatbread roti. It is a jocular contest as old as Indian indenture.
One angle to the banter is that the Belvedere left Calcutta harbour much earlier than the Truro did Madras. “Ja, the Truro got to Durban first because the bread ous in the Belvedere was coasting to save petrol,” Sandman rubbed salt into the old wounds.
In his celebrated autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom, Madiba writes: “I would often place a pint of milk on the windowsill to allow it to ferment. I am very fond of this sour milk, which is known as amasi among the Xhosa people and is greatly prized as a healthy and nourishing food.” Now that is a shortcut method that we still use when hankering for a fix. There is more uniting us than dividing us.
Our mother, Lutchammamma Alimal (née Naidu), deferred to my paternal grandmother Kanniamma Govindarajulu (née Naiken) when it came to the porridge prayers. Note the reference to the Mother in their names. Even though my father was the first-born son, my granny dispatched patriarchy and did the ritual worship of the Mother in her home. She went the full hog, complete with animal sacrifices for human lives spared from smallpox, much like the story of Abraham and Isaac in the Book of Genesis. With my strong opinions about non-violence, my family has since departed from animal sacrifice when pouring porridge.
As a young student in England, I was disappointed to discover that porridge was British slang for doing time in prison. One reference in books, where porridge is made with love, is Louisa May Alcott’s Eight Cousins, published in 1875. The Scottish poet Robert Burns in Epistle to James Smith refers to porridge as “my scanty meal”.
In Chatsworth, porridge is worth its weight in gold and a symbol of great women we honour.
Higgins promotes #Readingrevolution at Books@ Antiquecafe and the first Sundays Durban Book Fair at Mitchell’s Park.