Before my English husband and I were engaged, he taught me how to eat properly before he would let me eat in front of his mother and father at their home in Braintree, England. He comes from what we as Americans would consider a middle upper-class provincial home. He demonstrated the European method to hold one’s fork– upside down in one’s left hand and the knife in one’s right hand.
I had to practice at home in order that I didn’t unconsciously slip into my uncivilized way of eating American style which my husband found awkward. You see, during the meal, I would get tired of trying to balance peas on my fork and revert to the American way. Invariably, I’d get this look and a slight cough. Fortunately, I can safely say that I did not embarrass my husbands at his parents’ home–my future in-laws. Against all cultural odds, we were married soon after. However, I would get my revenge 14 years later, in of all places: India.
It was New Years Day in 1996. we had been invited to a modest home in the outskirts of Madras, as it was called then, for breakfast. One of our new friends, Pradeep, an administrator for Little Drops, (an offshoot from Mother Theresa’s work), was taking us with a few of his friends to his supervisor’s home. We had to travel over dirt roads, over-taking water buffalo pulling cart-loads of produce, swarms of people on bicycles, and the occasional automatic rickshaw that had a fare from the city. I tried to keep track of where we were but I was soon lost in a maze of back streets.
The farther we got from Madras, the more we were in the real India. In just a few miles, the suburbs quickly disappeared and we were suddenly in the villages. As soon as we left the city, gone were the five-star hotels, the British Raj edifices, the ambassador cars, the shopping malls, and the fine restaurants which could lull one in thinking that India was not so different from back home. While peering through the open window of the car, Stephen told me that he felt as if he had changed the the channel to a National Geographic documentary. We watched darkly tanned ladies coming from the local well, gracefully balancing shiny brass jugs on their head, effortlessly as models going down a runway in Paris. Their saris billowed in morning breeze, looking more colorful and striking than Coco Channel’s spring collection. The sun, no longer blocked by tall city buildings, shot bright yellow spotlights on the ladies through the palm trees. So bright was the day that the raspberry colored borganvilla plants appeared to light up on their own, as they fell against the fences and walls around the villages. Their aroma was one of the myriad of powerful scents of South India that came through the open windows of our car. While enjoying the borganvilla, my husband caught a waft of burning cow dung that the women use for fuel. On the side of the road, we watched one woman making uniform round brown patties of dung. I found that she would later put them on a wall to dry, giving a new meaning to residential recyling.
As we arrived at a modest group of houses, the car came to a stop. As we walked up the stairs to a small flat or apartment, Paul gave us a hearty hello. His balding crown and graying hair couldn’t belie his child-like and free spirit. Full of gaiety and warmth, his observant round eyes still took the time to take in our every detail.
He showed us into his living room, or hall, where an older man who had apparently suffered from leprosy greeted us. Although cured, the ravages of the disease had left him with stubs for fingers. His nose had also been affected. We shook hands warmly with him and soon learned that the leprosy had not impaired his voice. He was going to sing the grace before breakfast. Although we didn’t understand a word of his Tamil, never do I remember hearing such depth, resonance, clarity, and fullness of song. Afterward, he quietly left. He was fasting that day.
On the table was a breakfast made on special occasions: lamb stew in a coconut gravy. After such a long and dusty trip, we all took turns washing our hands in the bathroom in cold water, the only tap. Instead of using a towel, we “drip-dried,” flinging water at one another. As we sat down, there was just about enough room for all of us to sit around the table. From my vantage point, I could easily view the streets below and catch a breeze. An older woman who I learned was their servant for many years dished up the stew for us. I had inquired where Paul’s wife and children were and found that Shelia hadn’t yet finished her morning prayers in her bedroom. Their two children were also in the bedroom, a little sick from eating too much food from the carnival that Paul’s ministry had arranged the day before as a fund-raiser.
Once the lady served the stew on top of mountains of rice on our plates, except the native from Braintree, we all began to dig in–literally. In South Indian fashion, one eats with the utensils that God gave: the fingers. Now, as with all ancient customs in India, there is an art to this. I had already learned this custom by watching how my Indian friends ate from the corner of my eye while ostensibly listening to the conversations around me. I quietly surveyed South Indians mixing the gravy and the rice together, careful not to allow the food to rise beyond the second joints of their fingers.
As I attempted to eat this way myself, I found it very liberating. I’m not sure how long one is suppose to swish around the rice with the stew, but after a certain interval, I learned to fan my fingers. Without bending them, bringing them together, and mold a nice mouthful of food. Indians do not look down at what they are doing, but are constantly talking, unconsciously swishing their finger about the plate, preparing that perfect morsel. Perhaps this creative sculpturing helps them make better conversation.
Once South Indians feel that they have sculptured a nice ball of food, they pick it up delicately with their fingers, then flick it in their mouths, using the thumb as leverage. If they are really adept, fingers hardly touch the mouth, and there are no little drops of rice falling in the plate, on the table, or on the lap. By careful covert observation on this day, I learned to press down on the plate while squeezing the food together to really get an effective mold. Once I learned this process, I successfully popped the morsel in my mouth with total South Indian decorum.
I was ready to swish my finger around again to make another bite when I realized that my poor husband was at a loss. He had never bothered to watch how South Indians ate, maintaining that he would most definitely never eat with his hands. He thought that Americans were uncivilized enough when they ate with only a fork. I remember after living in England for three years, our coming from JFK Airport, we stopped for a pizza at a rather basic eating establishment. My Braintree husband insisted on having a knife and fork with which to eat his pepperoni pizza. Later, when we ate steamed crabs in Baltimore, the waitress literally circled our table again and again, watching my husband eating a steamed crab with a fork while the rest of the restaurant banged the crabs open with a wooden mallet and picked through the shells for the meat.
But on this New Year’s Day, 1996, as we ate our first meal of the year, there were no waitresses who could procure knives, forks, or spoons, even plastic ones. The servant lady looked and looked but there were no eating utensils in Shelia’s kitchen. Paul and Sheila simply didn’t own any. Because Paul works for Indian Airlines to earn money for his Little Drops Ministry, he knew a little about British foreigners and immediately understood my husband’s predicament. Sensing his supervisor’s wishes, Pradeep immediately jumped up and ran out of the apartment to buy a spoon for Stephen. Knowing their modest means, Stephen did not want them to spend their money for a spoon that would not be used in the household again. Stephen was finally prepared to start a New Year with a new way of eating. Through the windows, Paul called Pradeep to come back.
As Pradeep returned to his chair, the fun began. Everyone at the table stopped swishing and eating to watch my blushing British husband baptize his hands into the meal, resulting in a great shout from all and laughter following. India had won! This little town near Madras had done what America, another British renegade, could not do: vanquishing an Englishman’s reserve. Once immersed in the stew, with no way out, Stephen joined in the merriment and enjoyed himself, slapping the food in his mouth with abandon, oblivious to the little drops of rice falling everywhere. If his mother in Braintree could only see him now! Certainly she would have told him not to play with his food.
As Paul looked on with something more than simple merriment, he quietly said to me, “You know, I have been to your husband’s country. I know how they are and how they eat. I know what great character your husband has. He is eating like my son did when he was two years old. He has no idea of the proper way, but he tries and that really touches me more than anything else.” Paul was not impressed that I had learned how to eat in the proper South Indian manner. He was more touched by my husband who did it all wrong. I knew that we would have much to learn from this man who had heard Mother Teresa that it is the little drops that make an ocean of difference.
