POSTSCRIPT CONTEMPORARY DANCE | FOOD

debate remained inconclusive, however. One could see why two women who had probably tried and failed to cut down on junk food were tempted to bait the one who obviously did not need to lose weight. Someone should do a survey on the frequency with which the subject of food crops up in the daily words and thoughts of todays urban middle class. I never cease to be amazed by how a world of ration cards and square meals, a world where hotel food was a term of abuse and the rare dieter who bashfully admitted to the practice was mercilessly ridiculed, has surrendered to a world where food looms like Godzilla in the urban consciousness. Food in mesmerising abundance and variety spills out of supermarket shelves, multi-cuisine neighbourhood restaurants and vast food courts in malls; it is showcased on TV cookery shows in every regional language and aunted on the pages of every Sharmistha Mukherjee (mukherjee.sharmistha@gmail.com) is a kathak dancer based in newspaper supplement. An equal and opposite force is the New Delhi. calorie-counting diet-and-tness brigade that demonises trans fats and cholesterol and valorises probiotics and anti-oxidants. Giving a further twist to the confusing glut are the ndings of diet-related scientic studies, each one contradicting the next. The 1990s era of globalisation and subsequent raging consumerism seems to have come to a head with this explosion of food in our urban areas. Small eateries cram streets The Indian middle-class obsession with food, and bylanes, bakeries no longer sell just bread and confecweight and body image can be traced to the tionery but tea-coffee-samosa, and fast-food outlets and 1990s era of globalisation and consumerism. cafes are dotted across our metros. Supersize America may nd a rival among the new Indian middle class in another C K Meena 10 years. The obsession with eating starts early. Consider the relentless marketing of junk disguised as nutrition, and wish I could have recorded the conversation I overheard the horrifying ads peddling chocolate-coated cornakes on the metro in Bangalore when four women in their as healthy breakfasts for children. Since lunchboxes have early 20s debated the meaning of junk food for the entire been replaced with lunch money, it is easy to predict the 13-minute ride. One of them was a silent observer, passing kind of food that children, and, later, college students occasional wise remarks; two had joined forces to needle and young ofce workers will buy when the choice is the fourth, the centre of attention, whose resolution to left to them. This might explain the growing number of eat junk food only once a week had provoked the debate. traditionally built (to quote Alexander McCall You may have guessed that the centre of Supersize America Smith) youngsters of both sexes Ive been attention (lets call her CA) was fairly lean, while may find a rival noticing in my city. the two who were pestering her with one voice among the new Those who obsess over what they eat and (call them P) were endowed with a certain Indian middle class how much they weigh are primarily, though not embonpoint. Does that mean you wont eat out in another 10 years only, the young and young women in particular, on the other days?, P asked. CA vigorously argued like the four I overheard on the metro. But I have no that restaurant food like samosas and chaat was not junk beef against market forces; if we are educated, we should but real food. P taunted her: All that fried stuff, the oil, of know better than to succumb to them. Therefore I am not course its junk. Oil, fat, sugar, chocolate, butter, cheese, particularly sympathetic towards the average middle-class ghee, all qualied as junk, they said. How can you say ghee girl trapped in a cycle of over-eating and guilt. My worry, is junk? CA snapped indignantly. My grandmother makes peculiarly enough, concerns the young feminist. I think nice bhendi fried in ghee, and the next time she makes it for she is in a genuine quandary. She has read Naomi Wolf. me and I call it junk shell give me two slaps! She is against everything that endorses an ideal of female The to-and-fro continued until the silent one chipped in physical beauty. Sickened by the overdose of media coverage with Junk is processed food. The others pounced on the promoting crash diets and skinny gures, she eats heartily word processed with evident satisfaction. Thats right, and heedlessly. There is no way she will slave in the kitchen, processed food, they repeated, nodding several times. The product was not totally reective of the contemporary dance scene in India. No discussion on contemporary dance in India would be complete without a mention of Chandralekha. A true revolutionary in the eld of dance, she deconstructed and de-contextualised bharatanatyam and elevated it to iconoclastic and completely different levels, much to the wrath of purists. Contemporary dance in India today reects the spirit of a contemporary, modern nation that is proud of its wealth of cultural diversity. Yet, Indian contemporary dance has been bold enough to question and re-interpret the old in the light of modern-day sensibilities, remaining rmly rooted in tradition even as it seeks to y high in the sky, which seems to be the limit for todays pirouetting contemporary Indian dancers.

Supersize Us? Give Us Another 10 Years

Economic & Political Weekly

EPW

january 25, 2014

vol xlix no 4

83

POSTSCRIPT FOOD | POETRY

so she eats street food or orders takeout if she can afford it. She shuns gyms, believing that they promote an unhealthy obsession with body image. If she has a deskbound job, she naturally puts on weight. Of course, fat is beautiful. But is fat, er, healthy? How does she not fall for the beauty myth and at the same time maintain a reasonably t physique? I suggest walking. No fossil fuels burnt. Think of it as ecofeminism.

Das marshalls her sensibilities effortlessly to evoke a region at the far extreme of the northeast a region often secluded owing to its stark altitudes and the proximity to the geopolitically sensitive border, where the map shows stringent lines. In the minds of the locals, however, the valleys and deep glacial lakes beckon like the Buddhas smile: Every morning I fold deeper into my esh, O Buddha Every morning the stones walk C K Meena (ckmeena@gmail.com) is a freelance journalist and author. by a fever, O Buddha Every morning my hunger edges toward you (from Thukje Chueling Nunnery, Tawang) In this terrain, esh and stone are food for a hunger that is born of a quest for the seamless, free of overriding spirituality or transcendental clutter. While taking up local issues when the navel of the north Locating the coordinates of the north and the east gazes up towards the east, Mona Zote from Mizoram wont in the poetry of northeastern India brings into ponder too much on the modalities of verse-making as a focus the compelling sociocultural moorings resolution to the realities of her life: of the region. What should poetry mean to a woman in the hills as she sits one long sloping summer evening Nabina Das in Patria, Aizawl, her head crammed with contrary winds, pistolling the clever stars that seem to say: rom Sharmila, the activist-poet from Manipur whos now Ignoring the problem will not make it go away. considered the poster child of all protest movements past (from What Poetry Means to Ernestina in Peril) and present from the northeast (NE) of India, envisages This poet opts for a lyrical mood while referring to the thus her deceased body once it is buried and parts are brutal environs of her troubled state. The head crammed allowed to rot or dry in succession: with contrary winds is aware of the issues at hand as well as Ill spread the fragrance of peace From Kanglei, my birthplace In NE poetry, nature poetrys demands, perils notwithstanding. In NE poetry, nature is not a refuge; rather, a In the ages to come is not a refuge; repository for histories and lores realised with a It will spread all over the world. rather, a repository Blakean zeal sans the opacity of images. Thus Its not morbidity thats the intent here, but the for histories and Mamang Dai, a poet from Arunachal Pradesh, very geo-political concept of the north and the lores realised with says in a simple prophetic tone: east that is perceived under a refracted lens. a Blakean zeal In the cool bamboo, When mainstream India reads NE poetry, most sans the opacity restored in sunlight, often the topic of interest is conict poetry, proof images life matters, like this. test poetry, and that benign, unsullied beast In small towns by the river called nature poetry. These categorisations may have been we all want to walk with the gods. valid for the poetry written a couple of decades ago, but NE (from Small Towns and the River) poets are no longer obliged to carry the same billboard toAlmost everywhere, in small towns by the river, there is a day. True, NE poetry derives its strength from the unique sacred wish that is desirous of life and peace. The north and terrain of that part of the country, its history, and its stirring the east in the poetry of this nook of India is only an imfolklore realism. Readers are, therefore, pleasantly surposed axis. The coordinates tell us little unless one sees. prised, when Nitoo Das says: Kynpham S Nongkynrih shows us the inevitable: Close your eyes, owl woman. This land is old, too old You dont need to see and withered for life to be easy. to break night, starlight Poverty eats into the hills and squeezes into birds. a living from stones and caterpillars (from Creation of the Birds) gathered for out-of-town drunks The owl woman is the everywoman in the poets imagieach market day. nation, yet a special entity born of the ordinary northeasterners (from The Ancient Rocks of Cherra) weltanschauung.

The Body Is the Sum of Its Parts

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january 25, 2014

vol xlix no 4

EPW

Economic & Political Weekly