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Acknowledgement: This essay came to fruition with the generous support of Centre for Labour Research and Action who facilitated my field visit and initial interactions with the community.
Under metro pillars P/123 – P/125 where trains jog by every twelve minutes carrying tired eyes, dupatta covered faces that looked like balding eagle heads from afar and office bellies that hung over the line – and walking past parked cars, jalebi-shaped dogs caught in a nap, a panipuri (puchka) cart, a leaking sewer line and a khatia (bed made of metal frames, woven with thick plastic ropes), lie row upon rows of homes of the tribal, Bhil-speaking community who had migrated to Ahmedabad. Built of tarpaulin sheets or corrugated metal, the roofs were held together by wooden sticks and sweaty fires of horse-shaped chulhas (stoves).
Most of the migrants belonged to tribal districts near the MadhyaPradesh and Gujarat border, marked by jagged terrain, forests and paucity of basic amenities like safe drinking water, electrification etc. (“Border Villages Amenities”). They are part of the Scheduled Tribes as per the state’s classification; however, all of them had been oppressed by systems and designations formulated to protect them (“Scheduled Tribes Profile”). Their homes were bulldozed by municipal authorities twice and “stacked up in ominous piles” as one resident shared. This act of official violence had etched itself firmly in the memories of the basti’s residents and was recollected and narrativized in encounters with the state, law, labour unions etc. The basti is not just a physical place but a form; a relational and negotiated space (Bhan, 6).
Building upon this fluid socio-spatial understanding of the basti, I would like to extend and reconfigure the idea of food as form and argue that food and food-related acts construct, negotiate, demarcate and fictionalize intimacies in interpersonal relationships. Food then becomes an active agent in the “doing” and “un-doing” kin or friendship ties.
Anjali , a fourteen-year-old who loves to act and dance, wear chunky chains that remind me of a certain rapper, is responsible for cooking for the family of five; handling rotlas (thick flatbreads made of maize flour) and minor dishes like chutneys besides washing clothes, cleaning the dishes and house, while working upwards of nine hours at construction sites every day except Amavas (no-moon day). She loves to eat the soft wheat rotis, a special treat besides Maggi which she and her siblings, Kamlesh and Arpit huddle together and share while watching Reels.
Bhanu is a middle-aged woman who resides in the basti with Teja, her husband and their two sons – Ajay and Vijay. The former eloped with Sabina, a girl from a neighboring village when they were (still are) underage and she lives here now as an “unofficial wife”. They also have a baby girl named Riya, who Sabina feeds in-between preparing meals. Bhanu does not enter the kitchen unless Sabina is unwell. As the norms of patriarchy and gender go, none of the men enter the kitchen, except Teja, when he craves for and cooks chicken curry in separate utensils. Of the offerings made to tribal gods addressed as Baba Devs, the meli or dirty gods were seen as more powerful than others and received the sacrifice of goat or chicken and mahuda daru (mahua liquor).
Of the married couples that I talked to, most of them had a common habit – that of using intoxicants in the form of pan masala, local gutka mixes, tobacco powder etc. In this aspect at least, it felt as if they were equal. Rakesh prefers to eat Vimal pan masala, which to him is less intoxicating than Silver; the brand his wife, Lakshmi prefers. In a different scenario, the wife Sumitra prefers stronger, tobacco-based products while the husband, Vinod prefers to use pan masala. They usually consume 1-2 packets each day and on certain days, it becomes the placeholder for an absent meal. Buying your partner’s preferred nicotine or tobacco-based products and/or sharing it with them daily or surprising them with a pouch of paneer on a good day; symbolize acts of care and affection even if it does not fit normative behaviours or health standards.
Srividhya likes to read poetry, watch queer films, listen to Charli XCX and her research interests lie in food studies and literature. She works as a Teaching Assistant at MICA and has completed her Masters in English Literature from Pandit Deendayal Energy University.
