Lunch and the Limits of Liberalism....

Old friends of my parents' descended upon us yesterday and invited us for lunch today... actually, it was more than an invitation -- I think it fair to say that they insisted that we turn up at "1ish" and eat. I wasn't all that keen but couldn't think of a way out so off we trooped. They live in an area of Mysore called "Yadavagiri"; it's pronounced more like "Yadhogiri" -- you've to kind of run the "dha" and "va" sounds together. I mention this because it's the neighbourhood of Mysore that I'm fondest of. Not that I have many memories of this period, but I lived in my grandparents' house in Yadavagiri for 4-5 years as an infant and little kid. Really, all I remember is a large black Lab named Jumbo who wouldn't let me ride him and who could be quite scarily loud when I tried to do something I wasn't allowed to (like, cross the tiny little road we lived on).

Anyway. As we drove by, I saw that my grandparents' house had shrunk! Well, ok, it hasn't actually shrunk but I had an object lesson in perspective! The house had seemed huge to me as a child: I remember the 2nd floor terrace, with bright pink and white bougainvilla blossoms trailing across the top to form an intricate and ever-changing "roof" -- but in my mind's eye, it is a vast space. It has high walls that you can't see over and is bedecked with potted plants and rattan (wicker) chairs. It's where I had my first "moonlight feast" with my best friend from six doors down. My mom and aunt and grandmother passed us food from the open screen door that led into the house. But looking at it from the outside, I notice how the walls are barely knee high; and since the house is empty these days, there is no bougainvilla tree to shade the grey cement floor of the terrace. Even from where we were on the little road, we saw the bright hot sun reflecting heat off of it; it looked like nothing like the greeny-shady shadowy place of my memories.

So lunch. Lunch was an elaborate meal of balay-kai bonda (salty green banana fritters ((yumm)), a delicious Northern Karnataka style eggplant curry (made with curry leaves and powdered peanuts), channa masala, chappatis and rice and youghurt and all the other bits and bobs that made up a proper Indian meal. But the most interesting thing was that my very Ancient and Grand grandmother who insisted on bringing along a shelled coconut (one of our own -- from a tree by our front door!), fruit, flowers (again, from our gardens), a silk "blouse-piece" in a rather gorgeous shade of red (a blouse piece is a bit of material just big enough for a woman to have a sari-blouse tailored, generally about 3/4ths of a metre) and assorted jim-jams. After lunch, she borrowed a silver tray and some "arshan-kumkum" and made the woman of the house sit down and accept the trayful of artfully arranged gifts from my aunt. I'm afraid I rather put my foot in it by asking why my aunt had to do the honours. It turns out that as a widow, it's not for the Ancient and Grand one to offer "arshan-kumkum" to a married woman. Gah!

I knew -- vaguely -- that women don't apply "kumkum" after they're widowed but I didn't quite understand the intricacies of such customs. This side of my family is very liberal and a lot of the "rules" that don't make sense are dismissed with -- for instance, I hadn't really caught onto this because my Ancient and Grand one still applies a sticker "bottu" because she's not used to a "bare" forehead but apparently she doesn't apply the powdered form of the "kumkum" that's been sitting in front of the family Gods. And apparently that's not the case even in their comfortably middle-class and more than well-educated milieu. I also heard that widows aren't supposed to wear flowers in their hair. The hosts for our lunch were a husband and wife, both doctors, both of whom I would have called liberal and Westernized.... but.... but.... The Ancient and Grand one thinks that they would still have been offended if she'd offered the "kumkum." I have to admit that I find it baffling, not to mention offensive. Widowhood in India is bad enough as it is -- yes, yes, Water the film but I don't think that those practices are common today, and certainly not in this class. But the pettiness of this little ritual humiliation of widows really gets to me; after all, as my great-grandmother is supposed to have remarked when she lost her husband nearly a 100 years ago, it's not as if little girls wait to be married before they started applying "kumkum" and braiding flowers into their hair, so why then should they discard these little pleasures just because their men are gone?