Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Zubaan is delighted to bring to you our podcast series, “Food Cultures of the Northeast” commissioned during the Cultures of Peace: Festival of the Northeast 2020. The Cultures of Peace project, undertaken by Zubaan since 2011 in collaboration with the Heinrich Boll Foundation, works within and outside the northeastern region of India (the eight states of Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim and Tripura, and the contiguous regions of Darjeeling, Kalimpong and Kurseong). The festival focuses on diversifying mainstream conversation and knowledge production about the region and creating spaces for dialogue and mutual understanding through culture, literature, discussions and archive building.
Podcast Title: Cultures of Food and Rice Goddesses of Manipur
Series: Food Cultures of Northeast India
Host: Xonzoi Barbora
Guest: Thingnam Anjulika Samom
00:00/ Introduction - Hello folks, welcome to Zubaan Talkies. We are excited to bring you a new episode of Zubaan's “Food Cultures of Northeast India” podcast. Zubaan is a feminist publishing house and NGO based in Delhi which aims to amplify feminist voices and has been an active participant, chronicler and publisher of the women's movement in South Asia. Today's episode is part of our Cultures of Peace: Festival of the Northeast programme. Cultures of Peace, running for over ten years now, is a collaborative project run by Zubaan and Heinrich Böll Stiftung, Regional Office, New Delhi. Through this project, we hope to create spaces for conversations on issues relevant to the Northeastern states through arts and cultures, activism, academia, filmmaking, and more.
These podcasts are part of Zubaan's Media Archive, an online open repository of the rich material generated under Zubaan's various projects. In the “Food Cultures” series recorded online during the COVID-19 pandemic, we talk about the food we love, the food that connects us to our home and identity, and about the politics, culture, technologies, and economics of food in the Northeastern region.
Our host for the “Food Cultures” series is Xonzoi Barbora who teaches at Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Guwahati, Assam.
For more details about Zubaan and our Cultures of Peace project, please visit our website zubaanprojects.org.
The “Food Cultures of Northeast India” podcasts are available on Apple, Google Podcasts, and Spotify on our channel, Zubaan Talkies. Do like and subscribe to stay updated on the next episodes in this series.
Here's our host, Xonzoi Barbora.
01:45/ Xonzoi Barbora: Hello listeners, and welcome to the Zubaan podcasts on food. My name is Xonzoi Barbora and I teach for a living. These podcasts are part of the Media Archive initiative of the 2020 Cultures of Peace project that Zubaan has been organizing for the past 10 years. Over the decade, the project has encouraged the sharing of ideas, art, music, conversations, and much more, drawing in members of civil society from different parts of Northeast India. It has evolved as a moving festival, and given the restrictions induced by the pandemic this year, much of the spaces of dialogue have gone digital.
One of the main elements of every Cultures of Peace programme, some of which I have been very fortunate to attend, has been food. Zubaan and the local organizers in the various towns and cities where the events have been held have always tried to remind the participants about the diversity of taste in Northeast India. So, once the various debates, music, art and theatre performance sessions have been done, participants will get to eat and drink some sublime food and beverages from the region. Yet, as with every good thing that comes to an end on an intense day, our brains tune out, and other sensory organs took control as we went through each lovingly plated dish after the other. We were all convinced that food from the Northeast was good and that it is definitely one of the things to look forward to in the Cultures of Peace events.
These podcasts, therefore, take us a little deeper into the story of food in the region. They are presented as conversations about one or the other aspects of politics, culture, technologies, and the economies of food in Northeast India, with some remarkable women from the region.
03:48/ Barbora: Welcome back to the podcast, and this is one which we call, “The Goddess That Ran Away to the Hills.” Ah … for no particular reason. Actually, it is because our very dear friend, Thingnam Anjulika Samom, who’s a freelance journalist, a writer, a translator … ah … has always been telling us these wonderful stories about rice goddesses in Meitei culture, and the one that fascinated me all the time was the one who constantly kept running away to the hills. So, without further ado, I’d like to welcome Anju. Welcome to the podcast, Anju.
04:25/ Anjulika: Thank you, Barbora.
4:28/ Barbora: So, ah … That story, I mean, it’s always stayed with me. You told me this many, many years ago that there are goddesses … there’re rice goddesses in Meitei culture, and there is one that constantly keeps running away. Can you recount the story for our listeners once?
4:48 / Anjulika: Ah … This is a story which like … though, which came to us when we were younger. I mean the time before … even before TV and Doordarshan came to Manipur. This was a radio drama which used to play, like, you know, 12 o'clock on a Sunday. So, every 12 o'clock Sunday, we would have a radio drama, and this was one drama which would fascinate us as children. It was the story of Phouoibi, who is the goddess of paddy in Meitei culture, and this particular episode of which they made the drama is of her meeting a warrior called Akongjamba when he was on a hunting trip. He was hunting for hundred different types of meat for the king.
So, she meets Akongjamba, and the … in the … on the banks of Loktak, and they like you know, they set a … a time and place, like, you know, let’s meet at this time again. They fall in love and then they say, “We’ll meet on this day, at this particular spot and then, we’ll become man and wife.” But on that designated day, Phouoibi comes, and she couldn’t … she can’t find Akongjamba. She waits for him a lot. And then, because he didn't come, so she says, “Okay, even though he hasn’t come, I’ll go to his house.”
She goes to his house where his mother mistreats her. Like, you know … like, you know, she comes all of a sudden, and says, “Okay, I am supposed to be your son's wife.” And she says like, “Who is this? I’ve never seen her. I’ve never met her. And she’s coming alone without a wi … without my son also. How can she say that she is my son's wife?”
So, she mistreats her, and then Phouoibi spends the night on the … in the … like you know, in the corner of the courtyard. And the next morning, she leaves. But before leaving, she tells the mother that, you know, spread so many, like, you know … we have what, you know, we have phak, a mat, bamboo mats on the ground. And then she … we women, we wear this particular sarong-type of thing called phanek. So, with one … she moves the phanek a bit, and then suddenly there are mounds and mounds of paddy.
And … and when we were younger, it used to fascinate us just thinking of this. So, ah … but, ah … like, a few years back I started thinking more about Phouoibi. Then I realised there is more to the story than just the Akongjamba and Phouoibi episode.
Apparently, Phouoibi is a goddess who moves from place to place with her friends, and she has these seven girlfriends. But the … the … Among the friends, two friends are mentioned very clearly, and one is Nga-reima and the other is Thum-leima. And incidentally, and it’s very interesting, Nga-reima means “God of the fish” and Thum-leima means “Goddess of the salt.” Salt which … namak, na.
So … so, they all travel together. They go to the hills; then, they travel to one place to another, trying to find a place to settle. And … and ... but … but … One place they’ll go and they’ll find that the … either the water is too loud, and they can't sleep at night. So, they move. Then, they move to another place, and there the people would be making these swords and knives, and the sound would be clanging, and so, she doesn’t like it. So, she moves from place to place, and … and every place she moves, where she settles for a while, she takes a husband, from that area. But in the end, she moves to … like, she comes to a place where she settles down. And for me, that's interesting because it's not just a story of a goddess. It's almost like, you know, we’re trying to sow paddy, and trying to do agriculture. And then suddenly, one place the water is too … too heavy and one place, the water is too low and we can't do agriculture.
So, that is the story that I keep telling you about, and that is also very interesting for us because … and also the fact that she’s traveling with the friends, Nga-reima and Thum-leima. Because for us, if we have rice, if we have salt, and if we have fish, that is our staple diet. So … and then, and then, they’re always traveling. So that was what was very interesting to me.
9:31 / Barbora: There's something about the kind of rice that is associated with her running away, right? Ah … I mean, there are two other companions with her. Are they also … Do you think they are also related to the whole paddy-rice culture, or what is it?
9:51/ Anjulika: I think it might be related to … ah … like, Phouoibi herself would be related to the paddy-rice culture. I think Nga-reima and Thum-leima would again be related to ... I think it would be related to how lives are, like, you know, without food we won’t be able to live. And without … and … and for the Meiteis and also with a lot of cultures, when we say we’re taking food, like you know, we don’t say that we’re taking lunch or dinner, we say we’re taking rice. Like, “chak charabra?” – “Have you taken rice?” Like … and … and which would translate into, “Have you eaten?” We don't say, “Have you eaten?”. We say, “Have you eaten rice?” So, so, rice being that … So, I think it would be related to the lives of the people who tried to settle from place to place.
And also, I was thinking … it’s a long shot but. See, for us, the Meiteis, rice, that is paddy, and fish, and the particular salt, which is the Meitei salt. It’s not the kind of salt that you get somewhere else; it’s an indigenous kind of salt. It is used at almost every instance through our rites and rituals connected through our life. For instance, when a child is born, on the sixth day we have this … ah … ah, this religious ritual and … and … where the child is, you know, introduced to the second mother, and the second mother is Earth. Like, you know, the Earth is the one who is going to give the food. In that, we use seven particular types of fish. And we use … and … and … It's compulsory to use these fishes, and to use this indigenous salt at almost every ritual whether it's at childbirth, or child-weaning ceremony, or marriage, or death … even death also. So, I think that is connected to the life cycle that we have. I mean …
12:07 / Barbora: So, I just have to interrupt you for one moment here, Anju. When you say it is a particular kind of salt, seven kinds of fish or six kinds of fish, do you still get them now?
12:19 / Anjulika: No, we don't get it. We don’t get a lot of those fish now. In fact, a lot of fish varieties have been dying.
12:26/ Barbora: There are certain kinds of fish that don't appear in the Imphal valley anymore, because they don't have a way to come to the Imphal valley … because the … the … all the developmental work that went into Loktak blocked their entry. And so, they’ve now instead started going to Irrawaddy. So, it was a wonderful way for me to realize that you can't, I mean, you can stop these flows, but it actually damages culture quite a bit. Ah … Ah so … Yeah … and what do you think? I mean, so if you are not getting the kind of salt that you used to get, what do you do to keep the ritual going?
13:11 / Anjulika: Ah … Luckily, even though the salt … the kind of salt wells which are there is … ah … is not as prolific as before, so we’re … but it's still available, even though the price has risen and all. But nowadays, COVID lockdown and all, I don't think it’ll be possible to get it unless we go to the ... to that village itself, and the village is quite far from here. So, … um … yeah … the salt we’re still getting. But regarding the fish, like for instance, there is one particular type of fish which is called nganap. It’s a particular type of fish, and … and the ritual or belief is that after the marriage, on the marriage night, the bride and the groom has to eat this nganap. And … and it’s so rare now. So rare now. You’ll be lucky if you find one, or even a small piece, a very small tiny nganap. I think the government and all, they’re trying to revive, or, I mean, bring back some of the indigenous fish but I don't know whether they are succeeding or not. So, a lot of the younger generation, they are growing up without knowing that these are the type of fish, or the type of … you know, the variety of fish which has to be there in our … in the rituals … rites and rituals connected to our life cycle. So, that’s the tragedy.
14:43 / Barbora: I mean … Clearly this has got so much to do with what we still eat and what we still think is our local food. In your experience, in the past, let's say 10-15 years, have that been a lot of changes in Imphal about what people eat?
15:02 / Anjulika: Yes. Not … Yeah, there has been a lot of change. Like when we were younger, we would be … we would … as … as the story of the paddy goddess goes, it would be a simple meal with ... There will be rice; there will be one curry and then, that'd be all. But nowadays there are a lot more, I mean, from the … from outside, not … non-indigenous varieties of vegetables. Like, like, people are buying … growing bok choy … pok choi a lot, and … and you can find the … and broccoli is there, and carrots … I mean, different types of carrots are there. So, a lot of non-native varieties of vegetables are found in the market nowadays, and even the women in the Nupi Keithel, they have started incorporating these … these new vegetables among the native vegetables that they sell.
Even among the fishes also, I mean, a lot of our … our … the fish … I mean, among the Meiteis, our major source of protein is fish because a lot of Meiteis are Hindus and they don't take meat. I mean … So … But a lot of fish now has to be imported from … like, brought in from outside of Manipur, and which means lot of non-native and … ah … refrigerated fish. But apart from that, I … the … the younger generation especially are experimenting a lot with different types of meat. Nowadays there are restaurants selling Korean kim-bimbaps and kimbaps, you know, and then oysters, and … and you can now ... despite the lockdown, you can get this one … octopus as … on home delivery. So, you have restaurants …
17:01/Barbora: Sorry, but that octopus must have come from very far away, ya.
17:07 / Anjulika: Yeah, true … but the … I was trying to point out, like, that's the kind of changes we are having. We have restaurants catering, you know, giving Thai food, and then Korean food. Korean is the rage now. And in the local grocery stores, you can find these packages of seaweeds … you know, different types of seaweeds and all. So, that's the kind of changes that we are seeing. I mean, apart from the … ah … the local cuisine that we used to have. So … and … and we … and, we are taking a lot more meat than before.
17:46/ Barbora: That’s … that’s again throughout the region, this is quite true. But, you know, one of the things I remember from my earliest visits to Imphal in the late 80s was that how wonderfully … there were certain areas where you could taste certain kinds of things, right, in … in Imphal. So, can you just … for the listeners, can you just tell us how Imphal is spread out. In fact, there’s even a song. I mean, Akhu's … Akhu's song about where to get alcohol in the middle of a dry state. About this … but I am more interested in the food, the localities that sell particular kind of food. If you can tell our listeners that …
18:27 / Anjulika: Ah … In almost every locality you will find a … a middle-aged woman or an old woman selling singju, which is like, you know, lots of herbs and vegetables mixed with fermented fish and lots of chilli. So, it’s almost like a spicy salad. So, you’ll find this. And … and … they will also be selling fried, you know, fried chickpeas, and fried peas and … and different … and … and then fried, you know, the other stuff. So, a lot of these localities you’ll have these. And … and these usually are the evening snacks for the people.
Ah … ah … But if you want … if you’re new to Manipur, you want to taste the … the … you know, the kind of food that we have, not the hotel type of food, the best place to go would be the Nupi Keithel. Inside the Nupi Keithel, that's the women's market, you’ll find the women vendors, like, you know, selling a simple platter of rice, and then fish, and maybe an iromba which would be mashed vegetables with lots of chilies and fermented fish again. So, that is one place you can go.
Then … then if you move away a little bit from the Nupi Keithel towards the polo ground … the polo ground is where the Manipur’s … Manipur sagol kangjei … which is the, you know, the birth of polo. Just behind the polo ground there are a few hotels … small hotels which … which would give you the … the kind of cuisine which we usually have that will be … and that’ll be … it will be served on banana leaves and everything. So, you will have a different variety.
But if you want to taste the kind of food that we usually eat during our religious feasts, religious rituals and which would be without fish. It’ll be pure veg … like, vegetarian. Nowadays you can book a ... a seat with one of the mandir nearby, and you can get the kind of, like, food that we have. And it will almost be, apart from the rice, there’ll almost be 10-12 dishes all spread out, like, you know, different types of vegetables. In fact, if you go … if you’re are lucky enough to go to the Govindaji temple, … ah … there every day they offer this food to the God … to Govindaji, you know, who is the incarnate of Vishnu. And … and some … and particular occasions, they go to serve almost more than 100 different types of dishes, all vegetarian. So, I think it's about 108 or something, like you know, sweet dish.
So, for one of these usop – we call it an usop which is a religious feast – it would usually start with cereals, dal and all, but will end … it would end with fruit … ah, fruit, like you know, fruit dishes, with sweets. So, you get a taste of all things – you get sour food, you get sweet food, you get spicy food, you get bland food, boiled … So, you get everything. So …
But if you are … if you don't want to experiment and you want to taste the more … ah … ah, I mean nowadays there are a lot of hotels, like, you know, restaurants coming up. But there are also restaurants like “Forage” who … who … which is selling … who’s doing a revamp of the local food but also giving it in a more, you know, continental style, but it’s actual real organic food. Or, you could go a little bit further towards Chingmeirong where you get a taste of Tangkhul style of cooking pork at certain restaurants from there. “Hoksha,” I think it’s called.
22:40 / Barbora: At Hoksha, na?
22:41/ Anjulika: Yeah, Hoksha. You can go there and you can get a taste … Or, if you’re lucky enough to have a friend who would take you to one of the … um … you know … ah … ah … the … one of the communities from the hill communities settled in and around Imphal, then you can get a taste of, you know, good sausages, even rice wine and everything. So, that …
23:08/ Barbora: Yeah, we … I mean, the younger version of me we would straight go to Dewlahland …
23:14 / Anjulika: Yeah, yeah, they would go to Dewlahland … they would go to Kabui Khul. They would go to a lot of Khul. “Khul,” they say. Like, “Khul” means “village.” So, these are urban villages located inside Imphal, I mean, almost next to each … next to … next to Meitei communities and all, but yeah, yeah … you can find everything there.
23:37/ Barbora: Anju, but … I mean with all the variety that's there, the central thing in any Manipuri kind of … in any Manipuri usop offering, it’s always the rice, right? Even if it’s in Guwahati or wherever, the quality of rice is just simply something that is … you know, it’s very tasty, it’s very fragrant … it’s filling. And, do you see that changing now with, let's say, the kind of rice you’re getting from different parts of the country, which is a part of the PDS? Do you think it’s changing?
24:18/Anjulika: Ah … I think there are a lot of new hybrids of rice and … and … and which are there … and yeah, also the PDS rice which we call the “superfine” rice. So that comes, that is distributed. But people still prefer the local variety which is rich, sticky and everything … But … but even with the rice, a lot of the rice varieties have died down. In fact, there are … there are some people who are trying to, you know, store and … and at least store the … or … or list down the different kinds of paddies which are indigenous to Manipur.
25:03/ Barbora: Anju, you were also saying, you know, there is … there is actually poems written about rice in Manipur. Has any of them been translated? Sorry …
25:16 /Anjulika: Not … not … I didn't find it in translation. It's not actually a poem. It’s … it's more like a – what’s the word, when you are worshipping someone – it’s more like an incantation, or … or, you know, like ... So, there are … there are books on lyrics when they … when we have to worship Phouoibi. So … ah … which is quite long and it … and it’s here you will find the stories of Phouoibi's various trials, and tribulations and travels.
25:53/ Barbora: Alright. I have one last question for you, Anju, before I let you go. Do you think with all these changes that are there, especially now after this whole pandemic where we saw that food … food, kind of, was sort of … the chain, supply chain was disrupted and all of that, do you think that there's now rethinking of what we used to call traditional food, and moving away from the more processed, packaged food kind of thing in Manipur?
26:27/ Anjulika: See, we have never been so much influenced by the processed food industry as ... like, you know, in Manipur. Even now people still prefer like, you know, the indigenous food. So, processed food is just, like … It’s … I think it’s with the … Even look at me, like, you know, it’s only with the pandemic that I’m buying frozen food and processed food. Otherwise, it’s all … everything is fresh from the market, and fresh from the field … I wanted to add one thing.
27:00/ Barbora: Yes.
27:01/ Anjulika: Is it still recording? Accha, when we are talking about food or rice goddesses, you know, there are, in many cultures, a lot of the, you know, deity … you know, food is … there’s a lot of food goddesses. Like, like, in Hindu, it’s Annapurna who is the rice god … who’s also taken as the rice goddess. The deity that is usually ascribed to food and agriculture is a woman. It’s a … it is a goddess, and not a god. Like …
27:38/Barbora: Okay, okay.
27:39/ Anjulika: So … And you know who is the … who is the goddess of chocolate? And it’s actually …
27:46/Barbora: Who is the goddess of chocolate?
27:47/ Anjulika: It's a Mayan goddess … ah … I don’t know how to pronounce it … Ixcacao.
27:55/Barbora: Wow!
27:56/ Anjulika: I-X-C-A-C-A-O.
27:58/Barbora: Wow! Ixcacao, right?
28:01/Anjulika: Even for tea also.
28:02/Barbora: For tea also?
28:03/Anjulika: For tea also.
28:04/Barbora: Wow!
28:05/Anjulika: So, like … so … so, and I think that is interesting because if you look at it, food is life and woman is the one who gives life. So …
28:17/Barbora: Hey. On that note, Anju, thank you so much once again.
28:22/Anjulika: Thank you.
28:24/Barbora: And that puts an end to this … this episode of the podcast.
28:29/ Outro: Thank you for tuning in to Zubaan Talkies’ “Food Cultures” podcast. Our host today was Xonzoi Barbora. He has also written and researched today's episode, with technical production by Abhishek Vidyarthi Singh. Coordination was done by Anushya Pradhan and Pami Brahma. The “Food Cultures” podcast is produced by Zubaan and our team is Afreen Azim, Bidisha Mahanta, Meghna Singh, Ishani K. B., Karuna Menon, and Thingnam Anjulika Samom led by Urvashi Butalia. Don't forget to subscribe to us on your favorite podcast streaming platform to make sure you don't miss any of our upcoming episodes.
Zubaan's “Food Cultures of Northeast India” podcasts are available on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, and Spotify on our channel, Zubaan Talkies. For more details about Zubaan and our Cultures of Peace project, please visit our website zubaanprojects.org
Have a good day and don't forget to tune in to our rest of our podcasts.