On our way to a conference in Mysore a good friend and a colleague of mine, and I made a stop over in Hyderabad, the capital of Andhra Pradesh, the fifth or sixth largest state in India. We came from Delhi and the view from the plane was breathtaking as we flew over the Deccan Plateau, which extended in the Central and South part of the country. We came to Hyderabad to visit my colleague’s childhood friend, who held a high post in Dabur, a huge Indian company for Ayurvedic and nature-based health products and foods. We landed at 10 o’clock in the morning and right when the door of the aircraft was opened and as we were getting ready to go down the stairs, one of the stewardesses came to us, said our names and told us to follow her. She took us to a car with a flashing siren on the roof. We were escorted to a private room with heavy curtains on the outside glass doors where Sagar was waiting for us. He was wearing brown slacks and a beige long sleeve shirt left untucked, impeccably ironed with a straight fold in the middle of the sleeves and tiny symmetric pleats right above the cuffs. He was average height with broad shoulders and had a belly noticeable only when you look at him from the side. He invited us to sit down in big heavy dark purple armchairs and tea and biscuits were immediately served by an airport employee in a blue uniform. About 10-15 minutes later another one came in and said something in Telugu and Sagar called his driver on the phone and told him in Kannada, his mother tongue, to pull the car up to the exit. He also knew Sanskrit, Hindi and English. He let us know that we could rely completely on him during our stay because he had taken a few days off to be with us. When we inquired about the luggage, he said that it was all being taken care of and that we were his friends and guests, and that his home will be ours, but that he needed to caution us about something, however, and he added: “My place is simple but I like to enjoy life!”
Of course we reassured him that it did not matter a bit, thinking that he might be just modest about it. Since we were not tired at all and were eager to see the city, before we went to his place, first we decided to get a tour around the city. Sagar told us that the city of Hyderabad was founded some 400 years ago by Mohammad Quli Qutb Shah and built by Persian architects to resemble paradise. This was a major center of Indo-Persian cultural and literary progress as well as of business with diamonds, pearls and zari brocades, silk woven with gold or silver thread. The city was so beautiful and rich, because the local Muslim ruler, called nizam, was able to pay for his independence from the British and along with his successors he established the city’s infrastructure. They built water reservoirs, railway system, bridges, minarets and schools where teaching was done in Urdu, Telugu and Persian. They were patrons of literature, arts and crafts. Sagar also mentioned that in the 1930s the nizam of Hyderabad was ranked as the richest person in the world. Our host directed the driver to take us through the High Tech neighborhood that didn’t look like India at all with all the modern glass and steel buildings of computer and communication companies, surrounded by trees and beds of colorful flowers and green plants. Then we stopped for a walk in the Lumbini Park next to the lake Hussain Sagar (sagar means ‘sea’), in which we saw one of the tallest statues of Buddha (18 meters), carved out of one single piece of white granite. We took a boat ride to enjoy the surrounding scenery and the statue at close range. He told us that it took two-three years to place the statue, because it weighed more than 300 tons and sank on the bottom killing a couple of workers, but a year or two later it was lifted and safely erected. Peaceful and solemn, it stood right in the middle of the lake as a symbol of the Hyderabadi pluralistic society and the centuries-long harmonious co-existence of large communities of Jains, Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, Parsees and Christians.
We headed to Sagar’s place and on the way he mentioned that his plans for the next day included a visit to one of the biggest and most famous forts in Deccan, dating back to the 12th century, the capital of the kingdom of Golkonda, about 10 kilometers west of Hyderabad. He lived in an old building with paint peeling off from the walls and a really old elevator. His apartment had two bedrooms with a dining area and an airy sitting room. It was evident however, that it was recently renovated, freshly painted and perfectly clean. The floor was covered with marble tiles and, certainly, not with a carpet, as it is the case in most houses here. On the one hand, it feels much cooler when it’s hot, and, on the other hand, it is much easier to clean by sweeping and splashing a bucket of water and soap over it and mopping it thoroughly. Otherwise, how can it be clean? I have had a few conversations with Indian friends about this, and many of them are disgusted that westerners keep rugs and carpets on the floor even in their bathrooms.
Sagar had a female housekeeper who came in every day to clean the apartment and wash his clothes. Cooking, however, was exclusively his domain, he claimed, and said he was going to make us his favorite fish curry for dinner. On the coffee table he served a bowl of mixed nuts with dried fruits, another one with mango ice cream with fruit salad, and a huge box of Swiss dark chocolates. Then he brought in a bottle of Veuve Clicquot (French champagne) in an ice bucket, and long stemmed flutes. To impress us even further with his sophisticated taste, he opened an antique glass cabinet and, in case champagne was not our drink, he offered a choice of 25 year-old tequila, several 12 and 18 year-old single malts whiskeys, old world wines, etc.
The space was arranged in a minimalist style, the furniture was clean line and plain in light cream and dark wood. I noticed the wall hangings displayed beautifully in contemporary glass frames above and on either side of the cabinet, elegantly arranged as the focal point of the room. Some had embroidered geometrical designs with gold thread, golden and silver sequins with tiny round mirrors woven into the cotton textile in a Gujarati and Rajasthani folk tradition, one tapestry in the tribal banjara style with a more ordered placement of textile swatches and extensive use of mirrors, wood, bone, metal beads, cowrie shells and buttons, and a Kashmiri style woolen piece with flower designs. I especially appreciate hand-made tribal artisanal textile because they are often made of real vintage pieces of clothing that carry family memories and individual experiences that are put together to form an almost mystical fabric.
One particular painting on the opposite wall drew my attention since I had never seen anything like it before. It was in the Madhubani folk style of Bihar and it elaborately depicted a mythological scene known as “The Churning of the Ocean”. The particular narrative on the wall hanging is from a tale about the sage Durvasa, who was known for his short temper, powerful curses and mercilessness as a re-incarnation of a part of the god Shiva. For this reason he was always properly revered. One day the maharishi met the god Indra riding his elephant. Durvasa greeted him and offered him a fabulous garland of fragrant flowers freshly picked in the forest by a celestial nymph. The god placed it on his elephant’s neck, but the strong scent and all the bees buzzing around irritated the animal. He removed it with his trunk, dropped in on the ground and trampled it. The sage was infuriated by this act of disrespect towards his gift and he cursed Indra. The king of all gods immediately descended from his elephant to appease Durvasa, but was unable to, in spite of all the excuses or prostrations and the curse was not reversed. As a result, the universe started collapsing. All plantations died. Moral and religious values were abandoned and ambition and greed reigned. The gods were soon defeated by their eternal rivals, the evil Asuras, and lost their power. Subsequently, they prayed to lord Vishnu for help with unsurpassed diligence and he came to their rescue. He advised them to unite with their enemies and to stir the ocean water. Following lord Vishnu’s instructions they used the mountain Mandara as a churning-stick and as a rope the giant serpent Vasuki, who wrapped the middle part of his body around the top of the mountain showing above the ocean surface. On the one side, the gods held the serpent’s tail and, on the other, the demons held his head. They began to pull side to side, in unison. Vishnu turned himself into a tortoise and dove under the mountain to prevent it from sinking. Soon the water started whirling and twirling. First, the sacred cow emerged from the depths of the ocean with her sacred milk. Afterward, everything that was lost, gradually materialized on the surface. Most important was the drink of immortality, amrita, which was quickly seized by the gods and thus they regained their might. Also, the goddess of prosperity and Vishnu’s consort Lakshmi appeared sitting on a lotus and she promised never to abandon the world again. Thus the universe was re-created and saved. This is one of the several cosmogonic stories described in the Vishnu Purana (book 1, ch. 9), an ancient collection in Sanskrit of legends about the god Vishnu and his avatars or re-incarnations 45. A version of this myth is also found in the Mahabharata46.
Sagar came from an old Brahmin family. His whole childhood had a solid ceremonial dimension.
“From the second I would wake up in the morning to the time I was sent to bed in the evening, my day was filled with ritual acts I had to perform under the close supervision of my father or my grand-parents. And they were very strict. I had to eat alone, away from the rest at all times.”
“Why?” I wasn’t following.
“Always facing south, you know. To guarantee the purity of my food.”
“What do you mean?” I interrupted him again.
“Well, the food can be polluted if it gets in the shadow of a person from a lower caste. A Brahmin can’t eat anymore. If this happens, he just throws it out. My grandfather, especially, was extremely vigilant. He would lock himself up to eat in a room somewhere deep inside the house, so that he wouldn’t even hear someone’s voice from a lower caste. He was meticulous in his discipline. This is how he used to teach me to be. He was a very kind and peaceful man. I loved him. He really liked to be old – less responsibilities and more time to devote to God. He constantly repeated mantras. I am not sure how he had remembered all of them and whether he really understood all, but he was saying that this was the way to get ready for the time when he would leave his body. On the other hand, my father was a real scholar. He used to read a lot. When he was young, the most favorite day of his life was when electricity came to their district. Even though in his house it was still not available, at night he would sit next to the lamppost outside and read, and in the morning neighbors would find him fallen asleep on the side of the road. He knew much more about sciences and the world than my grandfather. He could read English. I heard him admit on a few occasions that there were certain prejudicial and irrational beliefs in Hinduism, but he also said that man needed a religion and ours was the best one in the world. He had examined all of them.”
Sagar confessed that unlike his father, grandfather, great grandfather and all his ancestors, who led a life of complete orthodoxy, he had deviated from this path and their way of thinking.
“I can’t say I follow any kind of tradition. I started a career in marketing and management, very atypical of traditional Brahmins.”
“How did your parents react when you told them what you wanted to do?”
“Oh, of course, they approved of my choice. They knew early on that I wasn’t cut to be a pujari (practicing priest) in our temple.”
“Where is it, by the way?” I inquired further.
“In the south, in Kerala. My family has been related to this temple for several centuries, maybe more than twenty generations, but see, my younger brother continued this tradition and his children will. I support them, because my job pays really well, and nowadays it’s difficult to survive as a pujari.”
The only habit from his upbringing that he found it difficult to part with was the food, i.e. the choice of what meals he ate depended on what part of the day it was, what type of work he did or was about to do. He cooked his food himself and claimed he was almost a professional. He went out to eat from time to time, but he definitely preferred Jain food, if he had a choice, because it was the most pure one.
The Hindus believe in a three way distinction of qualities of nature and parallel to them three types of food, which are mentioned by Krishna in the Bhagavat Gita in his 17th teaching (1-10) and were discussed in more details in later texts. A person who has certain qualities craves certain foods and is influenced by them. The first group, sattvic or the pure one is good for the health, increases longevity and makes the person happy; it is smooth and savory, consists of cereals, nuts, some fruits and legumes and is made without spices or masala. The second food category is the rajasic, the passionate one; it includes meat, egg, fish, garlic, onion and is hot, pungent, sweet, sour, salty and spicy; it is bad for the health and causes a burning sensation, restlessness and unhappiness. The third kind is tamasic, the dark one; it includes fermented, decomposed, stale and smelly foods, including alcohol, which bring about inertia, lethargy and apathy47. Our host, Sagar, didn’t shy away from any of these foods and was used to eating out on weekends, but he knew when and why; it wasn’t just about eating. He mentioned that he was going to take us to a restaurant to try the best Hyderabadi biryani in India, chicken, marinated in yogurt and spices cooked with basmati rice.
And most certainly, the next day after visiting the impressive Golconda fort, which dated from the 12th century, the three of us stopped at the restaurant for dinner. Once we entered, the waiters filed up in two rows along the left end of the room to greet us with hands joined for namaste. The majority of them were young and a few were middle-aged men. My first impression was that the restaurant staff far exceeded the number of the customers. Out of about twenty tables only two or three were occupied. I also noticed that they were wearing two types of uniforms – black pants with a white shirt and a burgundy color vest, and brown pants with a white shirt and a beige color vest. What these dress codes meant, I had no idea. A mixed batch of them guided us to a table by the window on the far right of the entrance. By the time we took our seats the ushers joined the rest on the other side and another group approached us with the menus. Two for each person – a total of six. One walking slightly in front, handing us the menu, then with a smile effortlessly backing and disappearing behind the next ones, who moved quite close to the table and with hands behind their back leaned over our chairs slightly from behind, as if they were going to read along with each of us or maybe they were getting in a position, when we finished the first page, to flip it for us. I wasn’t sure. We knew that we would order biryani, but we needed to figure out the rest of the order, so we warned them that we needed a couple more minutes to make up our mind. They instantly straightened their backs, but didn’t move an inch. It had often happened to me in Indian restaurants; when I chose a dish from the menu the waiter would shake his head disapprovingly, then I would order something else, but the same reaction would follow, until he would make a suggestion which I usually liked. So, since they were here I decided to ask what they would recommend. By the end of my question, these three guys had slowly relinquished their front stage position and three other waiters, who apparently were waiting in the wings, tip-toed immediately towards our table with gleaming faces. One of them asked me what I needed and I repeated the question. He insisted on a few dishes, which we ordered without any hesitation. At that time he, accompanied by his supporting crew, turned in a synchronized fashion and headed to the backstage to join the rest of the staff, where among hurried movements some kind of consultation and intense communication was in progress. In the meantime, another trio in the same triangular configuration was dispatched from the left. They offered to bring us drinks. My friends ordered the famous local beer, but out of curiosity I opted for white wine, which I had noticed on display at the entrance door. While I was pronouncing “Sula”, the name of the vineyard, these three waiters, keeping their dance formation intact, started backing up almost unnoticeably and another one emerged from the right side of the stage with nimble delicate little steps. In a split second, I changed my mind and with the purpose of simplifying the order I requested any Indian white wine that they could offer chilled. The drinks were served by another bunch of six. One had one hand behind his back and with the other was holding a tray with a bottle and a glass, while his partner was placing the drinks in front of each person. At this point I had no idea whether these were the same waiters to whom we had given our order, or whether these were new faces, but they had brought in the wrong beer and my wine was not cold at all. And every time something new was served on our table or taken away, a new dance configuration approached us waltzing.
I wondered at some point whether they had borrowed waiters from restaurants in the neighborhood to impress us. It seemed to me that this choreography must have taken plenty of rehearsals. The coordinated movements through the stage, the well-arranged trio or sextet formations, the diagonal moves in the front and the circular ones in the back were spectacular. We started to enjoy the show of which we were, definitely, a part. Our every gesture at the table was watched from different angles. The second you were about to pick up something, a trio glided in and put it in your hand. If you lifted your eyes from the table or looked around, they were in motion ready to serve. But then we noticed that if we asked for something particular, the pattern changed. The request receiving team would send an invisible signal, move to the middle of the room where a consulting batch would be posted and, after congregating shortly, disperse. Then we would get served in the usual format.
Sagar had no idea what was going on. He rolled his eyes every time someone came to hand us over our own glass from right in front or to replace our plates with clean ones, or just to ask if madam ji or sir ji needed anything else. Sagar claimed that this had never happened before here. We were completely satisfied, though. The food was excellent, drinks were cold, we were being served like royalty, and all this was immensely entertaining. I started to flatter myself that I could be the reason for all this. Well, it turned out that it was staff training day!
Sagar wasn’t married and according to him there was almost no time left in his busy schedule to have a little fun. He was involved as a volunteer in a UNICEF program focusing on children’s nutrition. He showed me a few of their brochures. He pointed to their statistics that more than one million children under the age of five die of malnourishment every year here.
“This, compared to five million 10 years ago, looks much better. But, you know India will lose its human resources advantage in only one decade.” – he added.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, think about it – malnourishment in early childhood years hinders the cognitive and emotional development, thus, later on, the working ability. Out of 146 million children suffering of starvation 57 million live in India. In 10 years or so they will join the work force.”
Sagar considered it a mistake to think that the economic growth of the country would automatically be beneficial for all the people, including the people living in villages, and therefore social mechanisms were needed to be in place to narrow the growing urban-rural divide. This was why he was helping the setting up of food programs and consultation clinics in the rural areas.
“However, only 15% of all the mothers take their infants there.”
“Education had something to do with this, right?”
“Young girls attend school for three-four years only and then they are sent off to marry, sometime before they even finish puberty. They have no education, no experience, how would they make decisions about their children? This is the reason why we have a high children’s mortality rate. You top this with old superstitions transmitted from generation to generation and –”
“Like what?”
“For instance, there is a false belief that mother’s milk right after giving birth is impure and bad for the baby. That’s why they start breastfeeding after the fourth day. By then, the newborn’s health is already compromised. Actually, it’s the opposite. Early milk is a must! It has plenty of health components – 37 different important natural immune factors and more than 8 growth factors that work with the body to combat illness and promote full health.”
“So the baby doesn’t eat during these four days?”
“See, the mother-in-law, traditionally, must give the newly born grandson the first feed, otherwise the mother gives the girl the first feed. “
“What is it made of?”
“They often mix animal milk, herbal concoctions, water from an unclean local source or other liquids low in nutrients. You can imagine how in this way they expose the baby to disease or damage the baby’s digestion. On the other hand, colostrum is easy to digest and high in nutrition and antibodies to keep the newborn healthy. We try to teach them that with each day they delay breastfeeding, the likelihood of early death increases. Our company does a lot of health-related research and we are working on expanding our programs with a new one that will promote people’s awareness of old notions of impurity like this one. I hope that my life style will not kill me soon. I have plenty left to do. And I know many people who are involved in similar type of work. I am sure that in forty or fifty years from now India will be changed a lot and I want to see it happen!”
___________________
45 See for more The Vishnu Purana: A System of Hindu Mythology and Tradition. Trans. HH. Wilson. 1880. book 1
46 See for more Doniger, Wendy, trans. Hindu Myths: A Sourcebook Translated from the Sanskrit. Pinguin Books, 1975. 273-280
47 See for more Smith, Brian K (1990) “Eaters, food and social hierarchy in ancient India: a dietary guide to a revolution of values.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 58 no.2 Sum, p. 177-205