FOOD : A REGRESSIVE AND LIBERATING FORCE

A study of Indira Goswami’s The Moth Eaten Howdah of the Tusker and The
Blue-Necked God

SUBMITTED BY

KASTURI SAIKIA
 ABSTRACT

The paper titled “Food : a repressive and liberating force” attempts to locate the metaphorical
presence of food in Indira Goswami’s acclaimed works including The Moth Eaten Howdah of
the Tusker and The Blue Necked God . In Goswami’s novels, food upholds manifold function
and is associated to the female body. Food functions as a social force, embodiment of
individual identity and proclamation of subdued female desires , and enforcement of desire of
the masculine world. Food here is being employed as a prism or seen as one of the avenues
through which women is being understood or conceptualized in the novels. The role of food in
the entire discourse of purity and profanity, specially in reference to the widows is fore
grounded. Further, the use of food , as a means of powerful imagery is being discussed. This
shall throw light on the manner in which women , particularly widows, who belong to the
marginalized section of the society figures out in Goswami’s novels. Goswami employs food as
a liberating force for some characters and also foregrounds its usage as a patriarchal trope
through which the desires of many other characters are curbed.

Keywords

Food imagery, marginalization, purity and profanity, sexuality, gender identity, widowhood
 Discussion

Food is crucial to the survival of a being and is both a necessity and pleasure . Food and eating
donot have only tangible representation but also have deeper symbolic and metaphoric
implications and thus forms an important discourse of study in literature. In fiction , food ,
hunger and eating is often intertwined with body , power, gender and religion. This idea of food
can be empowering and enabling as well as disabling. Food , turns into an agency through which
individuals or communities construct their identity, frames codes of social conduct and
determines boundaries of purity and impurity. According to Sarah Sceats , food functions as a
“currency of love and desire , a medium of expression and communication” (Sceats, 11). Food
figures out prominently in Indira Goswami’s work and upholds manifold function. The paper is
an attempt to locate the presence of food in Indira Goswami’s acclaimed works including The
Moth- eaten Howdah of the Tusker (1986,2004) and The Blue -necked God (1976, 2012) . In
both the novels , food functions as a significant agency which embodies the materiality of the
ideology of widowhood. This is manifested through economic deprivations that the widows
undergo as a result of which they are deprived of the least amount of food crucial to survival .

In The Moth- eaten Howdah of the Tusker (1986,2004), Goswami captures the Assamese
traditional society through the world of Amranga Sattra . Set in the house of a Adhikar , the
novel traces the religious conservatism of the times which had mindlessly suppressed the
thoughts and human instincts . Through the woeful saga of three widows , Giribala , Durga and
Saru Gossainee , Goswami universalizes the ‘women question’ by highlighting the similar
experiences of oppression and violence against women by the patriarchal superstructures of the
society: in this case the orthodox conventions of the sattras. She evoke the two characters of
Durga and Saru Gossainee as tradition bound widows and establishes a polarity with Giribala ,
who questions the rigid framework of the patriarchal social norms.

In the novel, Goswami depicts the hoary rituals forced on the widows . The widows were
deprived of many essentials thereby restricting their autonomy and control over their lives. It is
important to note that, in the entire scheme of deprivation , food figures out prominently. In the
novel, Goswami, while describing Saru Gossainee, the widow of Gossain Mahaprahu’s brother
brings forth the customs to be upholded by a widow. She writes ,
 Amoti , is soon approaching...She will not be allowed to eat cooked food. Her daily fare for three
days will be raw vegetables and fruits.. (394 ).

The widows being deprived of the pleasure of food bears deeper under tones .Their sexual
energy is being controlled by the orthodox patriarchal customs and are made to survive on
meager amounts of raw vegetables and milk. Denying the women their pleasure of food is in a
way is regulating their survival. Eating practices in case of the widows can be seen to be encoded
in unwritten rules . This echoes Sarah Sceat’s view that “ Eating practices are highly specific:
encoded in appetite, taste, ritual and ingestive etiquettes are unwritten rules and meanings,
through which people communicate and are categorized within particular cultural contexts.” (1).
In the novel , there are varied other occasions where the readers come across the restrictions of
the forced ascetic life of the widows. Food acts as a medium through which social rules and
cultural meanings are inscribed to the female body .

This relation between permitted and prohibited food is a societal construction and forms a part of
the religious discourse . In the case of the widows , the consumption of the prohibited food is
considered as a ‘sin’ which in turn turns to a threat to their widowed existence. Dietary
prohibition plays a significant role in maintaining the purity of the widows. This discourse on
food in a way provides the readers with a glimpse of the society and attitude towards the widows
. As Sarah sceats writes , “Food is our centre, necessary for survival and inextricably connected
with social function What people eat, how and with whom , what they feel about food and why-
even who they eat- are of crucial significance to an understanding of human society”(1).

Food constitutes a critical element in the ritual idiom of purity and pollution and figures out
prominently in the entire discourse of purity and profanity. Widowhood , which generally is
regarded as a source of impurity for women restrains women from cooking food which would,
in particular , be offered for religious purpose. Thus, food acts as an important element in the
social acceptability of women. Intricacies of the caste system is woven inextricably with this
social approval of women. In the novels, the prescriptions and prohibitions regarding food for
women are seen to be governed by kinship , marriage and sexuality. The widows are expected to
adhere to certain stringent norms regarding their consumption of food. They are required to
observe strict rules of purity while preparing food and are forced to give up consumption of food
which supposedly are assumed to raise passion and desire and thus they forgo proper meals.
Brahminical Hinduism developed the use of food as a ritual object as well as a necessity as
depicted in the case of the widows.

This deprivation of food of the widows is further intensified in The Blue -necked God
(1976,2012). The novel weaves the tale of terrible misery and helplessness that countless
widows in the holy city undergo . Unlike the widows of the Amranga Sattra who survive on
meager meals , the widows in Vrindavan are deprived even of those meager gratifications. At
the beginning of the novel , Goswami provides us with a descriptions of the widows who were
‘under nourished’ and survived in extremely unhygienic , dark and dilapidated rooms. The poor
radheshyamis were the purchasers of the rotten vegetable from the vegetable vendors.

Depicted through the eyes of the protagonist , Saudamini, a non conformist widow, Goswami
highlights the quandary of the poverty stricken widows. Food also is employed to convey the
economic deprivations of the widows. Goswami draws the attention of the readers towards the
starving souls at the very outset of the novel. When Saudamini encounters the widows at their
hovels , the widows were overwhelmed by her sight .Touching the golden bangles on
Saudamini’s wrist they said , “Give us some donation to keep us alive. You people eat to live ,
but we need to eat something in order to live. Give us something to keep us alive “ (Goswami,
22). On another occasion, during a discussion , watermelons were seen as the ideal food for
them in order to appease their hunger because , “water melons are sold at twenty for one paise”
(Goswami 25). Festivals offered occasions for the radheshyamis to gather food and satisfy their
hunger. Goswami’s intense description of the occasion of Annakut festival in Braj acquaints the
readers with the heart wrenching predicament of the widows . Appeasing their hunger seems to
be the sole aim of the widows during such occasions. The greed of these widows arose not for
the want of more but for the want of little in order to survive. Such is the hunger that they would
even seemed ready “to literally jump on to the huge mountains of food” (Goswami, 57). They
gobbled up their food as fast as they could and made their way for another temple where food
would be served. These festivals in Braj were few of those are occasions where the radheshyamis
get an undignified opportunity to satisfy their pangs of hunger. On other occasions , when they
visit Gopinath Bazar , rotten sackful of potatoes were usually thrown at them which they eat and
gather with great pleasure.
Food can be both empowering and enabling force as well as a disabling force. The widow
characters in Goswami’s The Moth- eaten Howdah of the Tusker (1986, 2004) and The Blue-
necked God (1976, 2012) are seen to struggle with their appetite which finds expression in the
few occasions when they are seen devouring meat which , otherwise is restricted. Giribala, the
young widow from The Moth -eaten howdah of the Tusker (1986,2004) is seen to assert her self
through the consumption of the forbidden food. Giribala, is restricted from attending any
religious functions and lives a life shunned out from the rest of the world. In one occasion of a
public gathering, she was locked up in an isolated room where she gets a strong aroma of
mutton curry hidden in the room. Since childhood, she has been taught greed for meat is very
inauspicious for a girl. A Brahmin family with stringent norms considers the desire for greed
for flesh as inauspicious for a girl. Her desire for appeasing her hunger even as a child is seen in
terms of ‘impurity’ as Goswami writes , “Chiko! Chiko! Such greed for flesh is inauspicious for
a girl!” (512). Giribala was not able to resist the childhood desire for meat . She “ darted into the
palanquin room and picked up the pot of mutton cooked with black beans. She forgot herself,
religious rituals, wisdom or restraint.. She started gulping it down in great haste.. ..” (Goswami,
516). Devoid of the sensual pleasures , Giribala in a way finds gratification in consuming meat.
Until then, Giribala had consumed only rice, pulses boiled with some vegetables with a pinch of
salt . The fulfilling gratification that she experiences after eating the meat itself throws light on
the forcefully suppressed longings of the widows. Needless to say, she was accused of an act of
bringing about sacrilege to her caste and her status as a widow. This transgressing act of hers is
crucial to her identity of a non conformist widow as Sceats said , “Food and eating are essential
to self – identity” (2). In both the novels, a predatory nature is attributed to the hunger of the
widows. Giribala is being described in bestial terms while alluding to her ‘ unexpected ‘ surge of
hunger. Goswami writes , “Look! Look! She’s eating meat like an ogress”, almost reducing her
to a monster and marking her ‘presence’ through her the absence of her human existence (23).
Similarly , in The Blue -necked God (1976,2012), the predicament of the poverty stricken
widows are exaggerated by inducing a predatory nature into them .“This old women can devour
people”, Goswami writes. The radheshyamis are being dehumanized through their association
with cannibals by foregrounding the predatory nature of appetite. These widows are often
referred to as ghostly women who in a way symbolizes death and decay .
Food, apart from expressing the hidden desires also offers also offers a means of powerful
imagery in Indira Goswami works. Indira Goswami through the powerful use of rhetorics
comments on the sexuality of the female characters. The metaphorical use of food by Goswami
acts as a major vehicle to shape concepts of sexuality and gender identity in her works.

This rhetorical power of Goswami is seen in the second chapter of The moth -eaten Howdah of
the Tusker (1986,20040 where she describes Eliman, the young daughter of the pujari of
Rajpukhuri . She writes , “Her body , Her soft flesh! It was like the soft silky and sticky pulp of
the ou fruit” (405). The elephant fruit, here is employed to provide an alluring description of
Eliman at the verge of acquiring womenhood. In Assamese society , the onset of menstruation is
often dreaded by young Brahmin girls in those days. They would be declared outcasts if they do
not get married before attaining puberty because it is believed that a woman’s sexual energy
should be channelized else it would be a threat to their social order and purity of caste. The
possibility of Eliman turning to threat to the social order underlies the metaphorical association
of Eliman with the ou fruit. It seems she have attained her marriageable age. Here, Goswami is
seen to build her food imagery on the stereotypical notions of the commoners. As the novel
progresses, metaphors are further employed to provide descriptions of the female characters. A
group of women reminded Indranath of ‘fresh sugarcane juice. ..This fragrance always had a
mysterious influence over him.’ , writes Goswami (423). Goswami throws light on women seen
as an object of consumption.The use of food as a sexual metonymy is seen to be deliberate on the
part of the author . As Sarah Sceats wrote , “ The use of food and eating as a deliberate sexual
metonymy or metaphor is a long established tradition, specially for suggesting human flesh and
sexual intercourse’’ (23). It is significant to notice the agency through which the women are
sexually described. Often , it is seen to be the male characters. “In a world ordered by sexual
imbalance’’,Laura Mulvey claims that, “pressure in looking has been split between the active /
male and passive/female. The determining male gaze projects its fantasy on to the female male
figure.”( 808).

Goswami blatantly unveils the sexual exploitation of women through the use of food imagery in
one of her short story , “The game of Bhairavi” where lavanya ,friend of Padmapriya, the
protagonist, while describing the aftermath of marriage states that , “These men chew on your
body as they chew sugarcane. And once they have sucked the last drop out of you, they spit you
out ‘’ ( 98). Women here is reduced to an object of desire for the masculine world. Through the
metaphor of consumption , Goswami foregrounds the predatory nature of the masculine world .
The metaphor of consumption is associated with women which deprives them of autonomy on
their bodies. As Laura Mulvey in her essay , “ Visual pleasure and narrative cinema” asserts
that, “ In their traditional role women are simultaneously looked at and displayed, with their
appearance coded for strong visual and erotic impact so that they can be said to connote to-be-
lookedness-at-ness’’ (809). Shaped by the masculine gaze , women are seen as a source of
pleasure . She brings forth the predatory nature of the patriarchs who consider women as food to
be fed upon and women as ‘bearer’ of the male gaze.

In some instances, Goswami’s use of food metaphors, as a literary device, can be seen as a
liberating force for the author . The food metaphors in a way renders Goswami with the freedom
to provide the readers with sexual descriptions of the female body which , otherwise, if
expressed explicitly would seem offensive . The food metaphors , in a way turns to an agency
through which Goswami offers an indictment of the patriarchal assumptions garbed in literary
intelligence. However, the simultaneous objectification of the female body in order to fulfill the
aim of ‘censoring the patriarchal fabric’ cannot be overlooked. Therefore, this power of hers
cannot be romanticized because subsequently she falls prey to the patriarchal rhetorics..

Nevertheless, food acts as a major avenue through which the marginalized lives in Goswami’s
selected fictions can be examined. It acts as a multiple signifier through which the female body
in conceptualized in Indira Goswami’s works . Goswami through the use of food imagery
exposes the readers to a deeper level of deprivation for women which is far deep rooted . Their
struggle doesnot end with the struggle with the external oppressive forces . Food which is
integral to the survival of human beings when turned to a medium of oppression deprives
women , particularly the widows , of the basic human need. Goswami perhaps, it can be argued
sheds light on this struggle with their human existence more than their struggle with the male
hegemonic power. Her power of the metaphors, when realized , exposes the readers to deeper
level of understandings of her works.
 Citations

Goswami, Indira. The Blue - Necked God. Translated by Bhattacharjya gayari, Zubaan,2013.

Goswami, Indira. The Moth Eaten Howdah of the Tusker, Rupa and Co. , 2004.

Mulvey, Laura. “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.” Feminisms : an anthology of literary
theory and criticisms, edited by Warhol, Robyn R. Herndl and Diane Price Warhol, Rutgers
university press,1996.pp 438-467.

Sceats, Sarah. Food consumption and the body in contemporary women’s fiction . Cambridge
Universitypress,2000.GoogleBooks.books.google.co.in/books/about/Food_Consumption_and_th
e_Body_in_Contemp.html?id=1M75c9B13DEC&redir_esc=y. Accessed 23 january 2019.

Satarwala,Burjor Kaikous , compiler . Indira goswami ( Mamoni Raisom Goswami ) and her
Fictional world- The search for sea. B.R. Pub. Corp,2002