of ¢HE MEANING OF THE THALI ate sit-down meals of the Western kind. They are interminable Tier come in dribs and drabs, you eat too much without feeling satiated and you always get to sit next to two of God's Most Boring Creations on Earth. Also, one doesn’t know if one should hold back for the next course, which might be better than the sawdust you are eating, or thank your lucky stars that you have found something edible at all. I guess part of this problem comes from having grown up on the thali. The thali is an interesting way to eat. The idea here is to eat the entire meal all at once. No waiting, no guessing about what lies ahead. The thali is a wardrobe full of food; one gets to feast one’s eyes and tongue on all that one eats simultaneously. ‘To be sure, the hot chapati does keep arriving to replenish the overflowing thali, but that is merely a replacement for the previous one. The hot chapati serves to animate the rest of the thal it brings tidings of freshly minted joy and carries off the accompanying vegetables and lentils in its wake. Little else can beat the rampaging joy with which we eat ur tice in our thalis. Heap the rice, drown it in daal, shovel in the vegetables, drag in the pickle, slide the chutney across nix in some curd or raita, crush some papad on the lot and if You are unpolluted by modern fads about health, pour in some thee, Sti, mix, knead all of this into a slurry and enlo¥: The Pleasure lies in the symphony of discordance that different food create when they ‘Ypes, tastes, textures, flavours and colours create when they ——ll Scanned with CamScannerDISCLAIMER INDICA 110 collide seamlessly. The collisions in taste are of Several ~ the blandness of the rice, the fiery tanginess of the pic, ; Ms acid sweetness of the chutney, the crackling crunchiness : papad, the serene cooling of the curd, all come together ty is i “eate a truly satiating experience. This is a complete meal that mer” Make, one complete. The thali is little India for in many ways it Captures the jy ye are able to extract from our untidy and chaotic pluralism, Tie thali preserves the individual integrity of each food item before combining it. In that sense, the thali is not a composite meal, 2 dish with its individual, separate identity. Most common Western food comes as a dish which is structured as a core Preparation accompanied by some select embellishments. A steak comes with some veggies on the side and a sauce of some kind, The thali is instead a conglomeration of independent food republics that chooses to come together. The thali accommodates everything; nothing can lie outside its pale. The rice we eat is assimilitative; I know of many people who mix unspeakable things in their rice - Horlicks being one such example. The thali moves from order to chaos and in doing So, generates pleasure. In many parts of India, the food in the thali is ritually positioned - there is a set place for everything and even the order in which food gets served is pre-determined. Once this order is established, however, it is then wilfully destroyed. What we get is a ‘rainbow of chaos’, to use Chagall’s words utterly out of context. The Western meal structure is a linear one; we move from One course to another in a Sequential and orderly fashion. It's as if one set of taste buds is serviced before attention is turned ‘0 the next. This neat progression ends in a erescendo cll the dessert. The thali, on the other hand, is utterly non-lineat Ie revels in untidy collisions, Structurally, the thali is very much s A Wi : fi = a Hindi film — all the ingredients are present in all fil ‘urder mystery will have acomedy tra ck involving the sidekie! Scanned with CamScanneryo yp ain in gwitzerland perhaps it is a functi food we cried * historical gcayc er oes eat sitting fopethe that we lik feather bundance, and er in front of to bility to create ses in the thali lie eyes join ou rmony out of discordance sont nce and to The Me ani: ing of the Thal ali Wt mother will wh eeze ti tirelessly and h eroines wi 's will slith er see ‘The thali rongues in the Indian al nd pleasure in chaos. Sca inned with CamScani ner