On Eating: Rabindranath Tagore's Dis(h)courses

Abstract

The Tagore family had as much influence on the fine arts, music, dance, clothing and architecture as they did on Bengali cuisine. Rabindranath Tagore, born after the experiments in the bawarcheekhana (kitchen) during Dwarkanath's time and Debendranath's culture of frugal but balanced nutritious meals, was exposed to European cuisine during his visits abroad and by Jnadanandini, his sister-in-law. In this paper, I try to show, against a background of the assimilative tendencies of the Thakurbari (the Tagore household) kitchen, how Tagore's use of gastronomic tropes was at odds with his theory of internationalism, and how they are used, with their positive biases and prejudices, as cultural and category markers to differentiate Tagore's great binary of the East and West.

Keywords:

• Food
• hunger
• appetite
• poison
• nationalism
• Thakurbari kitchen

Notes

¹ Baishakh is the first month of the Bengali year; Tagore was born on the 25th day of the month, and 25 Baishakh is a state holiday in Bengal, when the poet is celebrated through his songs and dance-dramas.

² See http://www.newstoday.com.bd/index.php?option=details&news_id=39103&date=2011-09-18, accessed 29 November 2011.

³ Prasad is food offered to the Hindu gods.

⁴ Des is country, and desi means of the country. Desi, in diaspora discourse, has come to mean the country of origin.

⁵ See http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/politics/savouring-the-taste-of-tagores-favourite-dishes-with-images_100156011.html, accessed 29 November 2011.

⁶ Prajnaparamita Barua, Mrinalini Debi Rabindra Kabye o Jiboney (Kolkata: Ananda Publishers, 1991), p.7. Translations are mine.

⁷ The Tagores were originally from Pathurighata. Dwarkanath broke away from the root and moved to Mechhuabazaar.

⁸ See Chitra Deb, Thakurbaarir Andarmahal (Kolkata: Ananda Publishers, 2003), p.7. The poem mocks the food—and drinking—habits of the Tagores. ‘Red water’ is, of course, wine, and having been introduced to the drink by the English, it carried the social stigma of being impure and even immoral.

⁹ The dharma or specific customs, rituals and reputation of her lineage.

¹⁰ The inner house and outer house.

¹¹ Deb, Thakurbaarir Andarmahal, p.13.

¹² ‘Maharshi’ is a portmanteau word: ‘Maha’ and ‘Rishi’. ‘Maha’ means great, and ‘Rishi’ sage. ‘Maharshi’ would literally mean the ‘Great Sage’.

¹³ ‘Streeloker dristantoswarup’ were Satyendranath's words in his letter to Jnadanandini from England. Quoted in Deb, Thakurbaarir Andarmahal, p.15.

¹⁴ Ibid., p.8.

¹⁵ Deshi derives from desh, the native land; biliti from bilet, abroad. The phrase would mean food from home and abroad.

¹⁶ See Rabindranath Tagore, Chhawra Shomogro No. 34 (Calcutta: Kalikalam, 2002), p.29. Translations are mine.

¹⁷ Barua, Mrinalini Debi Rabindra Kabye o Jiboney, pp.50–2.

¹⁸ The foods are rice, lentil soup, fish curry, fried sundried lentil paste, mashed potatoes, and a sweet-sour chutney.

¹⁹ Amit Chaudhuri (ed.), The Picador Book of Modern Indian Literature (London: Picador, 2001), p.106.

²⁰ Buddhadeva Bose, When the Time is Right (trans. Arunava Sinha) (New Delhi: Penguin Books, 2011), p.150.

²¹ Rabindranath Tagore, Nationalism (New Delhi: Rupa & Co., 2002), p.49.

²² See Ranjan Ghosh, ‘Aesthetics of Hunger: (In)fusion Approach, Literature and the Other’, in Symploke, Vol.19, no.1 (2011), pp.11–12.

²³ Tagore, Nationalism, p.19.

²⁴ Ibid., p.18.

²⁵ Ibid., p.36.

²⁶ Ibid., p.59.

²⁷ Rabindranath Tagore, ‘The Centre of Indian Culture’, in Towards Universal Man (London: Asia Publishing House, 1961), pp.202–30.

²⁸ Tagore, Nationalism, p.91.

²⁹ ‘Chiro-pipashito bashona bedona…’ in Tagore's Rabindra Sangeet song ‘Chawrono dhoritey diyogo aamaray…’, which can be roughly translated as ‘Ever thirsty desire and sadness…’.

³⁰ Pradipto Bagchi, ‘Chhotolok Aar Oder Bhasha’, in Abobhaash, Vol.1, no.1 (30 April 2001).

³¹ Tagore, Nationalism, p.25.

³² Ibid., p.2.

³³ Tagore always hankered for the New. In this famous song, he apostrophises the New, asking it to appear before his eyes once.

³⁴ Detrivores are creatures that eat detritus, for example earthworms, woodlice, sea stars, etc.

³⁵ Tagore, Nationalism, p.7.

³⁶ Ibid.

³⁷ Ibid., p.8.

³⁸ Ibid., p.39.

³⁹ Ibid., p.47.

⁴⁰ Ibid., p.48.

⁴¹ Ibid., p.46.

⁴² See for instance ‘That old tree trunk? Were the tea things on it? Did Basu lay it all out properly?’. Rabindranath Tagore, The Arbour, in Three Women (trans. Arunava Sinha) (New Delhi: Random House, 2010), p.162. Kalim Sharafi writes: ‘Tagore had often frequented the hill station, Mongpu at Darjeeling. There, the host, and author Maitreyi Devi had once asked Tagore if he wanted cream or sugar with his tea, he'd answered, “I drink tea mainly for cream and sugar”’ [http://www.thedailystar.net/newDesign/news-details.php?nid=161011, accessed 27 Nov. 2011].

⁴³ ‘The man of the East never meets the man of the West’. See Rabindranath Tagore, ‘Samaj’, Rabindra Rachanabali, Vol. 13 (Calcutta: Government of West Bengal, 1990), pp.385–428.

⁴⁴ Tagore, Nationalism, p.41.

⁴⁵ Ibid., p.42.

⁴⁶ Rabindranath Tagore, The Broken Nest, in Three Women (trans. Arunava Sinha) (New Delhi: Random House, 2010), p.61.

⁴⁷ Rabindranath Tagore, The Two Sisters, in Three Women (trans. Arunava Sinha) (New Delhi: Random House, 2010), p.128.

⁴⁸ Tagore, Nationalism, p.62.

⁴⁹ Ibid., p.57.

⁵⁰ Ibid, p.70.

⁵¹ Ibid., p.59.

⁵² Ibid., p.41.

⁵³ Ibid., p.64.

⁵⁴ Ibid., p.76.