English

I watch my mother scrape off bits of sticky, pungent bekang um from a spoon onto a lush banana leaf and then pass it to me to wrap up with a piece of string. No verbal communication necessary, our hands move in silent synchrony. The ritual of preparing bekang um, or fermented soybean, has cemented itself as part of my upbringing, ... — Lalhriatzuali Bungsut

In Hinduism, fasts fall into three categories that overlap – phalahar, a fruit-based diet, nirahari, without food and sometimes even water, or alpahari, eating prescribed food with an intermittent fasting period; I have tried all three but it is the feasts that follow them, that keeps me more interested.... — Priti Saxena

I was about ten years old when we heard a knock on the door. A few men stood near the gate, asking for food. We were not rich. The coming of such strangers was a common thing in Kashmir at that time. Mostly they were bearded men with weapons. I remember their demand: Kokur (chicken), Maaz (mutton), Rogan Josh and Zumroo Thool (egg curry)... — Takbeer Salati

As if mother’s bedridden condition was not traumatic enough, the doctor advised us to go in for nasal feeding. As the primary caregiver, my first reaction was revulsion. For one who has lived with rhinitis for the most part of her life, I have always viewed the nose as an annoying organ that produces snot; viscous, yellow-green, obnoxious-looking; something that... — Gita Viswanath

All my life I have had a particular special relationship to food. Taste, texture, colour, fragrance make or break food for me. During some of my life, food was the panacea to all grief; sometimes it was the enemy of what I wanted to look like, and sometimes of what I wanted to feel like; more and more ... — Mallika Sarabhai

‘Marry me Nuru,’ Jaffer said in his precise, measured tone. ‘Together we’ll build our future in a new Kenya.’ He was standing opposite her desk at the Chambers where she worked. She’d met him several months earlier and they’d struck up a friendship. Nuru had a Pitman’s Secretarial Diploma and a driver’s licence from the first Ladies ... — Farah Ahamed

I spotted him on the 7.20 am local service to Avadi immediately. Pot-like belly that swelled in the front and hung low until his thigh, face bloated with the ears protruding out of the skull. Only the trunk was missing. But his fat arms compensated for the girth and width. Biju looked just like Pillayar or Ganesh, the Hindu God ... — Vijayalakshmi Sridhar

About a month back I was travelling to Jamshedpur on the Bhubaneshwar Rajdhani for some official work. As the train stopped at the Koderma station in the early morning, I saw out of the window, a food cart with the legend ‘Anukul Misthan Bhandar’ printed at the top. That name, in a flash, took me 40 years back to ... — Siddharth Chowdhury

Perhaps no other Urdu poet has written as much on food as Nazir Akbarabadi, the people’s poet par excellence from Agra. There is, of course his oft-recited ballad on roti, called appropriately enough ‘Rotinama’, but there are also poems entitled ... — Dr. Rakhshanda Jalil