Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “on your/my plate.” Use it any way you’d like. Have fun!
Navaratri festival was observed in October. Goddess Durga is worshipped for nine days. There are many temples to the Goddess in and around our town. We decided to go to some of them and offer our prayers. In those nine days food is served to all devotees. On two different days we went to two temples to partake food which is considered as prasada. And the food is delicious too. At the first counter in the dining hall, we are given plates. Most people took the food on their plates and sat on the stone floor. The older people sat on chairs.
Looking at everyone I remembered our wedding in 1982. My maternal grandfather refused to have a buffet. In those days, people sat on mats laid out on the floor. Food was served on banana leaves. My grandfather considered holding a plate in the hand and eating food repulsive 😊. Now it is the way of life and sitting on the ground for food is limited to the priests and a few others who have to sit with them.
My maternal grandparents lived in a small town. My mother is the eldest of ten children. We lived far away but every summer vacation spent two months with my grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins and other relatives. There were so many of us. Those were carefree and fun-filled days. We never wondered how my grandmother and aunts prepared food for us. We were never particular and ate whatever was served and thought everything was tasty. I remember my grandmother boiling water with a little jaggery in a huge vessel. Milk was added to it. It is called ‘bellada neeru’, literally meaning jaggery water. Whenever we were thirsty, we ran into the kitchen and drank it. I am sure ladies of the house had a lot on their plates.
My husband says it was the same in his childhood. The house was full of children and relatives during summer vacations. Women of the house were busy from dawn to late in the night. These days we cook once a day for lunch and dinner. But this would not have been possible then, with so many people in the house. There was plenty of space for children to play and they would have been hungry many times a day 😊. It is interesting that some things do not change with time. In these days though the families are small, there are people who want freshly cooked food for breakfast, lunch and dinner!
Many years ago, my father-in-law’s elder sister said to us younger women that we were lucky to have gadgets to help us cook. In those days all work was done manually. There was too much on their plates. And on top of that frequent pregnancies. Of the seven children born to my paternal grandmother only four survived. My husband’s grandmother went through many pregnancies and only seven children survived. Life was so different then. The elderly aunt stated very simply that no one asked them if they wanted so many children. When I heard her talk about life of women in those days, I felt grateful that I was not born then. Maybe women in the future will say they are happy they live in their times and not in the past😊.
Mukhamani 
That’s so interesting that he considers eating on a plate repulsive and here eating on the floor might be considered-well, not repulsive-but maybe unclean. World views change though don’t they? 😊🍽
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That was in 1982 🙂 Things have changed now. There are tables and chairs, food is still served on banana leaves. Buffet has become very common. We prefer to sit and eat. And people do not wear their footwear into the dining space. Even in our houses, we leave them in an allotted space by the side of the main door. We eat with our fingers and very rarely with spoons.
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No forks or knives either? I guess the main staples are finger foods anyway, so why not eat with your fingers. We have many finger foods here too, tacos, chicken wings, sandwiches. Must use spoons for soup! ☺️🤗
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It’s an elaborate banquet , usually 24 odd items in the menu. Banana leaf for plates . Floors are clean scrubbed , and we sit on mats healthy way to sit , we don’t eat less we do not eat more . Just right .
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It must have been so pleasant to have “carefree and fun-filled days”, but clearly somebody paid the price for that, and, as in England at this time, it was the women, particularly the unmarried daughters and the mothers. Hopefully, things have improved a lot since then, and women have more freedom to live their lives as they wish to live them.
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I like the way you have linked past and present here, noting changes and similarities
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A fascinating glance into your very rich culture, dear Lakshmi.
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Nice post “on their plates”!
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Yes, things have improved somewhat for women today, but we still have a long way to go. We, who are older, must help younger women to find their place in life with courage. Stay well, Muriel
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