When Food Becomes a Symbol for Allyship: Kashmiri Roth & Kheer-Puri
Zoya Naaz Rehman finds that the similarities between the rituals of the Kashmiri Pandit Pann Pooza and Sufi Muslim Kandori Fatiha — their respective fried tributes — maps how food can hold the potential for connections and allyship, during conflict.
Ever so often, the planets align in such a way that two months are crucial to the Hindu and Muslim communities coincide.
In a small pocket of a city, the streets are fragrant with the hearty scent of fried dough laced with a subtle nuttiness. In one home, women stack roth on a brass pot of water, and place marigold flowers and grass beside it, in anticipation of the festival of Pann Pooza. A few houses down, in preparation of the Kandori Fatiha, their neighbours lay a dastarkhan (tablecloth) on the ground, set clay pots of kheer and puri amongst scattered rose petals and jasmine flowers. The two families may be divergent in their origins — Kashmiri Pandit and Sufi Muslim — but, they are connected by a sense of fondness and community, and both families will exchange roth and kheer-puri.
Today, for most, this is no longer a reality.
At the home of Lal Ded, the Kashmiri mystic, poet and devotee of Shiva, and her protégé, the founder of an order of Sufi saints in Kashmir, Nund Rishi, the Valley has witnessed the coexistence of Hindu Shaivism and Sufism.[1] In the past, even in moments of political instability, the legacy of Lal Ded has prevailed, and Kashmiri Pandits and Sufi Muslims have bonded over their shared Kashmiri roots — evidence that the values of individuals are not always reflective of those of political institutions. However, since 1989, when communal violence eventually forced the Pandits out of their homeland,[2] this relationship has become strained.
Today, Paan Pooza, and the cookie-like sweetbread that is its prasad, roth, help to preserve the largely-migrant Kashmiri Pandit population’s collective memory of their home and heritage. Deeply communal, the occasion is interspersed by flavours of its indulgent, saccharine offering. Pann Pooza (Kashmiri pooja) pays homage to Lord Ganesha, the remover of obstacles, and venerates the deity, Beeb Garab Maej. The latter is believed to have the ability to ease hardships and herald prosperity.
Pann Pooza at Moushumi Sharma Kaul’s Kashmiri Pandit home in Delhi
Likewise, Kandori Fatiha, a Sufi Muslim practice, belonging to Sunni and Shia religious repertoires alike, is believed to be a prayer to mitigate difficulties and bring on better fortunes. A tribute to Imam Ali (ra) and Imam Jafar Sadiq (ra), it was founded by the latter, a direct descendent of the prophet, Muhammad (PBUH) [3]. The Fatiha, involving the recitation of Quranic verses, is synonymous with the niyaz, or a gift to the members of the Prophetic household, of kheer and a semicircular deep-fried sweetbread made of wheat and stuffed with almonds or coconut, called puri.
The discourse surrounding the Kashmiri Pandit exodus following the 1990 violence has become a matter of political mishandling and exploitation. Little has been done to address the forces that fostered the situation or rehabilitate the displaced Pandits. Instead, bipartisan politics in India has led to the people of the Valley being pit against each other. But despite the vilification of each community becoming normalized in different parts of the country, common threads bind them together, like those visible in the rituals of Pann Pooza and Kandori Fatiha. This is not to say that these rituals —and by extension, communities— are indistinguishable. Rather, it is to look at them as a quest for the ordinary.
American academic and linguist Ron Scollon writes that culture is a construction of micro-practices, which are mundane, quotidian even.[6] Like other cultural acts, Pann Pooza and Kandori Fatiha each possess their own social nexus of actions, made up of micro-practices. While the larger picture of the two cultures might seem different, their micro-practices, especially those relating to food, can offer a valuable perspective.
During Pann, most homes traditionally abstain from meat, and vegetable preparations reign supreme; it would not be uncommon to spot bhuzwangun, a roasted eggplant curry, or dum aloo, a slow cooked potato dish, alongside lidhur tsamun, or yellow paneer, and tahri, a turmeric-infused rice preparation in a Kashmiri Pandit home on the day. In a Sufi Muslim household, food for Kandori Fatiha is also typically free of meat; meals entail simpler vegetarian dishes like baingan bharta and a tangy tomato chutney paired with saffron rice. And, the stars of both meals, roth and kheer-puri. Eating together and sharing food are central to the essence of both, which makes their preparation a true labour of love. Frying up roth, each with a crumbly interior and crispy, textured exterior, and puris, golden-brown with scalloped edges, all in numbers befitting commensality, is a task often undertaken by women.
Even as they exist in different situations, the two fried tributes and their respective rites are pleas for similar desires by their believers. Pivoted on hope and optimism, Pann Pooza and Kandori Fatiha frequently involve prayers for sukh, shanti, and haajat (Urdu, wishes). In both traditions, these prayers to the divine forces that believers look toward — Beeb Garab Maej or Ganesha for the Pandits and Allah for the Muslims — are preceded by the household matriarch’s narration of a folktale. Uncomplicated in their plots, which resemble each other closely, these tales are preserved through oral history, and emphasize the need to respect the sanctity of their practices, in the form of physical cleanliness as well as through sincerity of intent.
Still, these micro-practices are not unique to Kashmiri Pandits and Sufi Muslims; cleanliness is integral to most religious rituals, women have historically been the keepers of the kitchen, and oral history is vital to our understanding of a plethora of communities across the world. Despite being routine, these shared micro-practices are relevant because of the potential they hold for connections.
Yoshiko Matsumoto, academic and Stanford University professor of East Asian culture and language,[7] wrote about quotidian (re-)framing, posing it as a linguistic technique to reduce the intensity of psychologically-intense conversations by focusing on everyday details.[8] Similarly, by roping in the ordinary yet relatable details of Kashmiri Pandit and Sufi Muslim culture in an intense discourse between these communities in conflict, these micro-practices — like the ones surrounding food — can act as anchors and decrease its intensity, making it easier to continue the conversation; conversations that could be crucial to, as Nishita Trisal,[9] a Kashmiri Pandit writer and anthropologist says, “[charting] a path toward reconciliation, solidarity and allyship with one another”.[10]
And this is not limited to merely Kashmir and its people. At a time in the world where instability is ubiquitous and weaponized, and solidarity, allyship, and community are critical, we could all afford to listen to each other a little more on a quest for the ordinary — and for this, might I suggest, food?
Sources
3. Momen, Moojan (1985). An Introduction to Shi'i Islam. Yale University Press. ISBN 9780300034998.
Banner image credit: Matamaal. Matamaal delivers Kashmiri breads in Delhi, NCR & Maharashtra. For country-wide shipping of Kashmiri spices and breads, visit Kanzandmuhul.com
Zoya Naaz Rehman is an aspiring food scholar, archiving her exploration of all things food and health on @kohl.lined.perspectives.
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