I couldn’t stop thinking about the craft of writing throughout the piece.The thought you put behind in presenting this journey and relationship is extraordinary. It’s been carefully drafted to explore so many ideas that is in the Indian culture, childhood and many others through the lens of food.
I can’t help myself from the occasional chuckle while reading this. I don’t know about that nasty boy but your writing is ageing like fine wine. Love.
Oct 1, 2023·edited Oct 1, 2023Liked by Richa Vadini Singh
i am glad i was able to share a few breakfasts, many lunches and dinners and sometimes steal a few chips and french fries from you.
like i mentioned the other day, your writing is like an healthy food that the mind needs to detox from the bottomless cheap-mass-manufactured tik-tok/youtube videos on food.
the social angle brings a new flavor to the article. Your own intense experiences on food is well served in three course meal (school lunches, teen food, and finally food for thought for thirty plus year olds) and fittingly ends with a delightful anecdote on critter, like ending a buffet with an ice cream.
Now i must digest the many layers of thoughts behind the preparation of this meal.
thanks for helping burn many calories of my brain with this long article!
Your very absorbing piece, kept my attention riveted to the very end. Your relationship with food set me thinking, specially a line of yours of food being the indicator of your state of mind - "am I bored, am I lonely, am I substituting food for something else that I may need?"
Taking off from there I wonder if food could be seen as a metaphor for our sense of self?
It nourishes, gives energy, keeps the self going, infact becomes the self. Is our changing relationship with food, our changing relationship with ourself?
So your early experiences in school with dal chawal later rajma chawal represented isolation from peers and people around you.
Now rajma/chawal is familiar, home, comfort food. Is the feeling of isolation much less from people around you because within you, in some sense, your self has come home?
I’m awed by how seamlessly you have conflated food with the self, although, perhaps, I was unknowingly trying to get there by titling this piece, “I am what I don’t eat”. I’m going to spend some time reflecting on the new lens with which you have enabled me to examine my relationship with food, with the self, with the others, and with the feeling of home. Thank you, Madhu!
I loved this article! There are always so many things that I find relatable in your pieces but right now, I just want to mention that I too, was both fat and skinny on the same day in Korea, where I discovered that I was an S is normal clothing and an L in athleisure. Certainly a surprise, but honestly more amusing than anything.
Now, I really must think about what my comfort food is. I rarely cook the same meal twice, so it’s a difficult one to nail down..,
Wow, it’s oddly reassuring to know that you, too, have also struggled to “fit in”. It’s tragic that retail brands and social discourse reduce women’s sense of self to restrictive shapes and sizes, often leaving them hungering for even that which is not to their taste. Thank you for reading!
I couldn’t stop thinking about the craft of writing throughout the piece.The thought you put behind in presenting this journey and relationship is extraordinary. It’s been carefully drafted to explore so many ideas that is in the Indian culture, childhood and many others through the lens of food.
I can’t help myself from the occasional chuckle while reading this. I don’t know about that nasty boy but your writing is ageing like fine wine. Love.
Your comment has me beaming! I'm glad that you appreciate the craft, too. Thank you so much, my ever-faithful reader.
i am glad i was able to share a few breakfasts, many lunches and dinners and sometimes steal a few chips and french fries from you.
like i mentioned the other day, your writing is like an healthy food that the mind needs to detox from the bottomless cheap-mass-manufactured tik-tok/youtube videos on food.
the social angle brings a new flavor to the article. Your own intense experiences on food is well served in three course meal (school lunches, teen food, and finally food for thought for thirty plus year olds) and fittingly ends with a delightful anecdote on critter, like ending a buffet with an ice cream.
Now i must digest the many layers of thoughts behind the preparation of this meal.
thanks for helping burn many calories of my brain with this long article!
My mind now feels light.
Your analogies are most fascinating! Thank you, Sudheer, for our many shared meals have given me a lifetime of food for thought.
Your very absorbing piece, kept my attention riveted to the very end. Your relationship with food set me thinking, specially a line of yours of food being the indicator of your state of mind - "am I bored, am I lonely, am I substituting food for something else that I may need?"
Taking off from there I wonder if food could be seen as a metaphor for our sense of self?
It nourishes, gives energy, keeps the self going, infact becomes the self. Is our changing relationship with food, our changing relationship with ourself?
So your early experiences in school with dal chawal later rajma chawal represented isolation from peers and people around you.
Now rajma/chawal is familiar, home, comfort food. Is the feeling of isolation much less from people around you because within you, in some sense, your self has come home?
I’m awed by how seamlessly you have conflated food with the self, although, perhaps, I was unknowingly trying to get there by titling this piece, “I am what I don’t eat”. I’m going to spend some time reflecting on the new lens with which you have enabled me to examine my relationship with food, with the self, with the others, and with the feeling of home. Thank you, Madhu!
I loved this article! There are always so many things that I find relatable in your pieces but right now, I just want to mention that I too, was both fat and skinny on the same day in Korea, where I discovered that I was an S is normal clothing and an L in athleisure. Certainly a surprise, but honestly more amusing than anything.
Now, I really must think about what my comfort food is. I rarely cook the same meal twice, so it’s a difficult one to nail down..,
Wow, it’s oddly reassuring to know that you, too, have also struggled to “fit in”. It’s tragic that retail brands and social discourse reduce women’s sense of self to restrictive shapes and sizes, often leaving them hungering for even that which is not to their taste. Thank you for reading!
I have a complicated relationship with food and this post really spoke to the one-size-fits all thinking that I hope we are leaving behind.
Managing my own kitchen, especially as a family definitely changed my own relationship with food too. Loved this piece.