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ART & LITERATURE
UNCONDITIONAL LOVE
Mira Kamdar continues her journey into her past, exploring the
everyday life of Motiba, which revolved around food
furrows by a single, turbanned, barelegged farmer. Almost all of the family's food was produced locally. Naturally, the family could provide for all its dairy needs. They used the money they earned selling ghee to buy grains, dried beans and lentils, rice, sugar, salt and spices. Everything was purchased in its most basic "unprocessed" form. This meant unrelenting work for the women of the family, who were in charge of food preparation. With no refrigeration and a hot climate, fresh milk had to be consumed immediately. By boiling it at regular intervals throughout the day, one could forestall the souring process long enough to keep the milk from turning for a few hours, but eventually it would sour. So, most of the milk was churned into buttermilk and butter, cooked down into creamy sweets or turned into yoghurt, the shelf life of which was also no more than twenty-four hours.
Wheat was ground into flour with a hand-held stone pestle in a mortar set right into the floor, and only enough was ground for the meal being prepared. Some form of unleavened wheat bread was served with every meal, so batches of wheat kernals had to be ground several times a day. For breakfast, there might be thepla, oily and very thin cakes seasoned with turmeric and fresh, slightly bitter methi leaves or bhakhari rotis, thick, wheaty cakes tender on the inside with a crisp, golden surface slathered in fresh butter. For lunch and dinner, there were always chapatis, tender, pliant rounds ripped piece by piece into edible spoons to scoop up the curries and sauces. Festive occassions called for puris, perfectly puffed hollows of wheat deep-fried several at a time and served in great piles, still piping hot. Many dishes were made from batters of
Grandparents and grandchildren have a special bond which represents the
fundamental link with tradition
THE WORLD MOTIBA ENTERED IN Gokhlana in 1908 was a
premodern world, where the texture of life had changed little in
centuries. Fields were still cultivated - as some are even today by the poorest farmers - with wooden ploughs drawn by teams of oxen, guided along the
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Jain Spirit . March - May 2002
Jain Education Interational 2010/03
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