A Toast to Hunger!
Lagging in Evolution? I think so, because the blueprints of the Industrial Revolution are still deeply ingrained in our minds and behavior.
The dining table in the nuclear nest still reigns supreme. Newly weds struggling in tiny one room holes will compromise on the size of their bed but never on their dining table.
I bought a dining table too, tiny one with 2 chairs, when I got married and it is still there. My mother, who visits alone, has made a standing offer for adding on one more chair (At least for my only son?).
My mother – in – law, who never visits alone, usually in tow with a minimum of 11 to 15 family members, gets irked with the abominations of buffet. I am not brave enough to get rid of this symbol of family bonding.
The romance of eating a meal on a well laid table is a relic from the past, before television. But what is still surprising is that the picture postcard family eating over the dining table is still ingrained in us. The bread winner comes home from work and the family bonds over a good meal. We simply cannot visualize the furniture, as what it really is – a tray for food.
When meal times in the past graduated into electric bulbs and tube lights of the future, the dining table became the new hi- tech apparatus for conversation. The bonding place of a family who eats together and tries their best to stay together, however much the boredom of the conversation kills them.
Bonding today is about minimal conversation. So, considering the times, is a happy family one which watches T.V. together while balancing soup bowls on their lap? I really don’t know. But conversation has definitely improved – precise and monosyllabic. And silences have become the Zen art of meaningfulness void.
But who says that there is only one time, place and method for togetherness? Be it home or the furniture?
As we evolve our minds need to change. Once upon a time, I was enchanted by candle-lit dinners. But today, after packing a few more years in, I know for sure that, candle light is only for restaurants who like to keep it dim so you do not walk out after reading the menu prices; and at home it means that there is a power cut – yet again. Cartoon network is a better option.
The issue here is not about eating but hunger. Hunger for what? That remains a personal definition – a hunger for the past being evoked by an isolation that all individuals feel today?
The frenzy of activity in the nuclear family nest, much of which is inspired and controlled by keeping up with others, gives no respite. But this hunger for togetherness even within the family cannot be about doing some things together, but simply about being there and creating the space of individuality. We have yet to understand that in today’s world there are new dimensions in relationships that can be enjoyed. Who says that there is only one definition of human bonding? I recently discovered all about being a virtual mother to a teenage son.
In our frenzy for getting what everyone else has, but better – we are forgetting that the people we love will never become, even remotely, our possessions. Family dinners, vacations, parties, etc. are incomplete without a sanction for celebrating our differences. This emphasis about togetherness, is sadly, about possession, about control, in the hope of fulfilling a hunger of loneliness. Created by our own archaic definitions and inviolate mental rigidities of how relationships should be.
Food is the most primitive and provocative trigger for our brain and it is the ultimate symbol of comfort for us. It inspired the agricultural age and we pursued it till we invented the refrigerator. Our orientation needs to change beyond the basics without the basics becoming fundamental cellular abnormalities for us. Maybe food and eating systems in our homes should stop becoming such an important aspect for us today, (and we could find something different to get so obsessive about. I don’t know what, but getting beyond the basics is always a step forward in evolution).
Food rituals are part of our heritage. Every occasion from birthday cakes, to marriages or feeding the poor, are rituals, as important as the daily family dinner. Maybe the role of food in the social context needs to be examined? Can we not enjoy a guest without the ritual of serving food? Difficult, since most humans are ready to eat after every 4 hours!
If all this sounds senseless, try and think about what this attitude will do for your V.V.V great grand – kid. He/ She would be settled in Mars, married to a beautiful Martian, and pining for your recipe of Sambhar – Rice !
Can you digest that concept, today?
Posted under Articles by Lima Sehgal
This post was written by admin on May 28, 2010
