A dish from the hills

Carrying the taste of home to an outland, one deigns to keep a part of oneself devoted to one’s roots. But is it enough?

Bhatt ki chidqwani, a prominet dish eaten mostly in Uttarakhand.

The air in the house would be filled with the sweet aroma of boiling soybeans every Monday, usually in summers. As Manjula Joshi remembers it, it was a frequent occurrence till a few years ago, when her children hadn’t yet left home for work and studies. 

The sweetness of the aroma still fills the house, but not as frequently. 

 When Manjula wed Jiwan Joshi, she had to leave behind the beautiful hilly village of Lohaghat. Located at an altitude of 1754 meters, Lohaghat is a serene village in the Champawat district of Uttarakhand. The beauty of the place remains unmatched for her even now, and her keenness to bring her culture to an outland and assimilate both could never fade away with time. 

One of the strongest thread that weaves both cultures together, according to Manjula, is the food, particularly a dish known as bhattiya.  An extremely easy and simple dish made by mixing boiled rice and soybeans together, bhattiya is consumed alongside a sour curry.Off-white in appearance, and is simple in taste, with a buttery aftertaste, bhattiya is extremely popular among those hailing from  Kumaon. 

 The ease with which the dish can be made and its nutritious value are the two reasons that contribute to the dish’s popularity  in the region. However, the reason behind its importance in the Joshi household is different. It’s rooted in a mother’s wish to pass on her culture to her children. It’s rooted in the keenness of a woman to devote a part of herself to her roots. Manjula’s efforts to slip the dish in the quotidian life of the household were rooted in her will to introduce a part of herself to her children in a friendly manner. 

Manjula had been taught by her mother to make the dish at the age of 12. She recalls how she used to cook it for the entire family and surprisingly enjoyed it too. Although she doesn’t very much like her own daughter’s reluctance to get inside the kitchen and learn it, she says she understands that people have different interests and there shouldn’t be any compulsion.

The dish as she discerns,was never wholeheartedly liked by her children as such (“They think it’s too bland for their taste buds”) but she believes that she has partially succeeded in instigating curiosity amongst her children. She now believes that  now, as they don’t get to eat it as often as they did in the past, they have grown a little fond of it. She happily observes how a few days ago her older son wanted to learn how to make that dish because he wanted to experiment with it.

Bhattiya, for Manjula, is a language she speaks with her family, a mid way to weave both parts of her life together. A practice of dedicating herself to her roots, so even when several things change she can easily  go back to what comforts her the most.