On comprehending Indian cuisine

[Jaymes]

Well at least they got the accent down pat.  Sshhh, I won't tell them if you don't. 

[Suvir Saran]

Well at least they got the accent down pat.  Sshhh, I won't tell them if you don't.  

I have been in Dallas the last couple of days and will be here till Saturday... I "LUV the Accient" (trying to write it as they say it) and they LUV my accient... and so we each smile at the other. They speak Southern and when I copy them, I speak Southern Indian.

[Suvir Saran]

Dstone,

I really do not disagree with the possibilities and realities you share. IN fact we agree about more in each of your points than we disagree.

What will keep what you say from being reality from becoming so is our very greedy and reckless need to find instant gratification for the most indulgences we have in our lives.

Certainly any person can understand, absorb and live the lives and subtleties of those from another land. In fact, most often those from the outside study and understand a culture far more richly and beautifully and completely for they are "studying" it. The rest are simply living it and most often even without noticing what they are living. That is why I said in response to one of your points, that many never live a culture, but living in the lap of a culture can leave them with memories that can always be called upon to enrich them about their own culture when needed.

A foreigner can only understand and live another culture when they are willing to learn it and not simply judge it or want cheap instant gratification. That desire to want quick results can certainly humor people for a few moments, maybe at a stretch even a few years, but then the bones are exposed as being hollow. What good is that? It is towards that hollow education and understanding of cultures that I refer.

Some years ago a friend of ours died in India. His death was appropriately covered in the NY Times. At his funeral big honchos from several continents showed up. Many were long time personal friends. More simply sycophants and want to be friends. Some just superficial people that knew they could see and be seen on that most humble and solemn events of ones life.

I share this mans death with you for at that funeral and at the memorial that followed, world leaders, artists, businessmen, family and friends came together to mourn the death of a 21st century Mahatma Gandhi. It is a HUGE name I ascribe to another now dead man, but I feel fine in doing so. John Bissell was the name of the man. Decades ago, he went on a Ford or Fulbright scholarship to India. He wanted to study the lives of craftsmen and how India could move into the 21st century and still have some semblance of that part of its history that is richer than what many continents could not find in an entire mass of land. What did this man end up doing? He spent the rest of his lifetime in New Delhi and died there. Born to wealth and affluence in the US, he used his private school and Ivy League education to give him a vision that was able to show him a future in simply exploring another land and culture. This man founded an empire in India. Humble in some ways and yet most humbling in others. A "white-man" gave dignity and respect to craftsmen and weavers and artisans working with textiles and home furnishings and educated them to become literate but also gave them means of being educated craftsmen with pride and means of making a living doing what their forefathers had done.

Fab India was for the longest time a Delhi phenomenon. I am sure Vivin and any others that have grown up in Delhi would be able to share details about the very simple textiles and clothing that Fab India sold. It was started with the main goal of giving Indians those clothing items and also household textiles that would make Mahatma Gandhi proud. All fabrics were Indian, made my local craftsmen and also ever craftsman found dignity in creating and also were able to live in dignity and with hope for their kids. John and his company created schools for the children of the craftsmen, educated these kids and artisans to live knowing all that was happening in the world that was far removed from their very rural and rustic lifestyle, while also sharing with them the respect they deserved in having gifted the world with this art they shared with a larger world only for these artists were continuing what was shared by their elders. While certainly John made a handsome living with time, he also shared a handsome amount with each of his employees. So, a foreigner in India was able to give life to traditions of textile making in India from some areas that would have been otherwise lost to pages of history alone. But when one asked John what he did, he never found the need to call it anything but what it really was, a store that sold Indian textiles. People tried calling his store an American style Indian shop, shop run by an American, or fusion of Indian and American, but these were unfortunately the same crass lot of people that would find great pride in ascribing labels in all other parts of their lives. John had little patience with this type of people. He enjoyed the best of the world, people who afforded going to these labeled people chased after John, John never chased after them. John was happy absorbing, sharing, creating and leaving behind a living legacy. He only succeeded with this for he came to India bereft of ego but full of desire to learn, accept, endure and absorb.

Today, Fab India has stores around the country. Some even overseas. It is always a point of great titillation for me when I am in the midst of some of the worlds foremost taste makers, style makers and power brokers in the economic and political fields and I see them wearing the most humble garb created by Fab India. These are the same people with whom I have shopped at Cavalli, Prada, Zegna and YSL, but when they let their guard down, when we have been vacationing in areas where the gang of us has been together as friends with friends, we have all had on Fab India clothing, eaten simple meals from across India t hat would make John proud and respected those very basic traditions from across India and the world that often do not get noticed for they are so basic, but are always present, one only has to be willing to look way deeper than the surface and be ready to ride in what could be a rocky terrain, but certainly the most real, rich and exciting.

So, if John could break into a country as completely as he did, anyone can break into another culture. But as John Whiting said, there has to be humility. Not a humility that is seen these days in Yoga salons, but a humility that has no face, it has to be real to be understood. But when it exists, one can live anywhere and be accepted, create, add and take from that land. But to get to that point, takes a very strong sense of self-respect and comfort with ones own culture and ones own lot in life. For if we want to really learn and understand anything, we need to be willing to be students.

[John Whiting]

Fascinating that this man was able to put to work with modern communication and transportation what Gandhi had seen as the cornerstone of India's economic self-sufficiency.

[Suvir Saran]

Fascinating that this man was able to put to work with modern communication and transportation what Gandhi had seen as the cornerstone of India's economic self-sufficiency.

Absoultely and he also was born and raised with some of Americas most die-hard capitalists. He comes from the original Mayflower group (whatever t hat means), he is actually closely related to Julia Child, and Bim, Johns widow makes the best Omelette I have ever eaten, and she was taught that recipe by Julia Child in their country home in Canton, CT.

But John, made money and lots of it, and has left behing a flourishing and endlessly lucrative empire that is actually realizing some of Gandhis dreams, making money for the capitalists and also respect and preserving the cultures and ways of a people very different from those born to money and wealth.

So, yes, John has left for those that care, a great example to study and learn how one can make great strides in learning and absorbing and marrying cultures. He has shown that it is possible and with great success when humility, respect and vision come with the simple need for wanting something different.