food, culture society

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Sep 3, 2014 - One Sunday a few years ago, as I was cleaning up the front yard of our house, ..... status back home, the boys on Vaaraanna had to live a life of ...
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Feeding the Needy Student AUTO-ETHNOGRAPHIC REFLECTIONS FROM SOUTH INDIA

G. K. Karanth Independent scholar Abstract Towns and cities have always been sites of attraction not only as centers of trade and commerce, seats of administration and power centers but also providing facilities for health and education. This is especially true of post-colonial nations such as India, marking differences between rural and urban areas in many significant ways. The late colonial and early post-colonial periods experienced widespread social change and witnessed a surge in rural students seeking formal education in locales far away from their places of origin—be they villages or small towns. While their families may have been relatively immobile, the children (usually, male) were made to find sponsorship for temporary migration and hospitality among the urban dwellers. With urbanization, many such practices of sponsorship and serving as hosts to needy students have since disappeared. This paper is an attempt to present an “autoethnographic” account of some of the practices of hosting students in and around Bangalore, South India. Keywords: auto-ethnography, foodways, south India, rural and small towns, students, caste associations, caste hostels, food givers, food receivers, Vaaraanna

Introduction

DOI: 10.2752/175174414X13948130848421 Reprints available directly from the publishers. Photocopying permitted by licence only © Association for the Study of Food and Society 2014

Some of the indigenous foodways involving young students have become more or less extinct on account of rapid urbanization, growing individualism and above all, a new conception of self-respect. Such foodways were meant to cater to students pursuing higher education in locales beyond their usual place of habitation—the villages or small towns, in South India. Membership in specific castes,1 invariably by birth, placed restrictions on what one ate, and who could cook it or serve it. Although the rise of caste associations is usually traced to the growing need for castes to assert their rightful place in society or express solidarity (see, e.g. Arnold et al. 1976), the need to establish hostels for a community’s students as a means

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of furthering the caste’s educational attainment and easing the path to modernity have not received sufficient attention. The practices discussed in this paper preceded the emergence of caste hostels and the establishment of “general” or special hostels for the former untouchable castes and the tribes as well as for the Backward Castes2 in different parts of the country. Although larger cities like Bangalore or Mysore (as in Karnataka state in South India) had such hostels, small towns and most emerging cities lacked such facilities for students from different caste backgrounds. Furthermore, many hostels could not meet the growing demand until the early 1970s. The practice of feeding needy students discussed in this paper relates to this period or prior to the early 1970s. Because little has been written about these institutions and the practices are being forgotten altogether, this paper represents an explicit attempt to recall them.3 These institutions catered to a select section of students long before the concept of food security had become a policy or academic subject. The aim of these institutions, however, was not simply to ensure food security for the individual during their life as a student, but also to seek gastronomically “intimate frontiers.” Having been brought from rural locales to unfamiliar towns and cities, young boys aged from ten to twenty years had to find homes that were culturally comparable to provide them food and in some cases accommodation. This experience continues to evoke strong emotions among the “receivers” as well as the food-givers, of gratitude and contentment, evoking positive memories of nurture as well as equally powerful negative experiences (cf. Appadurai 1981: 494). Writing about food and culture in the Canadian context, Enoch Padolsky observes that “food has long been regarded as a useful ethnic marker, a way of defining who we are. The connection of food to ethnic identity, however, is far from self-evident” (Padolsky 2005: 19). India, at least until a few decades ago, had clear ethnic (as in caste) boundaries regarding what one ate and with whom. The literature regarding the changes in the once rigid prescriptions and proscriptions on who could eat cooked food served by others in such a caste-based society is surprisingly sparse. As Uma Narayan points out, “food locates people in specific cultural spaces, often with specific boundaries” (Narayan 1995:63). While making a case for sociological and social anthropological studies of food, this paper takes one step beyond food studies, especially food and memory studies (e.g. Holtzman 2006: 362), towards an understanding of the context of serving food rather than describing the content of food. In this sense, the paper moves toward a fourth arena, beyond the three that Appadurai (1981) refers to as the contexts of tensions: the household, marriage ceremonies and temples. This fourth arena refers to the patrons, as individuals, householders or as agencies such as the hostels or accommodations with paying guests.

Students From out of Town One Sunday a few years ago, as I was cleaning up the front yard of our house, a young boy, perhaps in his early twenties approached me to make a strange request. He was offering his services to carry out odd jobs around the house in return for a breakfast and a dinner a couple of days a week. He was quick to add that once he

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found other patron-houses for the rest of the week, he would need food from us for any one day in a week. Even before I could reflect upon his request and examine its implications, I had said a hasty “no” to him. My initial impulse had been to keep away from the urban stranger. It was towards noon, and as I was saddled with the day’s newspaper I reflected much more seriously upon the young man’s request. An interesting advertisement in the newspaper triggered off this reflection. The advertisement, not so very prominent, was interesting. The advertiser had been offering rental accommodation to students and their parents visiting Bangalore in connection with the process of counseling the students who had passed the Common Entrance Test4 for professional courses. The accommodation was described as a “homely, fivestar facility,” that was “close to the counseling center and the city railway station.” The advertisement brought back the memory of the stranger and his request for food a few days a week. His request had been for food over a length of time. It was then that I began to regret my actions, for I had not even made my usual ethnographic inquiries about the boy, his origin and why he was making the request. Living in a city, with precautions for personal safety at the forefront of my mind, for a moment, my usual ethnographic instincts had been overtaken. The practice of offering food and, during specific times in a year, accommodation to students from other villages or towns is not strange to me. Growing up in a small town (Anekal) not too far from Bangalore city, my brothers, sisters and I recall at least one boy eating lunch or dinner (or both) with us in our house during our school days. My father ran a successful restaurant (hotel) in the town, and it was common for at least a few boys to be fed there too. There were also one or two persons at different points of time who were students, working in the hotel to support their education (and their family back home) and to have a place to sleep during the night.5 During the annual examinations, some students used to sleep on the outside veranda of our house. As young children we rarely took special notice of such “guests.” Now, however, I can recall the experience much more analytically and in a growing atomizing urban environment, the institutions of the past that hosted needy students.

Examination Feeding

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In most villages or small towns, not all schools were “public” examination centers. This meant that schools were dependent upon another recognized school elsewhere to facilitate the “public” examinations of their students. This was particularly applicable to schools in the rural hinterland and those that were newly established. Children studying in such schools and taking examinations for the Lower Secondary or Secondary School Leaving Certificate (SSLC)6 had to go to the nearest town’s school. For some children this was over twenty-five kilometers away. For the duration of the examinations, such out-of-town students had either to commute each day or find accommodation in the town. Buses were not frequent and were not always dependable. The latter option was preferred, for it saved them several other risks. Anekal had a municipal high school, which has now become a government high school. Students taking the SSLC examinations there came from the schools in at least three smaller towns or hobli7 headquarters. Not all students had the necessary

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contacts (friends of the family, kinfolk, etc.) upon whom they could depend for “examination hospitality.” Some stayed in the front yard of an abandoned building in front of our hotel, a few others in the unused rooms of our school, while many made a temporary camp aided by one of their teachers. One particular teacher used to bring a batch of students from a nearby hobli to our town for SSLC examinations. Because of his old contacts in the town and his reputation, he usually succeeded in securing a “portion” of a house or an unoccupied one for his students and himself. During such camps he cooked the breakfast and dinner for students. I guess that the parents of the students provided the necessary supplies of food grains, although it is not unlikely that he also contributed. After their dinner, the students were coached by the teacher late into the night by the light of a flickering lantern. Early in the mornings, the boys went to a pond on the outskirts of the town to wash and bathe. I have no memory of any one ever speaking ill of this teacher. He was one of the several teachers who took great pride in enabling his students to pass the SSLC examination, hundreds of whom eventually went on to be awarded a “double degree,” a new status symbol in the 1960s. Parallel to the Samaritan efforts of the concerned teachers, local philanthropists supported a program to feed the examination students. A few leading families in the town offered a meal each day to the students during the examinations, lasting for over a week.8 The donors included a leading medical doctor, a Muslim entrepreneur, a cinema theater owner, an arrack contractor, and a couple of cloth merchants. In one particular year, officials in the revenue and police department sponsored a meal. Such meals consisted of chitraanna9and mosaranna.10 Having cooked the food elsewhere, they were carted to the school’s front yard. The contract to cook and serve the food would be awarded to prominent restaurants such as my father’s hotel. On the final day of examinations, my father hosted the meal for the students. Public feeding of students was thus not confined to the out-of-town students, but was open to all. The caste of the donors to the program of feeding the examination students was an important consideration. A professional cook was hired or a restaurant11 was assigned the contract to supply the food if a donor was lower in the caste hierarchy. This was to overcome the norm governing inter-caste food restrictions, meaning that students from upper castes could benefit also from the program. Not all families had vessels huge enough to cook food for over 100 or 200 persons, and so a restaurant was preferred. For the restaurant owners, the months of March/April and September (when supplementary examinations were held) were quite good from business point of view. In addition to the contract-based catering, there was good business from those who could afford the luxury of a breakfast or evening snacks. During evenings there was a brisk business selling sambar or rasam12 to those students who might have cooked rice or ragi ball on their own.13 In April 1962, one could get two “serving spoons” of either sambar or rasam for one-tenth of a rupee. There were not many takers for butter-milk in the nights because of a taboo on giving or taking it after sunset. Moreover, buttermilk and curds are believed to be sleep-inducing. Students could hardly afford such a luxury during examination weeks!

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Feeding examination students is no longer practiced in Anekal and similarly sized towns and cities.14 Almost all schools offering SSLC courses are now examination centers. Nearly every school (and college) is near a canteen or a oneroom tea stall, if not a slow or fast food outlet. There are also buses and vans, some operated by the school itself, while there are any number of auto-rickshaws and passenger vans plying students from their house to the schools and back. In Anekal, examination-feeding stopped during the mid-1960s. Those were the “ration years,” when hoteliers had a quota of food grains and sugar allotted to them for purchase. Even to run a normal business they had to depend on the black market in the years prior to the green revolution. My father, who for over thirty years had sponsored examination food, had to stop after April 1967. Nearly two-thirds of the food prepared had no takers that year. By then, an increasing number of children (and their families) had discovered a new way of expressing their “self-respect” by not accepting charitably offered food. Even though the donors of examination food meant well in their support for students’ education, there was a growing concern that receiving such food might be misunderstood as having been on charity, something in common with the poor and destitute. As such, there was growing reluctance on the part of examination students from families of good social and economic standing to accepting food offered as charity. Instead, they would patronize one of the restaurants, or bring food from home as they commuted each day for examinations.

For a Homely Midday Meal

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Not all villages and towns had schools or colleges, especially beyond a certain level of education. Anekal town, too, therefore, was a host to a good number of students from neighboring villages and smaller towns for high school education. Many in my school had been commuters, some riding a bicycle, while a majority covered the distance by foot. On Fridays, sometimes, they came to school with a basket of vegetables to be sold in the weekly market. Some used to bring bags of food grains or vegetables at different points of time in a year, as gifts to a few of our teachers. During particular seasons of the year, they brought the pickings of the season: wild berries and fruits. In anticipation of the day’s picking, we brought salt and chilies to school from our homes, and made an instant salad of our choice. It was on account of these fruits and berries that we were attracted to the commuting students. Each of the commuting boys brought with him (I do not recall of any such girl student then) a “tiffin box,” neatly wrapped with a piece of cloth, always torn from a used blue-colored towel with a checked pattern on it. I do not recall seeing any one of them actually eating their lunch. This was for at least two reasons. First, I was in a rush to reach my house, eat my lunch and be back in school before the “second bell” rang to signal the start of afternoon classes. Second, almost every one of the students faced a wall or a tree while eating their day’s lunch. This was to avoid the prying “evil eye”15 that might give them an upset stomach. During my high school days, there used to be two boys who were fed lunch in our house. One of them sat with us to eat, if our timing coincided with each other, in the kitchen or the veranda leading to the kitchen.16 At times, my mother or aunt

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invited me into the house as I rushed into it from school, by announcing “there is rasam or sambar in a vessel on the fireplace. Do not spill the butter milk. Wash your plate after you are done with eating.” This was their way of tell me to serve the food myself. But if the other boy walked in during my lunch, either my mother or aunt always attended to him. My jealousy had to give way to their rationale. After all, he was a boy from a different house, and the women of the house had to serve the food to the guest. Or, was it one of the ways of ensuring that some sambar or rasam was saved for an unexpected guest or to be served to everyone in the night? It could have been both. This boy was of the same caste as us—a Brahmin, son of a school teacher who lived at a distance of about two kilometers from the school. His parents may have thought that it would be too hard on the boy to go home and be back in school within the short break of less than an hour. The other boy was a Reddy (Okkaliga) by caste. He came from a village about four or five kilometers away from the school. Because his caste was considered to be lower in rank and impure in status (from the point of view of Brahmins then), he used to be served food in the backyard of the house. He used to first announce, at the main door, his arrival for lunch by calling out “ammanni” (a conventional form of addressing upper caste women, by workers and persons from lower castes in Old Mysore areas). I will never know how he knew that one of the women in the house responded to his call, for just when any of them opened the back door, he would have presented himself there. The backyard door opened into a small passage, at the head of which was the door for the cattle shed. The passage had an attic made of bamboo. In the gaps between two bamboos was kept a roll of dry leaf-plates. He had to pick one of them and spread it on the floor as he squatted there. I never saw him sit cross-legged like we did at lunch or dinner. Food was taken from the kitchen to be served to him. My mother or aunt seemed to know the exact time when he might need a second serving of a dish or more rice, for as though on a cue, one of them took a serving just when he was ready for the next round. The boy’s name was Sathya, named after my elder brother. The two were in the same class, except that my brother was in a cohort of students instructed in English, while Sathya was instructed in Kannada. Every day, Sathya brought a huge can of milk from his village and delivered it to my father’s restaurant before going to school. My father paid the money for milk once a month.17 Decades later, having been a sociologist and carrying out ethnographic field research in a few South Indian villages, I have often wondered how as a member of a dominant caste, and a wealthy and respected landowner, Sathya’s father tolerated caste-bound discrimination towards his son. I can visualize, also based on my fieldwork elsewhere, how there may have been several workers from different and lower castes who may have been served food in Sathya’s house. Perhaps, his mother too kept a social and ritual distance from others of castes lower in rank to her own, while her son was being fed with a comparable discrimination elsewhere. This is a situation comparable to what Bourdieu (cf. Grenfell 2004: 28–30) may refer to as having been caught in double binds: i.e. being caught in contradictory situations resulting from changed fields and (social and cultural) capital into which they were born and find themselves at a later time.

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The family could easily afford the costs for Sathya to eat in any of the restaurants in town. They could have afforded the costs involved in employing a laborer merely to carry fresh food from home to the school so as to be there at the lunch time. Yet, the preference was to send Sathya to a Brahman friend’s house for a midday meal. Proper nutritional intake was a concern, hence the preference for a home-cooked food than cold food or a meal in a restaurant. During the 1960s and prior to it, many considered it below their status to go to a restaurant.18 Sathya’s father did not seem to respect this norm, for he was one of the chief patrons of my father’s restaurant. There were several other students in our school, both in middle school and high school, who were given lunch likewise by the “towners.” I am not sure if such arrangements involved any money. In any case, there were many other ways of reciprocation, such as supply of fuel-wood, vegetables, milk products, seasonal fruits etc. Sometimes it involved providing free labor as well. For example, the leaf and flower decorated shelter (pandal) for my sister’s wedding in front of our house was erected by a few men from Sathya’s village. But these acts of giving were not something peculiar to times when the boy(s) were being fed. They had been a part of a long tradition of mutual exchange of material and other help, and of patron– client relationship often extending beyond the village of one’s residence. Afternoon feeding by the “towners” generally followed the caste norms of commensality. The student had to be either of the same caste as that of the host, or lower in rank. As Sathya was from a caste considered “lower” in ritual rank as compared with our caste, he entered the house from the backyard door to avoid passing through inner parts of our house. After his meal, he had to take a small lump of cow-dung, considered to be a purifying agent, to smear the ground on which his leaf-plate was kept. He had to throw the leaf-plate into the manure pit, and ensure that while doing so nothing dropped out of the wet leaf-plate. The other boy who ate with us too had to remove his leaf-plate or wash the stainless steel plate just as we all did. My mother or aunt did the other cleaning. There are many villages and towns in South India that had temples and religious monasteries (mathas) which fed the travelers and the poor. Among the Lingayats, one of the dominant castes in Karnataka, food served thus is called daasoha (feeding the devotees). Students too are fed in such mathas. A matha had a better status if it offered daasoha. In a small village near Jagalur of Davanagere district is a Lingayat19 Matha, known as “Khana Madagu Matha.” This name is derived from its tradition of serving food to the visitors—of any caste—at any time of the day. A distinguished economist and a former vice chancellor of several universities fondly recalls his experience as one who took daasoha in Sattur Matha, a leading religious institution in Mysore city. A former Chief Minister of Karnataka State, Mr. S. Nijalingappa too had been a recipient of such hospitality in a matha in Bangalore when he was a student. Many temples in the coastal and Western Ghats region of Karnataka too have the tradition of serving food to students. I am told that the person serving the food in these mathas is like an express train. My mother used to chide us constantly for our manner of picking at our food, sometimes taking hours to finish what was served on our plates: “You should spend a few days eating in the Udupi Matha. Only then will you learn to eat and know the value of food.”

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A few students, usually two or three, together hiring a room during the course of their education in a town or city is not uncommon. Although there is a general reluctance to rent out an accommodation to bachelors in the more recent years, many houses in cities were built with such tenants in mind. Of course, the owner of the building would avoid such tenants if there were young and unmarried girls in the family. As regards the students, their success in finding an accommodation depended on crossing a series of hurdles. First would be the finding of a fellow inmate or inmates to share the cost of living in a room. They also had to find students of similar regional and cultural background, if not of their own caste. Second, the challenge was locating an accommodation close to their school or college. Third, such an accommodation needed all the conveniences: water, a bath, toilet and place for washing clothes and vessels. Finally the over-riding concern was for affordability, both in terms of monthly rent and ten times that amount as a cautionary deposit with the landowner. Some house-owners do not like the premises let out to be used for cooking food. On account of the increasing difficulty of finding ideal conditions, the practice of out-of-town students taking up a room for accommodation is becoming much less frequent. As with the different forms of support systems for food and accommodation for students, in this respect too there were structurally inbuilt forms of exclusion and inequalities regarding educational opportunities.20

Vaaraanna: One-Day-A-Week Food The noblest of the now extinct institutions for feeding students, poor and rich alike, is Vaaraanna. The Kannada term, Vaaraanna, means “food for a day in the week.” A young student gets passed from house to house in a residential locality (village, town or city) for a week during which each family provides food for the assigned day. If the number of families is sufficient, the student may be fed in different households within a day such that the breakfast may be taken in home one while dinner may be taken in another. The boy may have been from a neighboring village or town studying in a school or college. He may have been living in the host’s house or in a rented or rent-free accommodation. As in most of the other models of feeding students, this too tended to be for boys, and more or less for Brahman students. A boy from a different caste under similar circumstances of need might have pursued any of the other arrangements discussed thus far, or found patrons of his own caste. Students under the care of multiple households under this arrangement were always referred to as “Vaaraanna boys” or “Vaaraanna lads” (varraannada hudugaru), and rarely—if ever– by their given names. Vaaraanna did not merely refer to the poor though. In the early and mid-decades of the twentieth century, towns and cities did not always have the necessary facilities for students (especially Brahman students) to pursue their education and to maintain ritual purity (often involving sub-caste and sub-sect norms) governing food habits. This meant that the children of even rich families from out-of-town and rural areas had to depend on a host in the town or city. A single family might have found it taxing to be a fulltime host to a student, but able to support the food requirements on a specific day or two in a week. Some Vaaraanna boys rendered a few services to the host

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families, such as performing the daily puja21 or fetching water or firewood from a nearby storage point. Dependence upon Vaaraanna patrons by children of well-todo families too resulted in what Bourdieu refers to as a “double bind,” as discussed in the context of the other models for feeding students. The community at large would take kindly to students pursuing education while being Vaaraanna boys. Consequently, on special occasions, a few families would extend to such boys invitations to join their meal. For example, if a family performed a special puja, it was a common practice to invite the Vaaraanna boys in the neighborhood. The life of a Vaaraanna boy was not always a bed of roses, with food from each of his host families made available in a timely manner. He had to be extremely selfdisciplined in all his activities as the eyes of his hosts’ family as well those in the wider community would always be watching closely. Regardless of their family status back home, the boys on Vaaraanna had to live a life of impoverishment, even if effected. Indeed, those living on “charity” could ill afford to display any signs of well being. If a Vaaraanna boy accidently brushed shoulders with one of his peers, someone would soon comment: “look at the fat bull fed by different families already being unmindful of its path!” If the person had a tendency to put on body weight, the situation was even crueler. Were he to reduce his food intake, the host families might interpret this as disrespect to the food, or that he may already have eaten. The quantity he would eat at one meal would determine the quantity of food likely to be served to him on his next visit. Wasting the food or not eating that which had been prepared would likely be seen as an insult to the host(ess). If on the other hand, and especially not to hurt the sentiments of the host, he cleared his plate, someone might liken him to a bull be fattened on free food, or comment that the hostess for the previous evening had been miserly in her food portions. Reporting any ailment, minor or more serious too was a risky business. There was always the risk of offending a hostess, or of the hostess using the information to taunt one of the other hostesses: “The poor boy came home today in a state of near collapse after eating the porridge you served him last night!” One of the most difficult aspects of interaction with the host family for a Vaaraanna boy would be in trying to be discreet about the other households he patronized. It would not be uncommon for a person in the host family to make a casual inquiry regarding the food that had been prepared by any of his other host families. Some would go on to ask even more leading questions: “Is the dish being served as good as what was served a few days ago in the house of another host?” The boy’s response could easily become a source of misunderstanding between host families. Indeed, I am able now to understand why many of the Vaaraanna boys who used to patronize our house spoke so little.22 Speechlessness and guarded communication is the best means of survival for a Vaaraanna boy, especially when there is competition among the host families to be good Samaritans. One of the most popular Kannada writers, Masti Venkatesha Iyengar had been a student under Vaaraanna arrangements. In his autobiography, he makes passing reference to his experiences: sometimes he speaks very fondly; other times he reveals the sarcasm and humiliation he suffered. He recalls being taunted by the

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young girl from one of his host families, who commented: “the only thing that is punctual in our house is the arrival of the Vaaraanna boy.” I have known also of Vaaraanna boys who had the privilege of very affectionate hostesses (see Bhyrappa 2002). One boy, who used to be the Wednesday Vaaraanna boy in our house, pleaded with my mother on numerous occasions to be excused from eating in our house because other hostesses had insisted on his eating there out of turn. It appeared that the other hostesses had been cooking something special and did not want the Vaaraanna boy to miss out. Being on the receiving end of taunts both friendly and unfriendly was not an uncommon experience among Vaaraanna boys. If the boy arrived a little early for his meal, a likely remark would be “Oh! You are already here. Are you too hungry?” If, on the other hand he was late by a few minutes, he risked the comment: “We waited for you. Since you did not come when we all began eating our food, I thought you must have been slow in digesting what you ate in the afternoon.” Overnight leftovers (tangalu) were a tricky issue for the Vaaraanna boys. Boys who had been given the ritual initiation of the twice-born castes—Brahmopadesha or Upanayana—have a taboo regarding eating such leftovers. Many also consider it to be unhealthy for boys, affecting their masculinity. Eating leftovers was usually the “privilege” of the girls and women in the house, especially if there were no servants. Most host families took due care not to offend the sentiments and ritual requirements of the Vaaraanna boys, although it was not uncommon for a hostess to pass off the previous night’s rice as chitranna for breakfast the following day. The main principle of offering Vaaraanna to students is to serve that which the members of the households normally eat. I once heard a young girl remark, as though to complain: “It is steaming hot food to the orphaned Vaaraanna boy, while to those born in one’s own house it is cold and stale food.” The mother in turn said, “Who knows? Some day you may have to marry one such boy. Let him be healthy!” Numerous novels have been plotted in such a way that the Vaaraanna boy is the preferred match for the daughter of his host family, just as there have been stories (true and fictional) of the Vaaraanna boy and the host’s daughter eloping, if not “falling in love” and seeking the elders’ permission to be wed. Perhaps leading a life amidst such cross-cutting affection and humiliation made most Vaaraanna boys mature and ready to face the world as adults. Little wonder that most successful men a few generations ago had been Vaaraanna boys too. At least, that is what my mother (and the mothers of most of my friends from the school in our town) would say to us when we showed no signs of comparable success in our studies or careers! As far as the Vaaraanna boys were concerned, their experiences of insults and humiliations seemed to have been short-lived. There have been many instances of them returning to their hosts and hostesses not only to satisfy their “gastronomic nostalgia” (T. Srinivas 2007) but also to express their gratitude at a later date. I have witnessed many visit their patron families several years after their days as Vaaraanna boys, to introduce their spouse and children, and to invite them to special occasions in their lives such as a housewarming or a child’s wedding.

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House Guests

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Live-in arrangements with friends of the family or close kinfolk represent another common means of finding food and accommodation among students pursuing education in places away from their home. This is one arrangement in which girls too did benefit, although the parents may have had more rigid procedures for screening hosts prior to accepting or seeking a host family. Such an arrangement often lasted for over a year, and sometimes for the entire course of education. Usually parents would resort to this arrangement if the school or college was located close to the host family, and if the institution did not have a hostel. This was also the choice if the student had been in fragile health and had special dietary needs. In any case, the choice of the host family had to meet the approval of both the parents in terms of kinship as patrilineal or matrilineal relations. Putting up a boy or girl student in the house of a relation was the most obvious of solutions a few decades ago. Indeed, not doing so meant having to invent a range of acceptable excuses—whether on the part of the prospective host or the parents of the student. This option would have been all the more compelling if the student’s elder brother or the father’s brother lived in the town. The house of the father’s sister was also a common refuge. The economic status of the host family was an important consideration, although it was not uncommon for a very poor aunt or uncle to look after a niece or nephew. Given the practice for preferential marriage between a boy and his mother’s brother’s daughter or father’s sister’s daughter,23 the live-in arrangement was in many cases a good prelude to the forthcoming matrimonial alliance. The experience recalled of living in a relative’s house is mixed in nature. Some have fond and grateful memories of how well they were looked after. A cousin of mine who lived with one of his distant relations in Bangalore city while studying for a commerce degree recalled years later that he never once suspected his host family to have been in debt and facing financial crisis when he lived in their house as there had been not a single day when he had had to eat less than to his contentment. Like my brothers before me, I spent a couple of years studying in Bangalore with my father’s sister’s family in the mid-1960s. The results of the final-year examinations at the local school had been announced and I was being admitted to a pre-university course in a college in Bangalore. My father took me by bus to Bangalore and then to my aunt’s house. I have no recollection of him making a formal request to them to accommodate me. I was asked to pack my belongings— all in a shoulder bag—and accompany my father. When we arrived at my aunt’s house, it appeared as if everyone in their household had known all along that I would be a resident guest in their house. On the bus to Bangalore, my father instructed me on the “do’s” and “don’ts” of living in the house of a relation. I had been told, rather sternly, that I should bring a good name to my parents by conducting myself properly. Proper conduct meant that I should not make any demand for my needs, but be content with what was available and given to me by my host family. I should wash my clothes, and clean the plates after eating my food.

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Most important of all, however, I was not to carry any tales between the two families. That my aunt never once allowed me to wash my clothes or clean the plates speaks of her concern for me, and the uniform manner in which she treated her children and me. Back home, my mother never inquired if I was being properly looked after in my host’s house. I have known of many others who have had unpleasant experiences and bitter memories of living with such hosts. Physical abuse, being refused entry into some parts of the house, and being accused of stealing are common experiences. I am not sure if such boys and girls would have had a better experience had there been no other children of the same age in host’s family. Decline in the practice of residing in a friend or relation’s house is also associated with the set of factors leading to the decline in such other practices as “Oppattu” (part of a day, i.e. a meal in the forenoon or night) or Vaaraanna, namely: space constraints; the increasing costs of water, milk and electricity; the nuclearization of family; and the gradually better availability of hostel facilities and, more recently, accommodation for paying guests. However, one of the more important sociological factors associated with the decline of the living-in arrangement is associated with the changing character of kinship relations. Interdependence and mutual help may prevail among kinfolk, but not for such long-lasting arrangements as living-in students. Nor are the host families willing to risk the potentially undesirable outcome of a rural student in an urban setting. In fact, one of the ways in which “good” kinship relations are maintained between kinfolk is by avoiding dependence upon each other…

Summing Up: From Homely Comfort to “Self Respect” One of the less explored dimensions of the origin and growth of caste associations in India relates to the problems faced in finding food and accommodation for children pursuing education away from the parental home. It is obvious that the arrangements discussed above suited mostly children from Brahman and other upper castes: it was mainly they who had had a head-start in urban centers with educational attainment and a presence in urban bureaucracy or business, and the resources to support other needy students. Considerations for the notions of purity and pollution governing inter-caste commensality prevented many students, particularly from the castes that were poor in urban-resourcefulness in succeeding to find a host from diverse castes. Moreover, unlike Sathya who ate his noon-meal at our house, not all families would be willing to experience discrimination and humiliation that were contradictory to the social and economic status they enjoyed in the place of their origin. The trap of “double bind” in honor and status is too harsh for many to endure, and young men and women refuse to experience it any more. The lack of alternatives such as Vaaraanna etc., geared by the desire of many different castes to keep up with modern education as a means of social mobility, paved the way for formation of caste associations. One of the first things that such associations accomplished was to establish “free” or inexpensive hostels for students of their castes.24 Big cities like Bangalore, Mysore, Hubli and Dharwad, Mangalore, Tumkur or Shimoga (in Karnataka) have all attracted a large range of castes to establish hostels.

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There is a large number of caste association (sangha) sponsored hostels. In Bangalore, these include (among others): Kurubara Sangha Hostel; Okkaligara Sangha Hostel; Babburakamme Brahman Hostel; Hoysala Karnataka Brahmans Hostel; Maratha Hostel; Reddy Okkaliga Hostel; Devanga Hostel and Balija Hostel. The association of the Arya Vaishya caste (a caste associated with trade and commerce), has not only a general student hostel in Bangalore, but also one exclusively for those pursuing studies to become chartered accountants. However, even after several years of major strides made by female students, and the encouragement given by the caste associations for their education, there are not many hostels for them. Instead, female hostels are generally those meant for all castes, built and operated either by a charitable institution or on a commercial basis. Besides the hostels sponsored by caste associations, there are also hostels built and run by the state’s Department of Social Welfare for the students of Scheduled Castes and Tribes, and Backward Classes. Many colleges have their own hostel facilities, with some also catering to non-resident Indians by providing separate wings for them. There are also hostels funded by charitable individuals that, while open to students of any caste, do give preference to a particular caste. Many such hostels were built in the old parts of city which have over the years risen in property value. Some have now rebuilt the structures, perhaps converting the front and open areas of the hostel into “commercial complexes” or expensive wedding halls. There is unlikely to be sufficient peace in such hostels for today’s students to concentrate on their studies. Rarely does one now come across students living with relatives or friends of the family. The institution of Vaaraanna is now a thing of the past. Restaurants rarely sell sambar or rasam now. Some even have put up notices in bold letters to announce this fact. If one had to seek food and accommodation as a live-in arrangement with an uncle or aunt, the intended host need not look far for innovative excuses: “our house is too small,” “my wife goes out to work and it would be difficult to look after a guest student,” or “we have a serious shortage of water” are just a few available off the shelf. If a stranger makes a request for a couple of days of food in a week in return for his helping with odd jobs, we turn him out before even reflecting upon the request, he and such persons become no different for us than visiting sales representatives. We are told frequently of the dangers of entertaining strangers, let alone playing hosts to them. The city in which we live is perceived to be so wicked, we are always reminded “we never know what may happen!” At the same time, it is now not uncommon for an aged couple whose children have moved elsewhere to accept a paying guest (PG) or two, not simply to generate an additional income but also to get someone to live with them so they feel more secure in the lonely and insecure city. Indeed, one merely has to search Google for the key words of “PG accommodation” just to see how popular and in demand it is. There is an inundation of advertisements from those offering or seeking PG accommodation. For those with memories of Vaaraanna or similar indigenous charitable systems of “foster care,” PG accommodation marks quite a transition into the world of commerce, indeed.

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Acknowledgment I have benefited from long discussions with Rukmini Srinivas, Abdul Aziz, M. V. Nadakarni, V. Ramaswamy, Harikrishna Holla, A. S. Karanth, Stig Madsen, Staffan Lindberg, Göran Djurfeldt, Anna Lindberg and Sudha Sitaraman. G. K. Karanth was Professor of Sociology in the Institute for Social and Economic Change. He holds a PhD from the Jawaharlal Nehru University. He has engaged in ethnographic research on rural social change, natural resource management, rural livelihood systems, agrarian social structure, telemedicine etc. During 2011–12, he was India Chair Professor in the Department of Sociology, Lund University. 367, 9th Cross Road, R.K. Township, Yaranda Halli, Bangalore 560105, India ([email protected]).

Notes 1 For an account of features of and changes in caste in India, see Fuller (1996); Karanth (1996); and M. N. Srinivas (1996, 2003). 2 The state defines or classifies castes that are considered to be socially and economically backward, for the purpose of protective discrimination in their favor in matters of education, employment and electoral representation. For a good introduction and debate, see Jodhka (2012). 3 My late father, Airody Seetharama Karanth, was a mine of information on the different issues discussed in this paper, and therefore it tends to be an autoethnography (Ellis et al. 2011), with a focus on the town of Anekal, about 50 kilometers away from Bangalore city. What is reported for this town is true of many other small and big towns or cities in South India, especially the old Mysore region, if not elsewhere. 4 A centralized entrance examination for students aspiring to be admitted to professional courses such as in engineering and medicine. Prior to the 1990s, this was centralized in Bangalore city, whereas it is now held at the district level throughout the state. 5 However, most young boys who worked in restaurants had run away from their homes and found work in the restaurants, which gave them not only food but also shelter. Indeed, most child laborers in restaurants were child runaways after this fashion (Iverson 2002). 6 Lower Secondary was at the end of eight years, and the Secondary School Leaving Certificate, at the end of ten years of schooling. 7 A settlement—village or town—that was administrative headquarters of a cluster of villages, mainly in the state of Karnataka. 8 Professor Abdul Aziz informs me that this was also the practice in several other small towns and emerging cities during the 1940s and 1950s, such as Kolar, Chintamani (of Kolar District), Mysore, etc. In the town of Maddur (Mandya District, Karnataka), there used to be a temporary shed put up with coconut pods to accommodate the students. The father of Mr. S M. Krishna (former Chief Minister of Karnataka) was a generous host who used to hire Brahmins to cook and feed the “examination students.” 9 Rice, cooked and seasoned with oil, green chilies, and garnished with lemon juice; on the menu cards in restaurants it is “Lemon Rice.” 10 Rice mixed with fresh yogurt, green chilies and a few herbs. 11 Restaurants had to be vegetarian, as non-vegetarian (then known as “military hotels”)

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were owned by persons belonging to non-Brahmin castes, and the food they served was not acceptable to all. Vegetable stew or curry, with which cooked rice is mixed for a meal. They also serve as a dip for ragi balls, a staple in the diet of most in the southern parts of Karnataka. It was not uncommon for some rural students to hire a room for residence during the course of their high school studies. Most used to cook the rice or ragi balls, while opting to buy the curry from a restaurant. Houses built in the 1940s to almost 1970s were planned in such a way that there would be a few “rooms” with a separate entrance or an “out-house” for such tenancy occupancy. Instead, an increasing number of small groups of devotees of one temple or another (e.g. Aiyappa devotees proceeding on an annual pilgrimage to Sabarimala in Kerala) organize mass feeding programs. On the day pilgrimage commences, a special worship is organized in the local temple. As mark of the celebrations, several hundreds, if not more, are fed with the consecrated food. The event is widely advertised to encourage people to partake in the mass feeding event. See Pocock (1973: 23) and Parkin (1995) for useful social anthropological analysis of the phenomenon in India and elsewhere. Our house did not at this point have a dining table (indeed, not until the early 1970s did we have one). At this point, dining tables were unlikely to be found in small towns as they were considered “urban” (i.e. associated with big cities such as Bangalore, Chennai or Mumbai) and upper class or used by those in higher levels of bureaucracy, commerce or industry. Even after the dining table became part of eating culture, it too was not free from norms of gender segregation, as women rarely made use of it for their meal. When they did, they sat after all the men (and male children) had finished their meal. Notions of food-related purity and pollution were not exempt from application when men or women sat for a meal at the table. Supplying agricultural produce, milk products and other usufruct from the forest was a common feature with which rural and urban economies were linked to each other beyond the formal monetized markets. Farmers and artisans supplied them under an arrangement called “vartane,” which when roughly translated would mean a “repetitive behavior.” Payments were made once a week, fortnight or month, although it was not uncommon to seek advance payment. Products thus supplied included butter, ghee, vegetables, firewood, milk, curds and butter milk, leaf-plates, etc. Shops in urban areas too used to send certain products almost on a similar vartane basis to regular customers: newspaper, snuff, fruits, flowers and garlands, etc. Eating out, especially by children, on their own—whether in a friend’s house or a restaurant—was not an accepted foodway of many households. It was not only what one ate, but also where one ate that defined one’s proper upbringing and identity. See Anving and Seilerberg (2010). Lingayat is one of the castes in the state of Karnataka and other southern Indian states. For a useful account of inequalities in educational opportunities in India, see Asadullah and Yalonetsky (2012). A religious ritual, offered to an image or idol of a deity in a temple or household. It has been customary for many Brahmin boys to observe silence as a ritual while eating a meal. This practice is especially following the ritual of wearing the sacred thread and the teaching of “Gayatri Mantra” as part of the rituals among the twice-born castes. Cross-cousin, and first cousin marriages were a predominant pattern of matrimonial

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alliance in South India a few decades ago. See Rao (1973). 24 Bangalore city alone has over fifty such caste-based hostels (Bageshree 2009).

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