Living in a multi-cultural society
Tastes Like Home
By Cynthia Nelson
Stabroek News
March 3, 2007
Hi Everyone,
Living in a multi-cultural society is exciting. Those of us living side by side with people from different races and religions gain insights that some people go a lifetime without glimpsing. We get to learn each other's ways, customs and traditions.
For me, growing up in a bi-racial home often meant that I had a front row seat to the cultural heritage of my parents. Phagwah or Holi was one of my favourite holidays. As a kid, I could not believe that there was a festival that allowed you to drench people with water, and not just plain water, but coloured water! You could also shower them in white and coloured powder (abeer).
I loved that everyone participated in the playing of Phagwah. It was always a neighbourhood or village affair. I remember on one occasion some of my mum's friends who were Portuguese came all the way to our home to play Phagwah with us and we are Roman Catholic! Looking back now, I am amazed because that moment spoke volumes; here were people of different races and religions coming together in celebration. Occasions like these show how much alike we are and how it is possible to get along even if we do not look the same or come from different backgrounds.
I think boys enjoyed Phagwah the most, (I'm sure they still do) as they got to chase the girls around threatening to soak them. I always warned friends and family not to rub any abeer on my face. One year I had on a really nice expensive outfit I had gotten from the States. Silly I know. I thought if I gave people "the look" that they would not dare throw anything on me. Wrong! I was soaked in coloured water. Fortunately, three cycles of washing with hot water did the trick - I had my outfit back again.
I remember seeing people at the market all powdered up the afternoon before the holiday, laughing in a joyful carefree manner. And that is what I liked best about Phagwah; it was really a time of letting down the guard. Children could play with adults, adults actually came out to play and there was gaiety all around. It was as if we were all kids without a worry in the world.
My only regret about Phagwah was that at around mid-morning the water throwing would stop and your parents called you inside to get out of the wet clothes lest you caught a cold!
With the morning fun over, it was time to get down to cooking. My mum never cooked on Phagwah day, she would say "I shining me pot and turning it down" because we were always invited to Aunty Betty's home - she lived nearby. Apart from that, it was also guaranteed that the adopted aunties (you know who I mean. We all have adopted aunties, the women who, though not related by blood, are family in spirit and love), Sattie, Shirley and Amy would send over various containers and packages of food and other goodies.
I watched intently as the women in my extended family busied themselves about the kitchen: peeling potatoes, chopping vegetables, roasting spices, grinding spices and boiled split peas. In those days, grinding was done by a mill, no food processor. My cousin, Shantie, would have a bowl of cooked split peas that were as yellow as a sunflower, whole cloves of garlic and what seemed to me like a giant big red pepper. She'd grind it all together as that was to be the filling for the dhal puri. No meat was cooked on that day, it was strictly vegetarian.
Eating on that day was never an all-together, sit-down-at-a-table affair. It was like an all-day cooking fest so you would eat whenever you were hungry. On that day, I was never really interested in the food-food things, like the aloo and channa curry, dhal, rice etc. We the younger ones were eager to get our hands on the snack-like goodies such as baiganee - thinly sliced eggplant that's dipped in a phulourie batter and fried; phulourie - a seasoned split peas batter that's formed into balls and fried; aloo-pie - a dough stuffed with seasoned mashed potatoes. These would all be served with freshly made sour with the zing of pepper. Aunty Betty also used to make an oh-so-delicious sweet rice (rice pudding) with raisins. Gosh I want some now!
My siblings and I used to do our own taste test; we would spread out all the snack-like food, the ones made by our Aunty Betty as well as the ones from the other aunts. We'd go through them item by item, tasting them with their individual sours and we'd make up our minds about which ones we liked best. Although each household made the same thing, they all tasted different and we loved them all.
When I was a child I wished every day could be Phagwah so that we could keep on playing with the water and the powder. Now, as an adult, I'm more aware of the ways in which this beautiful celebration brought together all the people in my life - no matter their race or faith. That was a real blessing. I pray that we can all cherish the times when we have blessings like that.
Happy Phagwah everybody!
Cynthia