Porridge and I: A Post-Partition Story
Malashri Lal reviews Roopali Sircar Gaur‘s Porridge and I, a poignant and humorous and insightful novel about a post-Partition army family exploring India’s diverse social fabric.
What view of India do children from Army families carry into their adulthood? A tapestry of diversity in the geographical and linguistic map and a corresponding awareness of how crucially the Partition of 1947 changed destinies of individuals and communities. Roopali Sircar Gaur writes on this subject with remarkable humour and deep irony as two sisters observe and respond to the altering scenario. The use of ‘Names’ is an innovative manner of exploring the social fabric, each one carrying a cultural history of the colonial period and its residue in language.
Take the word ‘Porridge’ first. Born and named ‘Parijat’, after the fragrant divine flower that an Anglo-Indian teacher cannot pronounce, Parijat is quickly dubbed as ‘Porridge’. In this tale of two sisters growing up in an itinerant army family, we have the background to other names and their accompanying stories too. Who is a ‘pucca’ memsahib? The capsule answer is ‘a person of unmixed English blood’. Since the Anglo-Indians were socially shunned by both the Indians and the British, and largely left behind in India, they adopted ‘English’ ways in their clothes, manners, accents and put on a veneer of social superiority. Miss Dorris, the school teacher who renames Porridge is one such character, and the earlier chapters of the book capture charming details about the hybrid identity. There is both humour and pathos — humour, as a white skin is considered as a passport to better social status, pathos because the Anglo-Indians became, and remain, ‘nowhere’ people. Some light skinned ones migrated to Australia, but the dark-skinned ones were not permitted to. In India, especially Calcutta, they acquired labels such as ‘chutney Mary’ and tried jobs as governesses to Anglophile families, or school teaching, or the entertainment industry which was in need of women actors.
Overriding the pathos, Roopali Sircar Gaur fills her novel with funny stories about the pretentious life of Indians who tried to be more ‘pucca’ than the British sahibs and memsahibs who left India in 1947. The Indian inheritors could now enjoy access to the Gymkhana Clubs and bring up their children — the ‘baba log’— under the tutorship of frock-clad nannies with English names, who in turn, bestowed easily pronounceable ‘English’ pet-names to their wards.
After the delightful stories around the act of naming, food becomes the next marker of the British imprint left behind. I loved the sections on Rajas and the desert life as it brought back my own memories of that era in Rajasthan when families had ‘cook houses’ set away from the living areas. An ‘English cook’—called so for his expertise– could produce cakes baked in a dekchi and brandy snaps wrapped around the handle of a tea spoon. This magic person was very dark skinned but may have been an earnest pantry boy in a ‘pucca’ sahib’s household. A separate cook house produced desi khaana or Indian cuisine to suit the regional identity of the post-independence Indian sahibs and memsahibs. The novel has a delightful chapter titled “Forbidden Fish Head is Sweeter” (107) about a Bengali family sitting down to a meal. The delicacy is the fish head with its bulging eyes that the sisters reach out for, but are refused this item as it is meant for boys, especially if there is a male guest. The girls protest saying they are equal to the boys in every way– eyes, ears, nose, brain, hands—- but Deeda or grandmother reveres a tradition where such equality is unrecognised.
Porridge and I is an admirable example of discussing serious questions such as race, colourism and gender with the lightest of touch, and I loved that tone in the book.
I move to a sombre note, the tribute that Roopali pays to the Indian Army and the many changes it adapted to. The spit and polish of shining brass, the immaculate lawns of the Army cantonments is what civilians notice—but the frequent postings, the non-family stations, strict discipline, and the huge responsibility of India’s safety is seldom commented about. This book, through the eyes of two sisters, brings us into that important segment of the Partition years and how the Army transited from British times to post independence realities. The chapters on Bengal and Durga Puja are perhaps the best examples where I see the adoption of Devi Shakti, alta, music and cultural camaraderie and the giving up of the naming game of presumed western affiliation. This aspect of the novel is posited on the army-man father who sees another side of his wife and daughters and adapts himself to the new India. The roles now stand reversed and the visiting British are not demigods but supplicants for Indian hospitality.
At the end of this story of intercultural relationships and political power games, Parijat is no longer ‘Porridge’ and claims her rightful name and heritage. No one can erase the impact of colonialism but surely the children, now adults in a free India, can see the old hierarchies of power with a sad chuckle. Roopali Sircar Gaur has opened up less known areas of India’s social diversity as the new nation came into being. People adapted differently to the emerging configurations and with that, some groups such as the Anglo-Indians became marginalised, and stereotyped. Gaur’s reminiscences and subtle narrative commentary help preserve micro-histories that remain important strands in post-Independence India. Most of all, the book is a tribute to India’s military service that continues to guard the country’s interests, and their families who support them.
Book Details:
- Title: PORRIDGE And I: Growing Up with India
- Author: Roopali Sircar Gaur
- Publisher: Authorspress
- Release Date: 27 November, 2024
- Format: Paperback
- Pages: 284
- ISBN: 978-8197446474
- Price: Rs. 695
- Where to buy: https://www.amazon.in/PORRIDGE-I-Growing-Up-India
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