Sucheta Das Mohapatra
A fortnight back as my full-body health check-up report landed on my WhatsApp, the AI assistant offered help to summarise the PDF? I thought, why not? The summary was scary! But I had no time and was in no mood to panic. I was in the office and in the midst of a work-related heartbreak. Late in the evening, I sat down at home to read the report in detail. It wasn’t that bad! I was Vitamin D deficient, my High-Density Lipoprotein and iron binding capacity levels were not promising, but my sugar level was absolutely fine. I rushed to the refrigerator, pulled out the rasgulla bowl, gulped one, and had a pleasant night’s sleep.
Born with a sweet tooth, my love for the cottage cheese balls dipped in cool sugary syrup was the talk of the family – far and near. I could rarely make out whether it was the spongy white balls called Rosogolla by the Bongs, the Odia Rasagola with a crumbly texture and creamy colour, orange-flavoured Kamalabhogs, or the big round yellow Rajbhog. But guests who walked in with the white syrupy balls in an earthen pot were special to me because they brought those fresh and naturally cool. We Odias also have a spiritual connect with rasogola, which legends say originated as Khira Mohana in Jagannath Temple, Puri. A ritual, known as ‘Bachinaka’, wherein the sweet is offered to Goddess Lakshmi, symbolises the return of the Lords to the temple after the nine-day Rath Yatra every year. Lakshmi loves rasgulla and so do I.
My addiction for this sweet as a two-and-a-half-year-old was so intense that the tale of a near-miss road accident related to it was told to generations of children born after me. On a summer evening in Jamshedpur, while my mother and maternal grandfather (Aja as we call in Odisha) were busy saree shopping for my aunt’s wedding, I escaped. I was much later discovered standing in the middle of a busy road trying to locate a shop where we could get rasgullas. Fortunately, the streets were not that crowded then and the few who drove did not suffer from hurry sickness. From then on, whenever we visited Tatanagar, every evening Aja ensured that he got a Rajbhog from his office canteen for me. A few years later and only a few months after his retirement from TISCO (now Tata Steel), Aja was detected with last stage liver cancer. He succumbed soon but even from his hospital bed and his days numbered, he ensured someone took some rasgullas home for me.
Today, I don’t have that obsession with sweets but a piece or bite of anything that is ‘sweet’ before bedtime helps me sleep and uplift my mood when I am too low. Most medical practitioners may call it a bad practice or habit, but I know there are many like me, who sometimes eat more and not very healthy, because that helps them survive a stressful day. The burps and aches that follow are insignificant when all that you need is an immediate escape from mental fatigue or emotional strain.
Studies have found that emotional eating is more common among women with anxiety disorder (de Oliveira da Fonseca, N.K., et al. 2023). But my personal experience says compulsive overeating or drinking is equally prevalent among those men who have no other means of venting out their frustration, and they all also know that an excess of anything can be fatal. Many years back I asked a male colleague, “How do you sleep after a harsh day in the office?” He said, “Alcohol. It numbs my feelings.” Others nodded. Work-related stress kills your personal relationships and family life before it kills you.
Comfort from food mostly stems from our memories. A few days back during the lunch break in the office, a colleague said, “It seems you do not enjoy cooking.” Later, I thought, maybe, but I do cook at least two-three meals every day. She was perhaps not able to connect with the ghanta, dalma, santula, saga chadchadi, and other low-spiced strange looking dishes she often saw in my lunch box. I do eat rajma, chhole and paneer, but not always. I need loads of veggies every day and meat/fish at least a few times a week.
A foodie experiments with all kinds of food but finds comfort in the food that he or she has grown up eating. Every time I pass by a Subway outlet, the aroma takes me back to that period of my school days when my brother and I came back home to find my mother trying her hands on different bakery items. My paternal cousin, who lived with us, always wore the assistant chef’s hat. Their bond was so close that he also mastered needlework from her, which I could never.
Eating local food has great environmental, social and health benefits but savouring what you had during your childhood is always soul-satisfying no matter where you live. I miss many lost recipes and signature dishes cooked with precision not just by the women of our house but also the male and female cooks employed in the kitchen of our ancestral home. Each one of them had mastery over at least one variety of pitha and mitha. My maternal grandmother was perfect in manda pitha, paternal in coconut laddu and my paternal aunts’ in arisa pitha. Dibakar kaka, who was not only a cook but also an outstanding storyteller, cooked every item with perfection but we looked forward to the poda pitha he made for us. They all went away too soon, and I couldn’t learn anything from them or maybe I was too lazy. I now wish I could steal the urad dal badi and kakara pitha recipes from my fast-aging mother-in-law.
A balanced diet is undeniably a recipe for a balanced mind, but when even the thought of our comfort foods perks up our mood, like it did mine while writing this article, why should mindful indulgence in our favourite foods not be a good option on bad days?