Zohran Mamdani, cutlery shaming, and America's Finger-Lickin' hypocrisy

India Today

02-07-2025

One of the most underrated, yet integral parts of our school life was the lunch box. Given we had to wear the same uniform, a lunch box was one of the few status signals a child could have. While there were many shapes and sizes, I was always envious of that child who had a built-in slot for a spoon in his tiffin box. A plastic spoon resting diagonally on top, waiting to be picked. But it never was.advertisementThat child would routinely bring various vegetables with parathas or pooris, which, after sticking together till the lunch break, had to be peeled off each other. If you excavated further, you would find a slice of mango pickle buried beneath, smearing the last poori with its own oil.The spoon was rarely used.
It was ornamental. Like that crockery set, in a middle class household, exhibited in a glass cabinet in the drawing room.Indians love to eat with their hands. The West can never digest this fact (and also our street food). The day they have an elaborate meal with their entire family on the same table with more than three items prepared, they celebrate it as Thanksgiving. For us, it's a usual Tuesday. The age-old debate gained currency when the Democratic nominee for New York City mayor, Zohran Mamdani, armed with Bollywood songs and socialism, was found eating with his bare hands. And, was subsequently told to be civilised or go back to the 'Third World' by a Congressman.Zohran says his worldview is inspired by the 3rd world while eating rice with his hands pic.twitter.com/FDaQfcNSJv— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) June 29, 2025advertisementIt's slightly hypocritical for a country whose second-largest restaurant chain's slogan is 'Finger Lickin' Good'. Why aren't they licking their spoons? Tough question.Once, Dr S Radhakrishnan, our former President, was having lunch with Winston Churchill. Just before lunch, our man excused himself to wash his hands, and came back to dig into his plate with his bare fingers. Churchill was not amused. He actually asked Dr Radhakrishnan to use cutlery as it was more hygienic.The man, whose birthday we celebrate as Teachers' Day, shot back: "Since nobody can use my hand to eat, my hand is more hygienic than any spoon or fork you use."ChatGPT would summarise the above reply in just two words - 'Fork you'. There is no scientific reasoning that validates one theory over the other. It's just convenient racism - an inability to accept people can be different, especially when they are taking your jobs. Moreover, Western diet has a lot of meat, often medium rare, which requires a knife to be cut into edible bits. The only reason you need a knife to have Indian food is when you are NOT planning to pay the restaurant bill.Seriously speaking, a fact that various British governor generals didn't realise is that Indian food is not served like food. It's served like ingredients. The food is then mixed and prepared on your plate. Be it a Rajasthani thali or a South Indian meal, there are at least seven to eight items to mix the rice, dal or sambar, rasam, vegetables, appalam, pickle and many more. All of it is mixed together, with your fingers, like an expert chaatwala, using the various spices from different bowls in different proportions, to create that perfect morsel, which is then sent to your mouth for further flavour processing. Moreover, the curry or rasam sticks to your fingers due to forces of adhesion, thanks to class 10 science, and hence it's easier to transport the flavour to your mouth.advertisementThis is what an Indian thaali is. You can't do all that with a knife and a fork. My entire childhood was spent believing that the knife was only there to spread butter over my toast.For us Indians, taste buds are in our fingers. You will feel it the next time you are having a golgappa. 50% of the taste is the texture. When the hawker hands you the fragile, imli water-filled poori while you already have one in your mouth, the fingers send the sensory signal to the brain that the next one is coming, and it is even more spicy. It's 'Finger Lickin' Good', to use their own words.advertisementMamdani, meanwhile, who wasn't finding many fans among the Indian diaspora in New York, suddenly is an eating-with-his-hands-racism martyr, and people like the author of this article, who aren't a big fan of his policies, are writing columns to defend him. The only hope is that his socialist ideas stay unused, like that spoon fitted on my friend's lunchbox. But who cares about the views of a Gurgaon resident, when the New Yorkers seem to be eating out of his hands.(Abhishek Asthana is the founder of a creative agency – GingerMonkey. He tweets as @GabbbarSingh)- Ends(Views expressed in this opinion piece are those of the author)Must Watch