Cream of wheat and His Glory

This past weekend a friend of mine invited me to attend a Bhajan (Indian version of choir music) organized by one of her friends.

Faith wise, I am not really fanatical about my religion but since I cannot afford to have even one of the million Hindu Gods' on my bad side, I have learnt to fear them. So, when the need arises to say a prayer I just stand with my hands folded, pretending to be an obedient child who hasn't been caught yet for not doing his homework.

I was already running late when I got to the prayer hall. After removing my shoes at the entrance I walked in bare-foot and realized the group was already into the third or fourth song of the evening. I resisted a strong urge to tow through the crowd while stepping on people’s toes with the aim of finding a vacant seat near my friends. Instead, I sat back and waited for the reason I was here in the first place – socializing and the food(after paying my obeisances to god, ofcourse!!)

I sneaked into a corner where I found a spot and sat in a half-lotus posture, looking at the deity and the prettier of the devotees. When I heard the sound of bells ringing added by some frantic high-pitched singing, I knew the worship for the evening had come to an end – and soon it would be time for the true reason of my visit. Then, I heard the phrase I had been waiting for all along “dinner is served".

I queued up with my friends behind the food counter, chatting casually and controlling my urge to rush the table. I helped myself with some rice, couple of flat-breads, two curries made of cottage cheese and eggplant. I also got a scoop of what looked like some sweet pudding made of cream of wheat ("sooji-halwa"). Yes, it definitely was Sooji Halwa but, looked strange as it was devoid of any raisins and cashews.

And this got me thinking. Let me explain:

First of all, unlike Tiramisu or the closer to home Indian rasmalai, I have never considered wheat-pudding as a real dessert. So did they not have a real dessert?

They did! They did have rasmalai and mango-custard. So what was wrong with the wheat-pudding? Unlike the two other desserts, wheat-pudding was the "blessed" dessert of the evening. As part of the bhajan, it was offered to the Gods first and then the humans. If there is a Christian wedding, there is a wedding cake. The brown people have their own wedding dessert, which is a barrel full of sweets call laddus. Naming ceremonies of infants have puddings made of condensed milks. Even memorial services and death anniversaries have specific sweets like sweet lentil cakes, served on those occasions. So why does an event like Bhajan not have its own signature dessert?

Wheat pudding and Bhajan are very similar in their own way. Just the way a Bhajan is half way between chanting scriptures’ and being agnostic, so does a wheat pudding rank somewhere between tiramisu and cane sugar. Somewhere in the distant past, saints born from lotus leaves failed to identify this simple similarity between the two. Hence I have decided to strongly lobby with my match making aunts to pronounce that relishing a wheat pudding any place other than a bhajan should henceforth be a taboo, with the raisins and cashews, of course.