← New Books Network
Loading summary
Transcript31 lines
- [00:00]
A
Hello everybody. This is Marshall Po. I'm the founder and editor of the New Books Network. And if you're listening to this, you know that the NBN is the largest academic podcast network in the world. We reach a worldwide audience of 2 million people. You may have a podcast or you may be thinking about starting a podcast. As you probably know, there are challenges basically of two kinds. One is technical. There are things you have to know in order to get your podcast produced and distributed. And the second is, and this is the biggest problem, you need to get an audience. Building an audience in podcasting is the hardest thing to do today. With this in mind, we at the NBM have started a service called NBN Productions. What we do is help you create a podcast, produce your podcast, distribute your podcast, and we host your podcast. Most importantly, what we do is we distribute your podcast to the NBN audience. We've done this many times with many academic podcasts and we would like to help you. If you would be interested in talking to us about how we can help you with your podcast, please contact us. Just go to the front page of the New Books Network and you will see a link to NBN Productions. Click that, fill out the form and we can talk. Welcome to the New Books Network.
- [01:07]
B
So hello and welcome to the New Books Network. I'm your host, Sathiki Barua. Why are Bengalis from West Bengal and Bangladesh whose food histories are marked by famines, drawn excessively to sweets or mishti, a food item that lacks nutritional value and at times poses a health risk? This is the central question of sweet excess. Crafting Mishti in Bengal, a 2025 book by Shita De. The book traces the culture of sweetness by examining the material and symbolic significance of sweetness, not only by tracing the changing meanings of labor behind the making of mishti, which is rooted in castes and religious hierarchies, but also by understanding them through legal registers that view sweets as either essential or non essential? Ishita De is an assistant professor at the Department of Sociology, Faculty of Social Sciences, South Asian University, New Delhi. Her research areas include labor, food, the senses, migration and technology. She has previously co anchored an art research project titled Smells of the City focusing on Delhi, which was supported by the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art. More recently she has begun anchoring a research project on travel and co anchors a podcast titled Travel Matters. She's an editorial board member of the journal Society and Culture in South Asia and Gastronomica. Her work on food has been published in edited volumes including the Oxford Companion to sugar and Sweets and journals such as Contributions to Indian Sociology, South Atlantic Quarterly, the Census and Society and Gastronomica. She has co edited the book Sustainability of Rights After Globalization and co authored Beyond Kolkata, the Dystopia of Urban Imagination. To talk more about her book, I'm joined by Sheeta De. Dr. De welcome to New Books Network and congratulations on the book.
- [03:03]
C
Thank you.
- [03:05]
B
So the central question that you ask is why people from the shared geography of West Bengal and Bangladesh, a region that has been ravaged by food resource and once at the heart, was at the heart of sugar capitalism, are drawn excessively to sweets. What makes sweet an obsession or rather an excess? Most of the discussion will be spent getting into answers to this. However, I would like to focus on the question itself. So you have been researching the social aspects of sweet and sweetness in Bengal and West Bengal, sorry, in Bangladesh and West Bengal for almost a decade now. Could you take us more back more than a decade and let us know what inspired you to ask this question and relate it to the various aspects in your research?
- [03:51]
C
That's a very good question, Shataki, to begin with, because when I began the research, it was primarily where Michael Crondall in his book Sweet Invention was leaving. He had visited Kolkata. And I write about it in the acknowledgment of the book. And I kept on telling him that there is something about the labor form that is associated with sweet making that needs deeper interrogation. So when I started the work back in 2010 as a grad student in Delhi School of Economics under the supervision of Professor Rajni Palriwala, my questions were mostly to do with the production. And as I moved forward in this journey of understanding the craftsmanship of sweetness, I realized that the Bangla word that we use to refer to the confectioners, the moira, has also been a very important middle caste group. And by the time I was finishing my thesis, I had this question unanswered. Can there you know who is a Moira beyond a Hindu caste group? Do we refer to this same? Is there a semantic collapse also in Opar Bangla from my positionality in the book? You know, as you may have noticed many a times I purposefully use Opar Bangla the other side also keeping in mind that there are very everyday experiences of borders and borderlands that have shaped who we are as a society. The food that we eat, the food that divides us and the boundaries that we end up creating through craftsmanship of food as well, including sweets. So when I concluded my dissertation in 2016, I did not have an answer to this question that beyond a Hindu confectioner, who are the people who are making sweets? Because most of the field work that I did as part of the PhD project was confined to Hooghly district, was confined to Nodia district. And they were mostly Hindu owned sweet shops. But even in Calcutta there are sweet shops that are owned by Muslim confectioners. And this probed me really to think of a bigger project. And that's why my journey to Upar Bangla from my vantage point, the other side began. And when I started and I opened the book with this vignette that when I started my field work, I had to also. I had also socialized myself in the way in which people consume sweets in Dhaka. So the. And I opened the book with this vignette that, where a sweet shop owner is cautioning me that don't count the heads of the household and order sweets. But this is, there's a minimum, you know, quantum of sweets that you need to order. While visiting a household in Bangladesh, that really brought me to think that, you know, how is it that the, that and this kind of, you know, triggered a shift in the question that I think there's much more to study beyond the production to really understand the cultural landscape of sweetness. Right. What makes us obsessed with sweets, where we have sweets that are priced at rupee 1. Right. 2 suites which can go up to, you know, in thousand rupees. Right. This, this, to capture this, I think it's very important to. And this is where I kind of reframe the question that here's a geography that has been ravaged by famine, food insecurity, yet, you know, there's a certain obsession with sweetness that we carry. And who carries that obsession? How does it get reflected in the production of sweet making?
- [08:13]
B
Right, yeah. So through the, through looking at the cultural landscape of sweetness, you're trying to look at how sweetness is constructed and consumed. And the book sort of explores various sub themes. For instance, there are each independent. Each chapter serves as an independent introduction with its own conceptual framework. But there's an overarching analytical tool that you have used to, to describe sweetness and that is through the concept of excess. And could you explain how the concept of excess is connected to the practice of sweetness both in its creation and its consumption and especially how you are sort of distinguishing it, distinguishing sweets as not an item of luxury or abundance, for instance, it's not a matter of pointless consumption, but it is an excess. Yeah.
- [09:05]
C
Yes. You know, and this is, it's it's, it makes me, you know, like when I was, when I started with this question that, you know, how do we really look at this cultural landscape of sweetness? It became important that how do sweets get represented in sweet shops? How do sweets gets represented in domestic rituals right across faiths? And also third, a very important site was how are sweets, you know, sold in fairs, restaurants, all of these places, right? Now, if you really look at sweetness in itself, right, and there are many scholars before me also has worked on sweetness. When you really think about sweets, is it very essential to diet? Yes and no. If you really think about, you know, its nutritional value. And this is where food studies and this is, this is one sort of question I wanted to pose that, you know, how do you really look as a food item beyond necessity, you know, because the necessity luxury framework has dominated, you know, many ideas and particularly say things like chocolate, wine, etc. And here my idea of excess really came from the fact that how do we understand that particular person who is wanting to buy a rupee? Like why do sweet shops produce rupee a sweets priced as rupee one and the same sweet shop is producing the same category of sweets priced as rupees 25 which means that there is a way in which the sweet shops wants to cater to the affordability of people. And keeping in mind that sweets really kind of inform the celebrations, right? Now, if you really think about the celebrations, it's very important to remember that it is not only in the suites are not only an important part in auspicious occasions of various spectrums, even in death rituals. And here I really thought that the framework of XIS really becomes a very useful lens. And the way I want to describe the way I have used the conceptual framework of excess in the book is really to pay attention to that. How do we really think of, really think of consumption and production which is built on cultural registers of excess, right? So one, you know, there is a sort of a co construction of sweetness that the production of the sweet shops are constantly imbibing as they're going along. Right? Let me give you one example of registers of excess which I don't discuss in the book extensively. It's only in Bengal you can have a very category of sweets that is available in sweet shops today is known by the range of diabetic sweets. Right? Now on one hand, you know, I have talked about the diabetic suites in the book as where sweet shops are responding to the health needs. Now if you really look at it from the lens of excess, you it's it, if it. It is built, it is constructed with an intent, it is produced with an intent that nobody should be deprived. Even if you are. Even if you are a diet, even if you're suffering from diabetes. Is there a sweet taste? I can give it to you because that. There is a sort of a. As if, you know, life can't go without sweetness, right? And here I tried to take inspiration from Gayle Rubin's interpretation of Marx, where when Marx was talking about the wages of a worker, Marx was also taking into account that the wages of a worker in Britain should be able to take into account the price of a beer. And similarly for the worker in France, they should be able to afford wine, right? So when we really think about, you know, like, where. And this is where, you know, excess kind of allows us to understand the cultural landscape of sweetness, both in its material embeddedness of life, right. You know, that how is it. And in every culture, it could be different food items. And this is also a nudge to think about, you know, like sweet Texas is a nudge to also think about, you know, what are the excesses through which excesses that inform the cultural gastronomic landscape of different geographies, right? In some other society, it could be something else, you know, it may not be sweet, right? And some other society, it could be liquor. It could be. In some other society, it could be a variety of. Of bread, you know, so when you. Or milk. Now, when it comes to sweetness, the way I have used excess is both to talk about, to bring three registers of excess in conversation, and the three registers of excess that I have tried to bring into conversation is definitely the cultural registers of excess, right? This is one part that comes about in the first two chapters of the book. And alongside, I have also kind of tried to bring in, you know, what are the ways in which. What are the aestheticization of excess, right. And the sustenance tropes in the imagination of excess? The sustenance tropes in the imagination of excess is the diabetic sweets, right? That where you do not wear the sweet maker, where the confectioners do not want to deprive even someone who is suffering from diabetes. So sweets are not your enemy. Is there a way in which we can blend in or, you know, if you take into account the chocolate mishti, which is basically, you know, embracing the cocoa as a sort of a sweetening ingredients. So using these three registers of culture, aestheticization and sustenant tropes, what I want to kind of argue here is that that is there a way in which, like how have the sweet makers really use the cultural logic to make a place for themselves? It is important to remember, because if we all remember, one of the recent attacks, you know, one of the recent criticisms that was there during COVID was when sweet shops were allowed to remain open. Right? You know, during the pandemic, during the lockdown. Right. Now, it's an irony when you really think about, you know, that in 60s there was a milk, there were several, two control orders that kind of, you know, wanted the sweet shops to be shut down because they were taught as a culprits to divert the supply of milk and chana. And it is true because much of the milk and chana actually is very informal and sweet shop owners can be a higher price compared to other consumers. And so things have drastically changed after White Revolution, which I do discuss in the book as introduction. But at the same time, how do you really look at the sustenance tropes where in 60s the sweet shops are coming under attack and in 2020, 14 days into the lockdown, the sweet shop owners, you know, are the sweet shops are being allowed to remain open so that the milk supply does not go waste. And this also brings us the another angle of excess that, you know, when you really look at excess, excess is also, you know, there is a way in which to go beyond the debates on waste. Right. And how do we really understand, you know, excess in relation to the supply chain?
- [17:26]
B
Right, Absolutely. So I think now, before going ahead into how this sweetness or excess is constructed, as you have laid the conceptual framework, I would like to spend some time with the material itself, which are sweets, and for instance, the way your work serves as an exemplary model of combining sources and examining the everyday practices of sweet making and consumption. You also, as you pointed out, you make room for suites priced at rupees one and beyond. Right. 2000s. So what was the process of mapping suites? Especially, what were the considerations of including excluding certain sources, because you have used multiple sources. And this is just to give our audiences an understanding of what kind, what entails suites and how, of course, the entire process behind the material which goes into it also contributes to the central argument of excesses. So could you just go through the processes of mapping suites in both apar and upar? Mangala.
- [18:41]
C
Okay, so as I told in the beginning, the fieldwork, I began the fieldwork in 2010, what the book is a culmination of fieldwork in various intermittent phases. Fieldwork and archival work in various intermittent phases between 2010 to 2019, chapter two of the book Following Sweetness. I really thought that it is, as you rightly pointed out, that how do you really understand. Where do you begin the journey of understanding sweet making? I really thought that, you know, given that there's a lot of work available on Calcutta and Dhaka, these two centers of a shared imagination of Bengal. I really thought that it is important to really move in and out of how the periphery has shaped the sweet landscape of the core. And this informed my choice of the fields sites across West Bengal and Bangladesh. Now before I tell you about the districts where I have been and how I went about choosing those districts, it is very important to understand that for me the landscape. There are many ways to look at sweetness. For me, the material was mishti, right? Mishti is the. And the way I understand mishti is it is to really kind of thing through the. The food that is produced in the sweet shops. It's a. It's. And the word mishti, it is important to remember is also used as a feminine attribute. Just like in, in the case of, you know, Japan. Now where all I have done the fieldwork, you know, there is a dedicated section in the book where I really show the range of sweet shops that exist. And I say that, you know, the sweet shops can be divided into various segments. One is of course the neighborhood sweet shops. Sweet shops that are in and around a temple complex as well as, you know, and this is. This is there in both sides of the Bengal. And the names of the sweet shops also kind of play a very, very important role. And where, you know, I think the sensorial landscape of the sweet shops really sought has been very central to understanding the materiality of sweets. Now the way I began was in 2010-2012, I did from actually October 2010 to March 2012, I conducted observation across three sites in West Bengal. One is Jalbhara Shudjamodok, a semi mechanized sweet shop in Chandranagore in Hooghli district. Bijaymayra, a traditional sweet shop in Krishnagore in Nodia district. With at that point in time it had no refrigeration facilities and the quality control and the Kesidas laboratory, particularly in Bangalore where I got to observe the quality control laboratory. So this was the fieldwork that informed in 2010-2012. Then by the time I was doing this fieldwork parallelly the archives that I got to study around 2010-2012 where the caste association newsletters of the Modok Moira Caste association, okay. As well as few cookbooks. By the time, you know, by 2015, 2016, I engaged extensively with the campaign, the Cadbury Mishti. This was a very exciting campaign that was launched by the chocolate giant Cadbury, as we all know, with one of the leading newspaper houses of the eastern India, Anand Bazaar Patrika. And the Cadbury Nishti campaign was actually, you know, was at its peak when I was ending my PhD fieldwork in 2012. But I returned to this campaign in 2015, 2016, where I actually conducted fieldwork with sweet shop owners who had participated in this campaign to understand the phenomenon of Cadbury Mishti. From December 2017, you know, I actually started planning my fieldwork in Bangladesh. And prior to that 2017 and to 2018, there were, you know, by the end of, you know, December 2017, they were rushed to have GI applications. So there was a year, there was a six month long, you know, project that I engaged in with the support of my then workplace, Amitkar University, where I studied the GI applications, GI Registry Office where I consulted the archives of the GI Registry in Chennai. And December 2017 and June to July 2018 was when I spent extensively sometime in Bangladesh. So if you really look at the sweet landscape, as I told you 2010 to 2012, I was looking at Chandra Nagar and Nodia district. When I entered Bangladesh. I really thought this was an opportunity to look at the Northern Bengal from the side of Bangladesh. Now venue, when, and this is also in Bangladesh also I decided to stay away from, to understand Dhaka, right. But also to kind of move away and to look at the Rajshahi division. And so what I did was actually in Rajshahi Division, you know, I really looked at the five out of the eight districts in Rajshahi division. I have, I conducted fieldwork in five districts. Rajshahi, Nator, Naugao, Chapai, Nababganj and Bogura. Now each of these districts and there's a beautiful, and I would really encourage, you know, the listeners. There's a, there's a sweet shop in Bangladesh called Sweets of Bengal which had this beautiful maps of each of the districts. What are the sweet, you know, sweets, what are the sweets that are famous in each of the districts that really gave me sort of an idea to actually, you know, explore the, explore Rajshahi and see what are the potentialities. Interestingly, I must also recall here, unlike in West Bengal where I did the fieldwork in the festive season, October 2010 is when the. October is the autumnal, you know, all the festivals, you Know, actually come the Diwali, the Durga Puja, Jagadhatri Puja. So lot of, you know, local specific festivals are there till about, you know, March. Right. In the context of Bangladesh, I specifically chose to study the summers. Okay. One, it, it coincided with Ramzan. The second, it is also to get a sense of that do people eat sweets in summer? And Bogura was a revelation. Bogura is known for a fermented sweet dish called curd. And the amount of curd that gets produced and sold all over in the name of Bogurat DOI is quite fantastic. You know, someone should just have a project only on Bogurad DOI and its production supply network. Coming back to my project, you know, out of the eight districts, as I told you, I did fieldwork in five districts. Rajshahinato, Naugao, Chapai, Navargons and Bokura. What was interesting here is that in Chapai, I. Both in Chapai and in. Both in Chapai and particularly in, I actually made sweet makers. Whose families? Confectioner families whose families, you know, migrated. Whose families, you know, in. In this Rajshahi division I met actually families whose families had migrated, migrated from Mushidabad district, then Mushidabad district of West Bengal to, you know, at the time of Partition to, you know, Rajshahi division. So I think when I started, you know, interacting with interlocutors, particularly the sweet shop owners families, this also kind of gave me a chance to really understand, you know, the question that I have had unanswered after the end of PhD, that is the category of a moira only applicable to the Hindu caste groups or who is a Muslim moira. And the scenario got actually more complicated when I really started understanding the production process of the semantic differences that are used for worker hierarchies. So the way I observed the sweet shops was whenever the owners allowed me to observe the makings of a suite, I was present at the workshop observing the making of sweets. So it was really a learning experience to watch the techniques absorb the sensorial landscape. But as you know that many of the sweet shops also kind of the bulk of the productions happens in the night. And due to my own positionality as a woman, I did not get access to observe the workings of a sweet shop in the night. And. And this is where the sensory landscape become a cue to understand what was the production the night before. So. And when I went to Bangladesh, I kind of also realized that, you know, there is a range of cookbooks I did not have access to. And all of this, along with, apart from sweet shops in Bangladesh, I also studied the pita ghorst. Right. What are pita ghors? Pita ghors is a place which is dedicated to the making and selling of pitas. And when I was doing my fieldwork in December 2017 in Bangladesh, I still remember, you know, I was. I stayed in Asiatic Society guest house. And the first meal I had after a very delayed flight was bhapa Peter. And the first. And the first, you know, person who agreed to be interviewed in Bangladesh, you know, as per my field diary records, was a person who actually made a bhapa pita as a seasonal migrant laborer. Right. This also kind of allowed me to really understand that, you know, on one hand, you have. The commercial sweet making can be understood not only from the lens of the sweet shops, but also the street food vendors. And here, you know, in the context of Bangladesh, particularly the people who sell. People who choose to sell pithas in winters.
- [30:39]
B
Yeah. So now that we have sort of gone through the various areas you did the sources of your research and how you are mapping mishti, can we just briefly go into this food item, Mishti itself, and walk us through what categories of what categorizes mishti, especially in West Bengal and Bangladesh. And how is it different from, let's say, a dessert? Of course, conceptually they are very different, but in the material which. In which they are constructed, it's also very different. So could you just take us through how so that our listeners could have an understanding and differentiate it from a typical dessert which is consumed elsewhere.
- [31:29]
C
Mishti can be, first and foremost, it's very important to remember that, you know, mishti can be a meal in itself. Right. And the primary ingredient of mishti that we have, or we commonly associate it with this sweet making in Bengal has been milk and milk bases, also various grains, right. Particularly rice and various sorts of pulses and fruits. Now, if we really look at the commercial landscape of sweet making, the commercial landscape of sweet making has 3 milk base. 1 is the chana. Chana. What is chana? Chana is a coagulation of milk through separation of whey water. Right. By any acidic material and separation of whey water. And there is a long supply chain, you know, where particularly people from, people who own cows, they end up supplying this milk base to the sweet shop. So one goes the chana. Second is koia. Koia is desiccated milk. Right. And the third, which is very less talked about, and it is a technique now that has remained only in the hands of few households in Krishnagore Nodiya. And this is the only space where I have found women. Carrigas is the technique of making sure S a r. Now, what is a sour sure is a milk cream. Now, when you think of a milk cream, the listeners will think of a milk cream as something very soft, creamy. But unlike the milk cream that we are all familiar with, this milk cream is gently lifted, it is left to be dried, right? So it becomes a stiff layer of disk. And so chana khoya, as well as slightly thickened milk or kheer khoya and shaw. These are the four milk bases that are used in the commercial sweet shops in Pitta, which I just spoke in response to the previous question. Pita is made from primarily rice powder, right? It is associated with the harvest. And, you know, rice powder is mixed with various sorts of ingredients to give shape. Some could be steamed, some could be fried. And pitas are both sweet and savory, right? So. So in Bangladesh particularly, pitas are also, say, eaten with, you know, meat curries, egg curries. And in December 2017, I was very fortunate to attend this national pita, Utsha Binthaka, which had a fantastic array of, you know, pitas being served with duck meat to all sorts of meat and, you know, duck eggs, duck egg curry, which is a winter relish. At the same time, if you really look at the sweetening agent, so one, when the milk basis, if you really look at the sweetening agent, India, particularly the geography of India, as we all know from previous scholarship of, say, shahidame keti Acharya, you know, like, when you really look at this part of the geography, this part of the geography was also Michael Crondall's work. Sugarcane was, you know, sugarcane was widely available. So the, the actually, you know, and in the caste association newsletters clearly shows us that, you know, the Modak caste group actually own also many members of the Modak caste group owned the indigenous sugar mills before. Sugar is coming from other places, you know, before the white refined sugar that today we associate with, right? So sugar is a very important ingredient, right? Alongside sugar, we also have something called the date palm jaggery, which we take pride in, right? And this in, in Bangla, we call it the Nolan Gour. It is very seasonal, like right around autumn, you know, this and this gour has a very, very short season and it becomes one of the winter delicacies. These goes the. These are the ingredients used in the commercial landscape when it comes to the domestic sweets, you know, One of the most common domestic sweet is rice pudding or pais, which is made from a combination of again, boiling milk and added to that is rice. And depending on the seasons and availability of the sweetening agent, it is the sugar or it is the jaggery that is used, the seasonal jaggery that is used. So when I say mishti is a meal in itself, there are, you know, people who walk, walk into sweet shops and, you know, they consume a curd, right? And they eat, you know, two, three sweets and drink a glass of water and they walk out, right? So when you really look at mishti, this material in itself, the mishti, all these mishtis have different names, you know, and the naming of the mishti could be both a dedication to, you know, someone famous in a culture, or it could be based on ingredients, or it could be a metaphorical name in itself. So the materiality of mishti is that, you know, the chana, you know, if you really look at the commercial landscape, the chana is cooked with sugar. And then there are various wooden molds that are found. This wooden molds are clearly a reflection of how society's aestheticization of excess is changing, right? And the wooden molds could be shaped like a kernel of a palmyra fruit to. It could be shaped like a strawberry to a kiwi, to the head of a fish or the tail of a fish. And it could be many, many things, right? So when you walk into a sweet shop, right? When you walk into a sweet shop anywhere across Bengal, the listeners will be fascinated to see at least, at least a minimum of six to seven variety of sweets. And in the case of Chandranagar, where I did field work, at least during the time I was doing field work, there were at least close to 70 variety of sweets that were getting stocked up. The visual imagery that you get when you walk into a, most of the sweet shops are refrigerated, showcase with trays arranged, and the sweets are arranged like a pyramid in different colors and sizes. And the sugar syrup based sweets. So some sweets are dry, some sweets are soaked in sugar syrup, and some sweets are also sold in candied version. There is another space where sweet shops are sold, particularly the crystallized sugar sweets, right? Sweets like Batasha, Nakul, Dana. There is also a seasonal variety of sweets sold particularly during Holi, called malt, right? Many of these sweets are only made from sugar and it really shows the crystallized variety of sweets. So if you really look at the materiality of sweet, it is made from diverse ingredients. And depending on where it is getting produced, sold or exchanged. Exchanged I'm using for the domestic spaces. You really see a difference in the materiality of sweets. So many sweet shops in, in West Bengal as well as in Bangladesh, they actually, I have found very less amount of rice based sweets sold in the sweet shops itself.
- [39:24]
B
Right. So as you rightly, as you have pointed out that, you know, the materiality of sweets change and depending on the geographies as well. Now I would like to go in one of the central themes of this book, which is how caste and religious hierarchies influence the making of this suite. Because you have been talking about the tools and the instruments used in making these suites and the craftsmanship which goes behind it, where caste affiliations become such an integral part to the craft and the practice of sweet making itself. So for our listeners who are unfamiliar with the concept of caste, it's a entrenched social stratification system. And especially what you have pointed out is how a confectionary caste is sort of linked to the construction and the construction of values of sweet and sweet excesses. So could you walk us through how cast plays a role in, in West Bengal as well as the iterations which have, you know, traveled across the partition in, in a very different region of, of Bangladesh. Yeah.
- [40:42]
C
You know, the listeners will also let me and I discussed this extensively in the chapter four of the book Making Sweets. Right. Now you're absolutely right that you know, at the outset I must clarify that there has been a diversification of sweet businesses to other caste groups beyond the Modaks or the Moira caste. Right. But at the same time, if you really pay attention to the, if we really try want to understand how Modak or Moira plays a very, very important role. It is one of the 36 artisanal caste groups in the caste hierarchy of Bengal. But in Upar Bangla, when I went to Bangladesh, when I asked, you know, the secretary of the then Bangladesh Sweet Meat Manufacturers association, the traders association that, you know, are there Moira owned sweet shops? He said, who, who is a Moira? You know, and then I got to know the surname. The surname Ghosh is used interchangeably and loosely for communities who are traditionally associated with sweet making in Bangladesh. So, and at the, so what you clearly kind of see here is that. So in this particular chapter, Making Sweets, I divide the chapter into, you know, four parts that what it is to be a Moira. Right. Who is a Moira? And how does that shape the notion of sweet making? The second I go into the discussion of after, you know, like, because there are all the legendary sweets that we know, including, say, including, you know, the invention of say, roshagulla to, you know, doi to Lady Geni to any sort of a munohara shanti. All of these are associated with various legends of Moida at the same time. It is also important to remember, so I title it, you know, Ghoshes makes sweets. It is because of what I got to know in Bangladesh. And there is also. There is also a section of people, neither Ghosh nor the Moira, who are the pita sellers as well as it is very, very important to remember that in Ipar Bangla, you know, where I got to know or in West Bengal where I got to know of the caste group, only Moiras are associated with sweet making traditionally. What gets missed in this discussion is there's a seasonal sweet that we now get called moa, which has nothing to do with. Which has nothing to do with the place. And mua actually was, according to the GI application, could be credited to the craftsmanship of the schedule caste schedule tribes and other backward classes and mahish shows in Jay Nagore Mujilpur in South 24 Porgonas. Now, when you really look at this length and breadth of the sweet making and how caste plays a very important role, it is very important to remember that sweets are not only consumed only by humans, but sweets also play a very important part in various rituals. And therefore, I think this has been one of the. One needs to keep this in mind because the Modak Caste association newsletters constantly takes pride in the fact that they are producing a good which is offered during festivals to certain deities and all of that. Right? And this also informs that despite, you know, today you have, you know, if you really walk into a sweet shop, there's a sweet shop owner and there is a category of workers. There is workers who are hired who are actually working there like wage laborers. Right. So the sweet shop owner may have a tacit knowledge, but the sweet shop owner need not be making sweets. This is very important to remember. So he's clearly an artisan. He could be an artisan entrepreneur. He's just an entrepreneur himself. And the wage workers come from. People are hired across caste groups, but across caste groups. Of what kind of caste groups I have come across. I have mostly come across the caste groups associated with milk trading because the workers are hired through informal networks in both in Bangladesh as well as in West Bengal. Right. Who are the work. What are the workers referred to in West Bengal? In West Bengal Their workers are referred to as karigars. In Upar Bangla, the workers are referred to as ustads, like you and you. You what it is to be a ustad, you actually take 10 to 15 years to become an ustad. And you clearly kind of see that many a times, you know, and this particular conversation was, you know, quite important to understand this hierarchy of caste and religion that one of the sweet shop owners, you know, in Bangladesh actually said, mostly sweet, sweet making was confined to your people, of your communities. Let me find you a category you should speak, who will be able to tell you better. So the sameness of religion that is associated, the sameness of religion, sameness of lineage that gets associated with sweet making also kind of tells about how notions and perceptions of hierarchy ends up working. And I think this is where I have actually benefited from Balmulinatrajan's work, scholarship of culturization of caste. To really think through that, you know, how does caste operate, say in the context of a sweet shop in Bangladesh, you know, where, where the sweet shop owner is not pointing me towards a ghosh, but towards a Hindu worker as someone who knows the craft better. Whereas there is also a. Whereas, you know, the ustad may actually be a Muslim worker. Right. This also shows the way, the workings of caste and religion in a sweet shop.
- [47:13]
B
Right. So there is, as interestingly as you have pointed out, how caste plays a role even as a cultural maker and a place where it's not caste is not as entrenched as it would be in this side in West Bengal, but it still finds a meaning at the, in Swede shops. So quite interestingly, there's another aspect of the chapters which, which look at the work hierarchies, right. And you have also very, in a very detailed way, work spoken about the craft itself, the artisanal aspects, the use of tools, the use of technique, the understanding of smell and, and the understanding the, the importance of skill. So I sort of feel that there's. And you have also pointed out that there's a tension or a tussle between these ritualistic and the artisanal aspects of sweet making. So one that is shaped by the acquisition of skill. But still there are, but still caste operates within these, within the sweet shops. So how does this negotiation work in the current or the contemporary time, especially with the professionalization of sweet shops? As we, as we get to see it around?
- [48:30]
C
See, the professionalization of the sweet shops is there at one end, but at the same time, this is where one needs to remember that how are the workers hired. The workers are not hired, even though, you know, the workers are hired through very informal. I mean, it's really word of mouth, you know, that the workers are hired. Very recently, someone sent me a photograph of. Of an advertisement that he came across in a local station where it was written sweet. It was almost like an advertisement a contractor was putting out that workers are hired. But this is a very recent phenomenon. I think one month back, someone sent me. But when I did fieldwork from 2010 to 2018, all the workers I spoke to, they said that, you know, either they got to know of a position from the local chana supplier or their, you know, or they knew someone as a helper in some other sweet shop, right? And they. Then they got to know. So it's a word of mouth through which all the workers are hired. Now, when we think about this word of mouth and hiring of workers, particularly in a society like ours, where the kin networks are an extension also of, you know, kin networks are an extension of our caste ties, class ties and religious ties, right? As well as gender ties. Now, a question. I think this. This tension, you know, comes about is in the fact that many sweet shop owners, at least there was one sweet shop owners who. Who went on to record to say that, you know, I am not a moira, but I'm referred to as the moira, right? And so this also shows that despite the diversification of the profession of sweet making, beyond the moira or beyond the ghosh, there is both a mythic celebration of this ghosh and the moira, as well as a certain sort of a. I mean, people who are not from the moira backgrounds, they do not. They want to maintain a certain sort of a critical distance with this. With this caste baggage that this term carries, right? And this tension, you know, constantly gets worked out in how people represent themselves, right? So there are, you know, sweet shop owners with, say, sweet shops with 200, you know, claiming a lineage of 200 years, 100 years, and they actually take pride in the caste lineage, right? We belong to this family. We belong to this lineage, right? So much so. And I refer to in the book, there is a popular quiz show that. That is quite popular in. In Bengal where there was a special episode on sweet shop owners where, you know, very publicly endogamy is getting celebrated, right? And whereas on one hand, and there's a lot of debate on. There's a lot of excellent scholarship on caste in Bengal, particularly, you know, by Prashkunno's work or particularly, you know's, Work, you know, which clearly kind of shows that there has been a way in which we have Prushkurno's work or also there are. There's a lot of critical scholarship on the. That's emerging on the middle castes of Bengal that there's a need to study, you know, who are, who were this middle caste, who. Where this artisanal caste. What has happened to them right now? By the time, you know, I. By the time, you know, particularly this is when I was studying, you know, Cadbury Mishti, I came across that, you know, the, I thought the, you know, like the caste association newsletters I got hold of in 2010, 2012, you know, which were published in 1920s onwards. They were a thing of the past. And when I was interviewing actually a sweet shop owner, he. This was, this was when the Cadbury, when I was researching on the Cadbury Mishti and I told him that, you know, I had heard about the legendary Ashutosh Nag, he gave me a copy of Shamaj Bhartika and this where the Moduk association is still alive right now. Here I'm always. Every time I presented the book in Calcutta, I think a very well meaning conversation has generated that. What is the intent of the caste association newsletters in today's time? What, what is the content of these newsletters? These newsletters carry, you know, advertisements of matrimonial advertisements. They are declaring, you know, who are the, you know, who have secured a first position or a rank in the school living examinations. At the same time, these caste association newsletters were also very central to organize the Modak caste to when. When they went for a movement to claim other backward classes status. Right? So this also kind of tells you how caste association, how the need to study caste associations, particularly in craft based. Particularly in craft based production which had roots in. Which had roots in a certain kind of caste hierarchy.
- [54:19]
B
Right? So sort of skill, labor and hierarchies which are deeply rooted in a caste and religion sort of get enmeshed and that is how sweetness is produced in those intersections.
- [54:32]
C
Also the political claim making, also the political claim making of these categories, you know, like, like I really think, I mean this is one part I really want to acknowledge that, you know, I wish there was some discussion I had done in the book about, you know, how did the Modaks, you know, for instance, you know, there are Modaks who also do not own sweet shops, right. So it would be important to also, you know, map that because there are also the same way the diversification of the sweet business have happened beyond the modaks, beyond Hindu confectioners. It would be very interesting to actually for someone to study what do modaks who do not own sweet shops really feel about the sameness of caste and occupational collapse. That would really kind of bring out the culturization of caste that Balmundiri Natarajan talks about. And it is also important. This is very important because when we really think about craft commodity production in India, they're all rooted in some castes or in religion. Right. But there is a diversification that has also happened. So what happened after the diversification? What do people, you know, when people don't embrace that work of life, do they. Are they expected? Do they face? What are the experiences they face? You know, I think that it's important to also study this, particularly with the middle castes and artisanal castes.
- [56:05]
D
New year, new me. Cute, but how about New Year, new money? With Experian, you can actually take control of your finances. Check your FICO score, find ways to save and get matched with credit card offers giving you time to power through those New Year's goals. You know, you're gonna crush start the year off right. Download the Experian app based on FICO scoring model offers an approval not guaranteed. Eligibility requirements and terms apply subject to credit check, which may impact your credit scores. Offers not available in all states. See experian.com for details.
- [56:32]
C
Experian.
- [56:35]
B
Right. So it sort of brings us at this intersection where skill and diversification and sort of casts plays such an important role in, in, in the making of sweets. So just to go beyond this and look at the symbol, symbolic values of sweets as you have written, that sweets are not only, you know, edible items of pleasure, but also have an exchange value. So could you tell our listeners how does sweet get itself represented in this exchange? Well, of course, which is also very, very much rooted in the ritualistic framework that you talk about.
- [57:17]
C
It's rooted in the ritualistic framework, but it's also in the everyday life. Right. You know, for instance, one of the. Can you take a guess, you know, what would be the peak sales for sweet shops in Bangladesh? Any. Take a wild guess.
- [57:35]
B
If we follow the ritualistic calendar, then during the season of EID or any kind of celebration, religious celebrations, it's actually.
- [57:45]
C
On the day of school leaving examination results. Right, right. Makes sense. Right. And I think it makes sense, you know, because the. And also the Bengali New Year. Right? The Bengali New Year is one day. I mean, I hope someone gets to write about it because I couldn't do the fieldwork on exactly on the day of the Bengali New Year, because that's when our semesters are in full swing. But if. And here the one of the like across India, including West Bengal, one of the peak sales actually happened during Diwali. So much so now why exchanges as an idea is important. Like if you really look at one of the popular Cadbury advertisements, Kuch Meeta Hojai, right? Even Cadbury, the chocolate giant, couldn't ignore the E. Diwali. And, you know, this Kuch Mitha Hojai clearly is a sort of a signal to the popularity of sweets that exist or the way in which, you know, when we think about ritual exchange, we cannot think about the Mitha Mishti and all sorts of the traditional sweets that exist, right? So where. At the same time, you know, I think it's very important to also remember that there are festivities and rituals like say Bengali New Year or school living examinations or wedding celebrations. In both the wedding celebrations, there are quite a. There is sweet access like across faiths, be it in Hindu weddings or in Muslim weddings, right? So the topto, or the gift exchange between the grooms and the bride, families have this exchange, have this tradition of, you know, sweets which are embossed with the names of rituals. You know, that. That is one sort of an exchange, the other sort of a exchange, I think that sweet shops have now gotten in also exchange of taste and sweetening agents, like the Cadbury Mishti being one of them. There are, you know, a lot of synthetic fruit flavors are now there in the sweet shops as well as sugar substitutes have played a very, very important part. And all this exchange, you know, that we see is it's very important to remember there's also an exchange in the way in which, you know, sweet shops are also borrowing from the domestic rituals, right? You know, there are certain sweets that used to be only seasonally made in homes, but with a certain sort of a lifestyle that we have with a sort. With the changes in lifestyle, many of this homemade sweets are now entering the domain of sweet shops, right? You know, so sweet shops in West Bengal, they will have a dedicated section to certain pita patty shabta or certain pita, you know, only in the. During the harvest, which used to be once made at home. One of the important shifts that we see is also how restaurants have now started holding. You know, there is a. The. The restaurants selling Bengali food are also, you know, embracing the sweet landscape. And all of this exchanges clearly kind of contribute to the making of excess because no, no meal is Complete without a sweet, Right. At the same time, each of the sites of production are creating their own cultural registers of excess. Right. You know, so many of the restaurants, you know, they are. What are the sweets? You know, they don't necessarily always sell shandes in a restaurant, right? They will have various versions of doi, they will have various versions of pais. So a little bit from the commercial sweet, a little bit from the domestic space. At the same time, when you really look at the Cadbury Mishti campaign, it's a very interesting way that, you know, so before this, all sorts of fusion food was a marriage of techniques, you know, where in the commercial landscape, people were borrowing techniques from each other. But here an ingredient is being introduced to adapt to the technique. And it's a huge shift, you know, you see here. So, yeah, and so one of the. I think one of the primary exchanges that I talk about in the book is how sweets play a very important role in the gift exchange, right. So, you know, it is considered it. One of the suites are supposed to bring in good news, bad news, right? So there is a way in which sweets really inform an important part of the gift commodity exchange in the everyday social life in both the geographies, right.
- [63:05]
B
So, as in, sweets play an important role and have in the gift commodities. And as an exchange value, it sort of operates both at the sacred as well as at the profane land. So, yeah. So now to just shift slightly beyond the ritualistic and the labor values which we've spoken about now, I wanted to go what you call the standardizing value. And you're looking sweets through the lens of legal registers, both in terms of granting geographical indication to suites, and also in terms of the regulatory orders which we spoke about in the beginning. So can you talk us through, one by one, through the impact or the role of these legal registers which had offered first, of course, in the case of the regulatory orders, and how now we see a contradictory sense of when sweets or mishti was or the essential commodity which goes behind Mishti Chana was banned, and now it is not sort of. We have opened sweet shops in Covid times and there's a changing of meaning. So could you walk us through how the role of legal registers have played an important role in the construction of sweetness or this excess?
- [64:34]
C
See, I think the state has a very, very important. I mean, to study any. I mean, I should have said this at the first go. I really wanted to approach the making of Swiss as a biographical approach. Study it in its entirety, whatever possible, you know, during this nine years. So when you really study a biography of a mishti, a biography of a mishti would be incomplete without really looking at, you know, without really looking at not only the sites of production, what has contributed to its circulation. And here I think the question of particularly, because today when you walk into a sweet shop, it is no more the owner who is making the sweet or selling it, right? So you have the Karigalur, you have the sweet shop owner. There is a salesman who is working at the counter, right? So you have a whole array of actors who are responsible for the making of sweets. So when you really look at, you know, particularly sweets and what has been its relation and why was it important for me to bring in these two chapters, one which I call, you know, the authorship, you know, this is to do with the gi because if you would recall, there was quite a bit of exchange of words between. Between, you know, political leaders about, you know, who invented, who should get the GI of Roshagulla, right? Yes. You know, whether it's Orissa and whether. Or West Bengal. And there were constantly, when this debate was happening, people were approaching and I was like, well, you know, both the states will eventually get it because there's always a clause in the GI law which is homonymous gi, you know, if they're able to establish legal documentation. Now, if you really think about the passion with which this debate happened, almost as if GI is not the origin story. GI is about, you know, which place. GI is about, you know, the association of a produce to a place or establishment of that legacy of that produce with a place. But place is not devoid of people. And people migrate in our context, you know, there have been so much of migration, right? How do we know who is producing what? Right? And even with, with, particularly with the. I thought the chapter on GI is very important to really talk about, you know, today when you think about a suite, today when you really think about a suite, you go, we think that, okay, if you go to this sweet shop, you will get this sweet. So it has been replaced by the brand name, right? We have invisibilized the Kandgars, the owners. It's like, oh, go to Jalbara Shudjamudok. You will get a. You will get a good tasting Jalbara. Go to this particular sweets, you will get something. So we are remembering the name of the sweet shop right now. The remembrance of the name of the sweet shop or the branding of the sweet shop is also a sort of a shift, you know, that has happened. But at the same time, look at the paradox with which all the suite associations, suite business associations, they're rushing to actually apply for the gi. And how do we really understand geographical indication, particularly for craft based commodities? And this is where I really thought that there's this wonderful piece by Madhavi Sundar. And also there are some great works on craft based commodities and GI which kind of really force us to look at what is happening. Like how do we understand the artisan or who is the artisan once a commodity is getting this GI indication? This is where I really thought that it is important to engage with who is the author of Mishti, you know, or is the authorship completely dead? I will urge the readers to take a look at it and see if they agree with the thesis that I'm putting forth. Second, I really thought of adding this chapter, adding this chapter, you know, regulating Suites, which is chapter six of the book, particularly to bring forth certain points about, as you rightly point out, about standardizing value. When we really look at, when we really, really look at, you know, what happened in the 60s, this, two sort of control orders. This was also the time when India really did not achieve milk sufficiency. Right. There are various debates about who benefited from this milk sufficiency. You know, that's a, that's a different debate. But when you really look at this milk control orders, this milk control orders were happening in all the states, including West Bengal as well. Right. Where the sweet shops were thought to be the culprit. How did the sweet shops, what were the public debates that were taking place in the. Both the legal debates and the public debates. Right. I refer to extensively to this speech, you know, which was broadcasted in All India Radio where there was. And there was a great. The legal debate around it or the was particularly around the fact that, you know, the government is not understanding our culture. Right. So how do cultural tropes, you know, how do sweet shops use cultural tropes? How do sweet shops, you know, negotiate with those cultural tropes? And how do sweet shops, you know, have sweet shops also benefited from those cultural tropes? In trying in. In keeping with this shifting notions and cultural perceptions about sweetness. Right. So diabetic mishti is available. Yes. But at the same time, someone who is trying to offer or pick up a sweet to take to a local temple may not actually opt for that diabetic mishti. Then it could be, you know, something which is something which they have picked up as a habit. So how do you understand what makes, you know, people shift between these registers? How do people and how do sweet shops, you know, adjust to those registers?
- [71:24]
B
Yeah. Also could you a bit more elaborate on the points of identifying something as an essential and a non essential commodity, especially in terms of when the state is issuing this regulation or the regulatory orders and how it played an important role back then.
- [71:43]
C
See, I think it is very, very important to remember that when disorders are coming about, okay? It is. They were, you know, like the state was, you know, trying to also say that, you know, understand milk as an essential commodity. Right. So chana is made from milk. And so I discuss this in great detail in the section listing milk as an essential commodity. Right. So where I discussed that, you know, how the control orders listed milk as an essential commodity to ban sweets produced from milk derivatives, both chana and kheer. And we also need to remember that these orders were passed with the purpose of increasing the supply of milk. And what was the state saying? That the. That the sweet shops are diverting the milk supplies, which is an essential commodity for the mothers and the children. Right. So, so by the time, you know, so the first control order that got passed was West Bengal China suites Control Order 1965. And then the court actually kind of, you know, said that, you know, well, just by listing China based sweets, are you going to increase your milk supply? And, and the court actually kind of quashed the ban on the grounds that the state would not be able to milk the meet the deficit in milk supply just by a mere ban on chana products such as shandes. And the court was actually critical of the failure of the state to control the production of chana. Right. So look at the way in which the court is also coming down that, you know, that the court is also taking milk as an essential commodity. Right. So and at the same time the court is actually, you know, saying that you have to control the production of chana. And then came the second order of the government of West Bengal In November, on 18 November 1965, the West Bengal Milk Products Control Order, where, you know, again, there were repeated newspaper reports that were there around how much of liquid milk supply was available. Very animated code debates happened, you know, around this particular time. And, and what you clearly see here was that, you know, that constantly newspapers were reporting about how much of milk supply the state has managed to increase and how much deficit still remains. Now if you really look at this, both these bands, they are not saying sweets are bad, right? They are saying that we need to control the production of Sweets if we want to increase the supply of milk. And milk is an essential commodity. So milk is an essential commodity. Sugar is an essential commodity. So you clearly kind of see here that, you know, there was a. There was a way in which, you know, most of the debates that happened was actually around and neither the sweet shop owners were also debating that, you know, they. That about whether milk or sugar should not be treated as an essential commodity. This debate does not happen at all. Right. They just wanted that we do not stop tricking us as culprits for diverting your milk supplies. Right. That, you know, we are the. We are one of the main consumers. The debates that unfolded at that point in time clearly kind of shows that, you know, that. So the what? And particularly, you know, when I think this all in a radio speech that I refer to both in the book chapter, also in the article in Contributions to Indian Sociology, clearly kind of, you know, tells us that the way in which the sweet shop owners were actually defending themselves on the cultural logic that don't kill our culture, Right. And so don't kill our culture. Rather, you know, the debates that were taking place, he actually kind of. And even then, you know, Prafula Chandra Shen, the chief minister, he had to respond because let's also remember the sweet shop. Sweet shops, like the closure of the sweet shops actually led to, you know, if I'm remembering the figures, right, you know, led to a retrenchment actually of around 39,000 workers then who were working roughly in 8,000 sweet shops in Calcutta. Now, PC Sen, when he was addressing, he actually said that the sweet shops should actually focus on other savory items or dahi, which do not require chana. This became a bone of contention that, you know, how can we. How can we, you know, not make sweets where chana became all reduced to a cultural logic, Right?
- [77:23]
B
So what we get to see is that this. This standardizing value which you talk about gets sort of very intertwined with the ritualistic meaning and the artisanal values which we also spoke in the earlier. So sort of it translates both of these and then it produces a sort of a value which is which. Which again constructs the cultural registers of sweetness. Right?
- [77:50]
C
Yeah. So. So that's why I kind of say, propose that, you know, the excess is a combination of the standardizing value, ritual value, and like excess is produced at this cusp of standardizing value, ritual value and artisanal value.
- [78:05]
B
Yeah. Right. So in this episode, I was joined by Dr. Ishita De to discuss her book, Sweet Excesses which traces how sweetness has endured through its practices in everyday life and how it has survived in its coded sociality. Informed by, as she mentioned, the ritualistic meanings, artisanal labor, and standardizing value in West Bengal and Bangladesh, the book offers a rich insight into sweetness by providing a contextual and grounded, socially driven explanation as well as a rigorous analysis of the quintessential connection between Sweets and Bengalis. Dr. De it was a delightful conversation and I have learned a great deal from your book. Thank you for taking the time.
- [78:48]
C
Thank you so much for doing this interview.