I had avoided the Indian grocery store for as long as I possibly could. Cosmopolitan me having moved from New Delhi to suburban California had lots of different options for food, right?
"What do you want for dinner?" I asked the kids. "Pasta with white sauce," said the little one almost automatically, not looking up from her tablet. But somehow, that day, I knew she didn't quite mean it. She wanted more. She just didn't know how to say it. She wanted a taste of home.
On Eating 'Properly'
I remember taking a course in anthropology once that said in many cultures, people don't feel they have eaten 'properly' unless they have eaten their 'own' cuisine. Anyone who travels abroad for more than a week knows that day-seven feeling when the yummy breads and cheeses just won't do any more. But this was no holiday. It was now life, and I was feeling it.
My life, around 7,500 culinary miles away from India, was living proof of the anthropological theory. I, who had no shortage of Trader Joe's or Whole Foods or the far cheaper Vons, or the all-you-will-ever-need Costco nearby, was headed 25 miles away to an Indian grocery store in San Diego, like Dorothy to Oz.
Forty years ago, in the Bay Area, Amod Chopra's father knew the feeling. Only, he had nowhere to turn. So, he did something about it. Much to his wife's surprise, the white-collar worker became a grocery store owner. Indira Chopra, a professional with an entrepreneurial spirit had moved to California four decades ago for the opportunities that the United States offered. Those were aplenty. But what was missing was something else. That void would become a future business venture.
The Story Of Viks
"He missed not just the taste of home but the presence of people, a community where people mingled easily. To create interaction with people, that Indianness he was missing and to make life bearable for himself, he decided to open an Indian market. The store became an anchor for our community," says Amod, who now runs what his father started. Berkeley's Viks Chaat and Grocery, featured extensively in the local press, is packed full on weekends. Fulfilling cravings while restocking home pantries, Viks has long been serving an Indian community that is no monolith but a growing, diverse population of first-generation and second-generation diaspora, newcomers, expats, and their friends.
Indian grocery stores today are no longer small corner shops with essentials. They cater to a variety of regional cuisines and stay up to date with whatever colourful and tasty snacks or organic brands middle-class India is consuming, while also meeting very diaspora-specific needs, like precooked frozen rotis. Each store is usually known for something special.
Memories Aplenty
Aishwary Iyer is an entrepreneur who runs her own olive oil brand called Brightland, which has been featured in American lifestyle magazines. She doesn't have my experience of leaving India, but an Indian store still holds meaning for her. "Growing up, I accompanied my mom or dad to the Indian grocery store all the time - in Houston, we had one called Raj Grocers, and I used to love going there, especially to grab some Parle G biscuits and help select the perfect spicy pickle! As an adult, I find immense nostalgia and joy in visiting the local Indian store for groceries and goods; it reminds me of my family and my heritage."
"For me, growing up, it was a chance to go rent a Bollywood DVD while my mother shopped - that was the deal I had with her," says Srishti Prabha, a journalist who has written about how such stores play an important role for South Asian immigrants in terms of keeping in touch with their culture and identity.
"Food speaks a universal dialect," says Meghna Aggarwal, a chef instructor whose Indian cuisine cooking classes, called Crimson Kitchen, are filled with San Francisco locals curious about Indian food. "When I first moved here 23 years ago, I didn't know how to cook. Learning to cook my childhood food was for me a way to bond with local friends, by breaking bread together. It helped me create a community for those interested in the holistic aspects of Indian cuisine."
True Blue Indian
As for me and my girls, the gleaming bright aisles of the Indian store in San Diego delivered on the Oz-like promise. I was greeted by bright bags of Haldiram namkeen, glided past large well-lit rows of mega Maggi packets, my children fell over themselves when they saw their beloved Kurkure Puff-Corn again, and I almost cried when I saw Amul butter. The small packs of Amul, my salted yellow Amul, were for me a glimpse of home. I now realised why I had been avoiding the Indian grocery store. I had been homesick, and I was trying not to let my feelings show. Now, like the aroma that escapes the most tightly sealed MTR masala packs on the spices aisle, my bottled-up feelings no longer needed to hide. I was filling up my senses, and I could embrace my feelings.
The shopping basket grew heavy quickly and was replaced by a shopping cart. Makhana, tea, Cadbury chocolates, Kurkure, Lays chips, Gulab jamun, red rice, rajma, bhindi, baingan, even tindola and karela! It was classic Indian wedding buffet behaviour, but there was no going back. After all, we were stocking up to fulfil our cravings and feelings, and who knows how to measure those?
Back home, in our kitchen strewn with all things essential and not, we were ready to do some cooking. Indian food was back on the menu. It was like those Delhi days when my kids would crib a little over 'ghar ka khaana' (home-cooked food), but, deep down, felt satiated.
The anthropology case study perhaps smiled a little knowing that with daal, chawal and a dollop of store-bought ghee for dinner, little Radha had eaten 'properly' today.
Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author.