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We never had tea in our South Indian households in our childhood. Like RKN, we were raised on coffee from the age of 3 when competition started arriving for mother's milk.
There was good reason for this. Coffee was cheap to make from the seeds of Nilgiris bought from the shops. Just roast them and grind them in specially made hand-grinders with which every home was equipped...or neighbor's. Indeed coffee was very affordable till its prices doubled and trebled all of a sudden in the late 1980s due to globalization.
And milk was just not available. The white revolution was 4 decades away. Buffaloes were few and far between. And cows were famished due to the famines that the British imposed on their colonial subjects:
...wiki
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...That was a huge unplanned digression...but I was born in the midst of the Bengal famine of 1943 and I had heard accounts of it from my Guru, SDM:
"I saw poor villagers arrived in Calcutta's streets dying like flies...they didn't have the energy to even steal from hoarders"
So, milk was costlier than coffee each tumbler of which needed no more than a couple of spoons of heavily diluted milk which couldn't be stored...no fridges, no electricity.
All restaurants in Vizagh in my university years were Coffee Hotels. No tea, except in a Muslim outlet which served Malai Chai...slips of cream floating on tea... it was an ordeal to dip our fingers into the cup and try and pick them up and not knowing what to do with the dregs...we never visited the site again.
And when I arrived at KGP in 1965, there was no coffee available for love or money...it was tea and more tea...and it was watery, sweet and pungent. It took two years for me to adjust to it...with solid support from Wills Flakes.
And nowadays I can't live without my morning cup of tea...I try and avoid all coffee that is made from the Instant Stuff which RKN would have cursed heartily. And one of the attractions of a visit to my friend NP's place here is the Filter Coffee which I get there...auld lang syne...
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We never had tea in our South Indian households in our childhood. Like RKN, we were raised on coffee from the age of 3 when competition started arriving for mother's milk.
There was good reason for this. Coffee was cheap to make from the seeds of Nilgiris bought from the shops. Just roast them and grind them in specially made hand-grinders with which every home was equipped...or neighbor's. Indeed coffee was very affordable till its prices doubled and trebled all of a sudden in the late 1980s due to globalization.
And milk was just not available. The white revolution was 4 decades away. Buffaloes were few and far between. And cows were famished due to the famines that the British imposed on their colonial subjects:
| Chronological list of famines in India between 1765 and 1947[1] | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Name of famine (if any) | British territory | Indian kingdoms/Princely states | Mortality |
| 1769–70 | Great Bengal Famine | Bihar, Northern and Central Bengal | 10 million[2] (about one third of the then population of Bengal).[3] Disputed as excessive.[citation needed] | |
| 1782–83 | Madras city and surrounding areas | Kingdom of Mysore | See below. | |
| 1783–84 | Chalisa famine | Delhi, Western Oudh, Eastern Punjab region, Rajputana, and Kashmir | Severe famine. Large areas were depopulated. Up to 11 million people may have died during the years 1782–84.[4] | |
| 1791–92 | Doji bara famine or Skull famine | Hyderabad, Southern Maratha country, Deccan, Gujarat, and Marwar | One of the most severe famines known. People died in such numbers that they could not be cremated or buried. It is thought that 11 million people may have died during the years 1788–94.[5] | |
| 1837–38 | Agra famine of 1837–38 | Central Doab and trans-Jumna districts of the North-Western Provinces (later Agra Province), including Delhi and Hissar | 800,000.[6] | |
| 1860–61 | Upper Doab famine of 1860–61 | Upper Doab of Agra; Delhi and Hissar divisions of the Punjab | Eastern Rajputana | 2 million.[6] |
| 1865–67 | Orissa famine of 1866 | Orissa (also 1867) and Bihar; Bellary and Ganjam districts of Madras | 1 million (814,469 in Orissa, 135,676 in Bihar and 10,898 in Ganjam)[7] | |
| 1868–70 | Rajputana famine of 1869 | Ajmer, Western Agra, Eastern Punjab | Rajputana | 1.5 million (mostly in the princely states of Rajputana)[8] |
| 1873–74 | Bihar famine of 1873–74 | Bihar | An extensive relief effort was organized by the Bengal government. There were little to none significant mortalities during the famine.[9] | |
| 1876–78 | Great Famine of 1876–78 (also Southern India famine of 1876–78) | Madras and Bombay | Mysore and Hyderabad | 5.5 million in British territory.[6] Mortality unknown for princely states. Total famine mortality estimates vary from 6.1 to 10.3 million.[10] |
| 1888–89 | Ganjam, Orissa and North Bihar | 150,000 deaths in Ganjam. Deaths were due to starvation as famine relief was not provided in time.[11] | ||
| 1896–97 | Indian famine of 1896–97 | Madras, Bombay Deccan, Bengal, United Provinces, Central Provinces | Northern and eastern Rajputana, parts of Central India and Hyderabad | 5 million in British territory.[6] |
| 1899–1900 | Indian famine of 1899–1900 | Bombay, Central Provinces, Berar, Ajmer | Hyderabad, Rajputana, Central India, Baroda, Kathiawar, Cutch, | 1 million (in British territories).[6] Mortality unknown for princely states. |
| 1905–06 | Bombay | Bundelkhand | 235,062 in Bombay (of which 28,369 attributed to Cholera). Mortality unknown for Bundelkhand.[12] | |
| 1943–44 | Bengal famine of 1943 | Bengal | 1.5 million from starvation; 3.5 million including deaths from epidemics.[12] | |
...(Amartya) Sen's interest in famine stemmed from personal experience. As a nine-year-old boy, he witnessed the Bengal famine of 1943,
in which three million people perished. This staggering loss of life
was unnecessary, Sen later concluded. He presents data that there was an
adequate food supply in Bengal at the time, but particular groups of
people including rural landless labourers and urban service providers
like haircutters did not have the monetary means to acquire food as its
price rose rapidly due to factors that include British military
acquisition, panic buying, hoarding, and price gouging, all connected to the war in the region...
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
...That was a huge unplanned digression...but I was born in the midst of the Bengal famine of 1943 and I had heard accounts of it from my Guru, SDM:
"I saw poor villagers arrived in Calcutta's streets dying like flies...they didn't have the energy to even steal from hoarders"
So, milk was costlier than coffee each tumbler of which needed no more than a couple of spoons of heavily diluted milk which couldn't be stored...no fridges, no electricity.
All restaurants in Vizagh in my university years were Coffee Hotels. No tea, except in a Muslim outlet which served Malai Chai...slips of cream floating on tea... it was an ordeal to dip our fingers into the cup and try and pick them up and not knowing what to do with the dregs...we never visited the site again.
And when I arrived at KGP in 1965, there was no coffee available for love or money...it was tea and more tea...and it was watery, sweet and pungent. It took two years for me to adjust to it...with solid support from Wills Flakes.
And nowadays I can't live without my morning cup of tea...I try and avoid all coffee that is made from the Instant Stuff which RKN would have cursed heartily. And one of the attractions of a visit to my friend NP's place here is the Filter Coffee which I get there...auld lang syne...
And biscuits...we never had any in our childhood. We tried one or two and hated them. The only biscuits available were the war-variety Britannia stuff. But every household had a couple of vast empty tins of Britannia biscuits. They were sold in the Santapet area of Nellore famous for its tinsmiths...the empties were bought and equipped with latches for closing them airtight. These were used for storing rice and cooking oil. But the tinsmiths never bothered to smooth the rough inner edges at the top, and so we had cuts in our tender hands while trying to retrieve a glass or two of rice from within as commanded by mom.
The first biscuits I tasted were in the Faculty Hostel at IIT KGP. And didn't like them. Still don't.
When I joined IIT KGP in 1965 there were occasional Faculty Meetings. One of the attractions of these was that our HoD, Prof HNB, was generous and we were fed rosogollas and singaras (samose) to douse the fires in our hearts. And then on the Meeting would go smoothly.
But such sweetmeats were officially banned sometime in the late 1980s when the GoI became bankrupt and had to pledge its gold in the World Bank (or is it IMF?). There was a circular, it seems, from the very top that nothing more than a cup of tea and two thin biscuits can be served in any official meeting.
That was when many of us started cutting the Faculty Meetings...to the enormous relief of our HoDs...a case when it is 'the less the merrier'.
I hear that nowadays that the frequency of the Faculty Meetings has gone down...maybe they went online.
But there was this instance of our Bigg Boss who once arrived from his class and started abusing, attacking, sneering at, and misbehaving with any visitor who happened to be in his office then.
It turned out that his Secretary had got busy chatting on his official phone with his wife and forgot to fetch his Boss his default cup of tea and couple of thin biscuits...
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