My baby cousin at UCLA still hasn’t forgiven me for joining Facebook. His objection is not that I’m too old for it or that I lessen its “cool factor†with my elderly presence—he just hates the program and apparently I was the last person he knew and cared about, who was not on it. That had more to do with pragmatic causes than most anything else; I was happy on Friendster and consummately preferred it to MyAss or the more “globalâ€/Brazilian Orkut. I didn’t have time to maintain profiles on a plethora of time-sucks. And most relevant of all, I couldn’t be bothered to get an “alumni†email addy from either of the schools I managed to graduate from…and once upon a time, you needed such official stuff to participate in the Facebook-orgy.
Not anymore. And so a few of you began inviting me to join it and I pointedly ignored such requests…until one of you was Facebook-stalking a guy you thought was sooo cute.
“What’s his friendster link?â€, I asked.
“He’s not ON friendster…he’s only on Facebook!â€
“Well, then I can’t see him.â€
“But you just HAVE to see this one picture…I have a feeling you know his friend.â€
“You know how I’ve never been a bridesmaid?â€
“Yeah what does that have to do with anything??â€
“I’m signing up for this bullshit right now, so A) you best marry his ass and B) I best be in some sort of poufy outfit, twitching out of boredom on an altar in a year or three.â€
“Omg, whatever you want, just SIGN UP and so I did. But I didn’t bother uploading a pic or filling out my profile, not for a while. Then, I was asked to write something about social networking and I needed more information about FB, specifically a sense of how intuitive it was to use. I noticed, upon logging in, that I had been “poked†approximately 40 times. I also noticed that several of my far-flung friends were considerably more active and in touch on FB than they were on Fster. This puzzled me until I realized that they were destroying all of their free time defenestrating each other via “SuperPokeâ€, proving their music IQ via some guessing game which was far superior to the one on my iPod and playing Scrabble online via the hyper-addictive “Scrabulousâ€.
Well, I saw her Facebook…and now I’m a believer. I will happily eat the words which initially expressed indifference towards this program. The recent app explosion transformed FB for me, from a site to ignore to one which I am now constantly logged in to…which brings me to this post.
Now that I am spending a ton of time on there, my inner, dilettante-sociologist is hyper-stimulated. There’s so much to discover, like…
- How annoying today’s youths in high school are (incoherent and illiterate comments on group walls)
- How thousands of others also speak shitty Malayalam (via the Ende Malayalam Sucks group)
- How several of you first discovered SM! (via the SM Group, natch)
- How people are utilizing Web 2.0 to create support groups for Inter-desi relationships (!!!)
Here, read all about it. I’ll post the group’s “description” for you:
Aviyal Couples Type: Common Interest – Dating & RelationshipsDescription: This group (also a support group) is for all the desi people that are in a relationship (dating, engaged or married) where your partner is Indian but is from a different state in India or is from a different religion or caste. This type of relationship can’t be called interracial, so it can be called an ‘Aviyal Relationship’
For example: An Indian from Mumbai is in a relationship with an Indian from Bihar or an Indian from Tamil Nadu is in a relationship with an Indian from Kerala e.t.c or an Indian who is Hindu is in a relationship with an Indian who is a Christian or an Indian who is a Jain is in a relationship with an Indian who is a Brahmin e.t.c
* Aviyal – a south indian vegetable curry that has a mix of different vegetables. [Facebook]
I didn’t even realize there was a term for this situation—one I have been in for almost half of my dating life. While I tried valiantly to date Malayalee boys, “just to make it easier†on all 349 people who were potentially involved with such an alliance, I went to a college that had no Malayalee male undergrads and didn’t attend our local (read: more than 100 miles away) Syriac Orthodox church. I was far more likely to encounter Punjabi Sikh guys at U.C. Davis/Fresno/Modesto/Yuba City and predictably, that is what I often dated.
I had been making Aviyal all the way through college and I had been oblivious to it!
Whether by circumstance, i.e. being one of a handful of South Indians at a school dominated by Northies or by choice, i.e. just plain falling for someone, this is a cocktail we will see more and more of, no matter what our respective parents think of such emotional collisions. One of you, who comments regularly, is a Tamil married to a Punjabi; sometimes, the comments which inform me of this detail also contain other bits of information, which illustrate how challenging such a union is. I’m assuming both parties involved are probably Hindu, which makes things nominally easier, but when you add interreligious components to the conflict…sometimes, that is exactly what you get: conflict.
When one of the only Malayalee girls I grew up with got married about a decade ago (she was a bit older than us…because I remember that even her younger brother was two years older than me), it caused quite a stir, since she, a Namboodiri, had fallen in love with a Mallu Christian she had met at school. This was the source of much discussion and concern, as our parents pondered whether this was a harbinger of their own future disappointment.
Years later, I felt compassion for her, once I realized what the “odds†were like…it’s difficult enough finding a match who is Malayalee, finding one who is Mallu and of the same faith narrows the pool considerably—especially when you take caste or in the case of Christianity, multiple denominations in to account. It may seem counterintuitive, since Kerala’s Christians comprise a disproportionate share of Malayalee Americans, but yes, it’s hard to find a suitable boy. My father never forgave the Catholic church for what they did in the 17th century, so the thought of me marrying one was inconceivable. MarThomites were out because they were anti-feminist-Mary-haters who shamelessly chose not to revere the dead. 😉
We were fiercely Orthodox and unlike many Malayalee couples, both of my parents were Orthodox; my mother didn’t “convert†to marry him. So for me, Orthodox it would have to be.
Do you have any idea how many single Orthodox Malayalee boys there are in America, who are over the age of 32?
Approximately two.
I have a Sikh friend who is a few years older than me, who is also single, because he’s rather Orthodox himself, and most Sikh girls he encounters want someone sans beard and turban. One of you posted a NYT Vows link recently, all because the groom was Muslim and the bride was Hindu and yes, I’ll admit my non-existent eyebrows rose heavenwards upon reading it, because that’s what I’m conditioned to do. We are marinating in aviyal, whether we know it or not (pass me the drumsticks, btw…and keep the arbi to your damned self).
I’ll probably end up in an “aviyalâ€-marriage of my own, so I confess that I’m partially motivated to explore this aspect of growing up in the diaspora, out of self-interest. But I also remember a certain thread where it was brought up quite a few times, so I know it’s on your mind, too, along with potheads on celluloid and Shah Rukh Khan-endorsed colorism. If you have your own thoughts to add about aviyal, sambar or rasam relationships, speak.
There are many mutinies within which we can participate; the struggles associated with dating “outside†of the precise group we were born in to, perhaps more than any other uprising, often involve the most upheaval and anguish, even if one’s intended is also a shade of Sepia.
MMMM, puri and shreekand better known as a Gujurati-Diabetes-Cuasing-Heart-Attack-Inducing-Favorite
I heart puri… plus it’s one of my nicknames 😛
@chachaji:
Many restaurants in Tamil Nadu often offer a “parotta” with kurma, such as one made in this video: is this the same as “paratha”?
82- more mirchi- did parents on either side attend the interreligious marriage?
Gill Adarsh? Royapettah?
pingpong: Parotta is layered, while paratha is just flat. And I guess Parotta is made out of maida, while I think parathas are made from wheat flour.
I have a confession to make: on a steamy, cicada-song-filled night in the hinterlands, I was seduced by a delightfully greasy, flat, and suspiciously fair maiden–she called herself, “dhokla.”
I haven’t told Idli yet–i tremble at the very thought.
What do you do to make phulka softer and easier to tear? Make it puff on a flame? Or are the ingredients different?
The South Indians who don’t call a paratha a chapati call it parota
Is roti a generic name for phulka, nan, chapati, parata etc.? A generic name for phulka and chapati only?
Pingpong: Branch school (opposite Swagath) till the 2nd and later the CBSE branch in Malony Road till I finished in ’96. Why? You from Adarsh too? If so, small world!
Dhokla comes over to Idli’s apartment.
D: Idli, I’m so dreadfully sorry for all the trouble I’ve caused. I: No, I’M sorry! I should have known. D: There was nothing to know! MM just gazed at me that moonlit night, like a moonlit knight. I: That steamy night? D: And it wasn’t my fault! I swear! I got all steamed up. And he nibbled on me so delicately I: You’re getting me steamed up. D: Why don’t we both steam things up?
Bow chika bow bow.
No, not me. Former roommate of mine studied at Adarsh Royapettah for 2 years, I think his 7th & 8th. Not as small a world, but this is the Desi Mafia anyway!
what up?
Phulkas are basically small, thin rotis, same atta but they blister into two thin layers on a flame. Avial note: My Panju husband has no appreciation for them, preferring his mom’s big ole greasy parathas.
Bingo!
It’s generic, in the sense of bread in ‘Give us this day our daily bread’. (‘roti, kapda aur makaan’). 🙂
We can have the SM meetup as one of the pre-wedding functions somewhere in between the Mehndi, the Lady Sangeet, etc. One condition: It’s got to be a cuddle party. I just want to spread the love.
Don’t we all?
Btw, I am such a foodie, and all this talk of Southie food (my knowledge of which is severely limited) makes me really want to bother my Southie friends for more knowledge (and examples). I’m having such fun trying to say “thayir saadham” and “maanga thokku” – I can’t imagine how much more fun I’ll have actually eating them one day. I heart you SM!
I don’t understand the whole (I/Iyer/Iyengar) Banker fad! Bah! Are we project managers second class citizens?
Haha nice reading, hmm.. Aviyal I was more familiar with the term pan Indian couples.
I am product of malayalee Syrian christian father and goan catholic mother , no complains been good so far.
Growing up I have come contact with other “aviyal†products, I must say a lot of us end up take hindi in school or later in college, weird.
The general idea is right, but the specific technique in the video seems too overly stylized compared to the canonical Punjabi technique – where the dough is flattened once, oiled, and then folded in half, and then in half again before being flattened and roasted. Of course, the fillings come in when it is first flattened. I guess there is some difference between the ‘parota’ and the ‘paratha’ after all!
That leaves us s/w guys with no place to go!
my mother has never made this for ugadhi or varsha pirappu, prob. because neem flowers are not available easily. or maybe it’s just that my mom wasn’t properly ‘trained’ efore she left for the states – i think we’ve missed out on a lot growing up here b/c of that. that’s why i make all my aunts make specific dishes when i go back to madras 🙂
.did not think it was possible, but this is far worse than the ketchup-sour cream dosa. i actually feel a bit nauseous 🙁
! i don’t know – parothas are different than parathas – they’re not only layered, but circularly so – like they made a swirl with the dough. from what i know, the parothas they serve with kurma in southern (at least TN) dhabas are different than the paratha.
fuerza dulce – you should have south indian food at the SM meetup/party! seriously, i feel bad that all people usually know about south indian food is idli dosa – that’s nowhere near what i think of when i think of my favourite dishes – or what we eat with the most frequency.
Yes. Love the way you used ‘blister’. Was struggling for a word to describe the process myself! But you can get the same effect even on a tava if you press the flatbread while it’s roasting, in certain strategic ways.
maxdavinci: I hear thy pain, bro. I just escaped from that whole s/w thingy by exercising my choice when I had the opportunity. Now I am in a better place, but these I-Bankers, they seem to have it all! Bah!
Based on my experience – (assuming you are not living in the large metropolitan areas ) If everything works out wrt to all desi issues like food/religion/caste/how u are going to raise kids/language etc. etc… finally the most basic make or break question (in the modern age of both working spouses and when both are in the initial steps of establishing one’s career) is – can you get a job at a common place or are you ready for long distance/communting relationship ?
pravin – i once had a small dinner party and made only desi food for my non-desi friends. i decided to eat with my hands and my friend found it really fascinating; i also realised how much of a skill it is to do it relatively neatly. when we were growing up, my dad forbade us to eat with our hands – only forks, and until recently, he actually ate his dosa with a fork, as well. i don’t mind eating desi food with a fork, but if it’s something like thayir sadham or sale and rice, i don’t feel like i really taste the food unless i eat with my hands, despite my father’s looks of disapproval 🙂
pingpong @ 119 & 187 – love the ice-cream and gongura pickle combination!! Very kicked to find I’m not the only one!! The ice-cream must be vanilla though, no other flavors work. And yes, I’ve had biscuits with pickle, although, my choice was Parle-G, not Marie.
Heh, I was in a “super aviyal” relationship once…I am from Uttaranchal (which is now called Uttarakand, but it doesn’t matter, I get blank looks anyway when people ask me where I’m from), and he was from the Palakkad in Kerela. His mother was a very scary lady…she was concerned that her son would forget how to speak Tamil (or forget about his culture and heritage entirely) if he stayed with me. It didn’t last long after that. People who are from states bordering Nepal are too North Indian, it seems (and I tried learning Tamil too!). Ah well.
Word. This is exactly my issue. I know there’s more to Southie food than idli and dosa (which, sidenote, my mom makes from scratch beautifully) – but dammit, even the South Indian places to eat around here don’t have much more than that to offer. They have like 7982348972394 versions of dosas and uthapam, and then some random veg Punjabi dish.
Well, it doesn’t handle well with chocolate or butterscotch, but pista works out as well as vanilla. Strawberry is a no-no, as are any fruit flavors. Nuts without fruits were fine in general, when combined with gongura pickle. Also, don’t mix the two up into an unholy mess. Take a little of the pickle, fill the rest of the spoon with ice cream, close your eyes, slide it onto your tongue, and pause while the ice cream melts. Repeat. Vary the ice cream/pickle ratio for excitement.
Fusion cuisine discussions on a thread that uses culinary metaphors for fusion relationships? Ah, self-referential bliss…
I’ve also made some dishes from Mahanandi blog (excellent site, btw), though yet to try my hand at kootu or poriyal. I did buy a book called “Dakshin.”
Are desis without MBAs treated as social outcasts?
Sticking to the topic, my friend has a fetish for rasagulla and ooragai!
Most of my family (brother+ extended family), but not mom and dad. Its bengali+maharashtrian+gujarati+U.P (uttaranchal, actually). Me?, not avial, but cocktail.
Assuming you are not from large metropolitan areas and you have resolved all the desi issues like food/religion/culture/language/custom/caste and etc. etc., in this modern age when both persons are working and are in their initial steps of establishing their career the final most basic make or break question is – can you move to my place and if not are you ready for long-distance/commuting relationship ? If you are both live in the same or closeby place the desis issues probably take precedence.
226 makes a very good point. There really is more to Southern Indian cuisine than just dosai, idli, rasam, sambar, coconut chetney etc. The usual standard fare which you find in southern Indian eateries.
As I stated earlier in some of my comments, I am of Andra origin and the southern food I had at home often bore no resemblance to the stuff served in Northern or Southern Indian restaurants. For example, where are the akki rotis or pesaratus (a sort of mung dal dosa?) Or for that matter, where is my beloved gonkura pickles???
Someone or some restaurant has to start serving food that isn’t drowning in vats of oil or a mountain of salt or over spiced. In lots of restaurants (not just Indian), grease is the word.
hmm, while I wont call my family thhet Panjabi, we are quite Northie and I was always taught to use just one hand for breaking the phulkas, making a kava and then picking up either the dry veg or the curry/daal with it. Thus only the fingers of your dominant hand touch the phulka and nothing else. Of course chhole/rajma which have volume and are in curry form are most difficult to eat without getting your fingers touched by the curry,
Gosh… even the avial post has broken out into a paneer-popping scythian-north vs. drumstick-saambaar lemurian-south dialogue.
helpfully stirs the avial pot
It is perfect that we have a name for this now. Although, my mother is likely to wrinkle her matrician nose and declaim — what is this avial nonsense beta? It is like khichuri? I doubt many people in the larger cities in India are in non-avial relationships. Not to mention browns that are down with some more brown in the US. It is hard enough finding the right one with the right goals, aspirations, values, hotness and sense of humor without getting into the whole “which village does your grandpa come from” complication.
On a related note, what would a Pakistani-avial relationship be like? Pathan vs. Punjabi vs. Sindhi? I know for sure that Bong gentlefolk in Dhaka before the partition did not like their sons marrying girls from say Sylhet (my greatgrandma, bless her soul, laid down the law of the land regarding one of her sons way back in the day). How is the scene like now? How about in Sri Lanka?
There are a few Lemurian specialties which do not show up in avial (Singhala-Tamil) SL households but for the most part, SL cuisine is very much shared across language, religion and whatever other differences may exist. But remember people, there are like 2 degrees of separation in SL. We are one big tropical pot of aviyal, having taken our pick of the culinary riches of south india, north india, england, Indonesia and more!
ak, that line reminds me of Hostel where the Dutch businessman perv says the same thing.
MM, is there sufficient variety of vegetarian food? An American friend of mine who is a vegetarian lived in Colombo for almost a year (Fulbright) and he was lamenting the lack of healthy vegetarian food options. I haven’t been to SL, so don’t know if that’s true or not, and actually I was surprised to hear that as I was under the impression that SL food would probably be similar to what’s found in southern India. He’s also a finicky eater who likes to eat healthy (not oily/fried food), so that could’ve been a reason.
cute post – i guess we would be considered avial as well. me-guju patel with hubby-tam brahm. surprisingly, we have had no problems with the state/language differences being abd’s. and the parents are so polite to each other because they have to speak english to one another. his mom had an issue with me being vegetarian (i would starve her carnivore son), but he has adapted and is also vegetarian (because he loves me so). we just assume that our generation would be avial (something else married to a guju) since there are so many gujus and not many other states represented in chicago. most non-gujus seem to marry gujus. the older generation is very used to it and even brag about their tamil/punjabi/sri lankan/sindhi son/daughter in-laws. it’s really a cute phenomenon.
my baby girl is learning guju as her first language with a spattering of tamil because i want her to be bilingual. hubby is even learning guju. but she looks exactly like her daddy (weak guju genes!), except for my large guju nose – but still very cute. 🙂 i doubt anyone will even bat an eye while my daughter grows up, as she will just be generically indian-american. and anna, what is up with the no eyebrows thing?! my baby has none as well! here i thought she would be full of hair like her mommy, and yet, she was semi-bald with light brown hair (and her hair is still not growing!). is it a southie thing?
as for foods, as an abd, i am pretty much just learning to cook all our favorite indian dishes, north and south. i LOVE avial, and he LOVES khichdi. as for breaking bread, i have never seen any gujus do it two-handed – a strict no-no!
hmmm… i’m kind of confused. is an aviyal relationship only when a northie and a southie are together? or can it be like, a guju and a punjabi in a relationship as well?
my family is sindhi, and there’s so few of us where we live, that it’s kind of understood that we’ll most likely wind up marrying someone who is not sindhi. some of my cousins have married gujus and punjabis. and a good friend has gotten married to someone who’s telgu.
Panakkam! what did I win ?
Yay! I knew I couldn’t be the only one who had tried this !!
Nothing, you’re a DBD Tamilian! For the rest of us, you might want to add that it’s a drink with a water base, and all the ingredients are ground together and then boiled, then the leaves are filtered out etc so you can drink it smoothly. At least, if it’s the thing I’m thinking it is…
Thank God I can now come out of the closet and claim my Scrabulous addiction. Who knew?
I don’t think there are many vegetarians in SL, which might explain why veg food is less prevalent there. From a strict vegetarian standpoint, it might be hard to come by a dish with absolutely no animal products because SLankans use a condiment called “Maldive Fish”, sprats in almost everything. If you get past that, there is much to write home about a good cashew curry or vambottu pahi. Murali?
Nala,
I guess eating styles depend on what you are exposed to. In Morocco, I learned to eat with my hands (well, the right one, anyway) in some places, with a spoon in others. So when I make couscous or tajine, I use a spoon, bastilla, I use my hands. and sometimes, with couscous or tajine, I use the bread (hobs)to eat it. Doesn’t bother me to see either way- and, must say, have trouble imagining eating spaghetti without a spoon but most Americans look confused! But hey, in my house, babo (Dad) serves us spaghetti that way!
And if you have been to an Ethiopian restaurant, injera (bread) is eaten just like roti, and much of it is finger food. Yum! They even have an appetizer named sambusa that looks a lot like Indian samosa, but with different filling. Trade links?
Sambusa is amazing! Morocco has something similar called breyouat. Amit, did you want some links to Moroccan food? Id you are relatively patient, it’s easy to make. E-mail me off list, if you want.
Sambusa/samosa is Turkic or Persian rather than Indian in origin. I’ve always thought Injera is more like dosa than N. Indian breads. Ancient Tamils sailed to ports like Berenike where Ethiopians/Egyptians/Romans/Indians came to trade, I guess if they were not invented independently the influence could have gone in either direction
louiecypher, you are correct that injera is like dosa as it requires fermenting, but it is eaten like a roti. I was talking to a Turkish cook and he mentioned some dishes that made me go “we have something very similar too.” I haven’t done much research into the origin and direction these culinary dishes took, but I’m sure there are books that deal with it. It’s good to be reminded that certain dishes could have come from other countries and adapted by Indians (jalebi) rather than the other way round. It was probably a two-way traffic.
The Turkic tribes spread kofta, pullao, and halwa from Greece to India. It would be interesting to see what Indian food was like before 800 A.D.
What ? So now that’s a handicap here like in golf? 🙂