Once again India’s season for prolonged fasting and feasting is almost upon us. Kashi, as the long famous land of epicures, beggars, thieves and learned affluent priests is among the top ten cities of ancient India for intertwining the cycles of ritual celebration and spiritual purification. Kashi is the ultimate holy city for believing Hindus. Religious identity and economic structure during the medieval period is closely reflected in a small book: Geervanpad Manjari, by one Varadraj (1600-1660), a grammarian by training and a disciple of the great scholar Bhattoji Dixit. Geervanpad Manjari is a recreation of local Banarasi life in the 17th century Varanasi written in the registers that ring with common folks’ language in Sanskrit. Varadraj’s work was followed by the treatise of one Dhundhiraj: Geervan Vang Manjari. Dhundhiraj, a man with a colourful bent of mind, while simplifying Varadraj’s tale elaborately describing the food and cooking processes for a formal feast for another scholar, gives the sedate ending a naughty twist. In the original, the guest blesses the householder and leaves. But Dhundhiraj adds a titillating bit about the host offering the revered scholar a night under his roof with his wife. It begins with a Maharashtrian Brahmin waking up and in an exchange laced with cuss words in the purest Sanskrit, ordering a presumably meek wife to hand him his bathing things so he can go bathe in Manikarnika Ghat. There is no lamp light in the house yet, but before he leaves the Brahmin shouts at his amazingly tolerant wife that this being a feast day, both she and her son must get busy early and invite all his relatives and hers for a big traditional feast. Next he turns to his late riser eight-year-old son angrily, asking him to hop out of bed and rush to the Chaukhamba market to shop for necessary ingredients. For the purchases he is to take out only two silver coins, no more, from a silver box within a wooden box hidden in the feminine quarters of the house under the charge of his mother. The list includes two and a half seers of ghee, white sugar and gram dal (lentil) for making Pooranpoly, a Maharashtrian delicacy made for all holy occasions. Among spices there is asafoetida, cumin, cloves, cinnamon, cardamoms. The son must visit next shop for picking up necessary pooja (prayer) things and proceed next to pick up a bag of purest wheat atta (flour), after ensuring it was ground in a clean stone grinder and had been sifted twice to remove any impurities. Then come the veggies. All kinds of seasonal fresh greens and several other vegetables to be purchased from a specific shop in Kal Bhairav area. Also needed would be various root vegetables, cucumbers, two kinds of green and yellow pumpkins, brinjals, kundaru (ivy gourd), parval (pointed gourd), karela (bitter gourd), raw bananas and banana flowers, jackfruit and colocasia leaves for making those crisp fritters folks liked to eat during the period. Last of all, plenty of tamarind, no tamarind, no feast. When the unnerved son asks how he is expected to remember so many ingredients, he is yelled at again to write it all down. He is literate, isn’t he? At the Ghat, the Brahmin invites the requisite number of non-begging Brahmins. Then to crown the list he looks for a well-spoken sadhu (priest) to add to his list of invitees. Even as a man who has renounced the world, he must have the purest lineage and scholarly credentials. He proceeds to a South Indian mutt being obviously a rich, laid back Kashi priest, yet he is awed by his hard-nosed and conservative counterparts from the South.Also read: The Creeping Israelification of the Hindu MindWhen he meets one such at the mutt, the encounter between the two begins with the Maharashtrian inviting the southern scholar to his humble home for a typical Banarasi Brahmin feast. But first he is closely questioned by the arrogant invitee to ensure he’d not be breaking laws of purity by accepting to eat with lesser mortals. The invitee questions the host’s caste, gotra, place of origin, address, ownership of the house in a language almost verging on rudeness. And the Sanyasin only shuts up after the wily Maharashtrian host invents a peculiarly long name: AlarshiyudhmkhajpurandargaruddhwajVajpeyi! Interestingly, there are witty asides in Dhundhiraj about the long names and surnames, the competing Bengali Brahmins. The southern Brahmins, according to the 17th century writer Venkatadhwari, generally frowned on by Brahmins of the north. In his tome on ideal universal behaviour, (Vishwagunadersh Champu) Dhundhiraj has two demi gods, Gandharvas lamenting the age of Kaliyuga where even in Kashi some Brahmins have turned liberal in that they meet and touch non Hindus and lower castes and do not practice untouchability the way it should be. Some even go outside town to have meat and alcoholic drinks with ‘friends’ on occasion. The grand Kashi Brahmin feast begins with guests being served chiwda (beaten rice) accompanied by buttermilk and salt served in a wooden bowl separately. Each invitee, after washing his hands and feet, was guided to a seat in a row and served a glass of drinking water to cool off. Next large leaf platters and seven bowls made with leaves were placed in front of each man. First course was sour and brackish, as per Ayurveda: pieces of sour mango, tamarind, lemons, bael fruit (wood apple), amla (gooseberry) and ginger. Next came lightly cooked vegetables, accompanied by fried chips of bitter gourd, deep fried brinjals, stuffed kachauris (deep-fried, spicy, and savory snack). Then there was a sweet course with sweet rice kheer (rice pudding) and cracked wheat, both cooked in milk.Also read: Politic | In the Name of Hinduism, the Scamming of a NationAfter that guests were served two papadums (a light, brittle flatbread) each that were fried in pure ghee. The last course was rice and dals. It began with curd rice, followed by rice with dal and ghee. There were side dishes made of dal: three types of vadas (deep-fried savoury snacks) made of black gram dal, green gram dal and gram dal. Then the sweets return. This time made of grains. Laddoos made of choorma (crumbly and sweet dish made from coarsely ground wheat flour, ghee and sugar or jaggery), puas (deep-fried pancake or fritter made by mixing sugar or jaggery), halwa (a popular dessert made with ghee, sugar and flour or carrot ot other ingredient) and anarasa (a sweet crisp fried cake made with rice, sesame seeds and sugar). Last come glasses of freshly boiled milk for the ordinary Brahmin guests. Care was taken to serve the Southern revered sanyasin (priest) only such food as was permitted by his sect. Before partaking the feast came the routine self purification when the guests cupped water in their palms and after sprinkling it all around, blessed the house and the host family. Meals were served only by the lady of the house and her children. The guests were repeatedly urged by the hosts to eat with love and unhurriedly. After the meal the guests had a wash up and moved to another room where they were offered fragrant banarasi pan with tooth picks, and cardamoms and cloves to freshen the mouth. Then each guest received a dakshina (fee or honorarium) in cash, and the whole family was summoned to meet the guests they had fed and receive their blessings. The swami (sanyasin) was treated specially in another place after others left, with a gift of clothes and sandalwood paste was applied to his upper torso. The Karnataki sanyasin says Dhundhiraj was greatly pleased and eyed the host’s wife asking meaningfully is she yours? Is she with child? So Dhundhiraj adds as a last gesture in generosity, the host offering the swami to spend a night with her in a clean fragrant room under his roof, as the ultimate gift of love and let’s drop that the offer was accepted.Thus the tale of a grand Kashi feast.Saakhi is a Sunday column from Mrinal Pande, in which she writes of what she sees and also participates in. That has been her burden to bear ever since she embarked on a life as a journalist, writer, editor, author and as chairperson of Prasar Bharti. Her journey of being a witness-participant continues.