Team Manmarzi Dear Readers,
We often hear that simple, everyday life holds all the magic and chaos of the universe. With this in mind, we decided to explore the myriad colours of food in this issue of Manmarziyaan, through poetry, photographs, essays and so on. We received a range of submissions, from the joy of eating nachos and golgappas to the socio-political tensions embedded in the act of cooking, the memories of war that nettle soup evokes, and the delightful visual records of Old Delhi’s street food. Although our theme was titled ‘The Joy of Food’, the reader would find a healthy serving of its un-joyous aspects as well. The pieces convey that despite being a necessity for life and universal participation, the experience of food is, at the same time, highly subjective, multidimensional, and rooted in the socio-cultural and political mores of the time and place. We hope the stories we have gathered evoke hunger, memory, and nostalgia in the same measure as they did in us. Fresh cut, steamed, and spiced; acquired from reliable sources; may the words melt, their sounds strum, and the meanings complement your palette.
-Shikha Dwivedi, Vandana Likhmania
Feature Image source: Pexels