Rajeshwari Noyal, 46, arrived as a refugee on the shores of Rameswaram in Tamil Nadu from Sri Lanka in 1990, when the conflict between the LTTE and the Sri Lankan government was at its peak. The 14-year-old did not fully understand what was happening, except that all 11 members of her family would have to sail by boat to reach a safe zone. Other than their national ID cards and a few sets of clothes, her mother only packed around 15 maida rotis and sambol, a traditional side dish of Sri Lankan Tamil cuisine. The maida rotis were meant to stay fresh for at least four days. The sambol was prepared without coconut or tuna, its usual ingredients. But upon reaching Rameswaram, the family had to throw away all the food, because the high tide had made them soggy and inedible. Rajeshwari was so hungry she was even prepared to eat the soggy rotis. However, when they got off the boat, they were served upma by officers of the Indian coast guard. “That was the first time I ate it,” she says. She was so hungry she did not even register the taste.
And now, 34 years later, Rajeshwari lives in a refugee camp in Chennai’s Puzhal, and is one of the celebrated Sri Lankan refugee chefs there. She can cook Indian and Burmese delicacies, having learnt the latter from a Burmese colleague at a health centre in Chennai, where she used to work. Along with her neighbour Nilavani Kamleswaran, 50, she runs a small restaurant in the camp.
Plating the past: Paramanathan Ravichandran | R.G. Sastha
She and Nilavani are among the 50 or so chefs participating in the third edition of a refugee food festival organised by the UNHCR in Chennai from July 5 to 7. They will serve appam, masi (tuna) sambol and katta (spicy) sambol. The festival―Oorum Unavum (cities and food)―is aimed at improving the perception of refugees in their host country. Taking place at Annasalai in Chennai, it will feature the rich culinary traditions of Sri Lankan Tamils and Rohingya Muslims from Bangladesh and Myanmar.
“It is nice to bring people together around the question of immigration in a more positive way,” says Prema Rajani Devendram, 46, a Sri Lankan refugee from Jaffna who will prepare red rice idiyappam, sothi (a kind of watery gravy), coconut sambol, red rice puttu and chicken pirattal (another gravy) at the festival. Rajani, unlike Rajeshwari and Nilavani, is used to south Indian cuisine. She was first introduced to it in the 1980s by the personnel of the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF)―the military contingent sent from India to Sri Lanka to promote peace between the LTTE and the Sri Lankan government. Rajani’s house was close to the IPKF camp in Jaffna. “We used to get chapati and soup packets, millets like ragi, lentils and rice from the soldiers,” says Rajani, who now runs a food truck in Chennai. When she first landed at Rameswaram as a refugee in 1999, the Indian cuisine tasted just like the food prepared at home. “The coast guard gave us chapati and biscuits. The only difference was that this chapati was not hot like the ones served by the IPKF,” she says with a smile.
Rajeshwari Noyal | R.G. Sastha
Unlike the others, Paramanathan Ravichandran, 49, came to India from Sri Lanka on a tourist visa two years after the war in which he was badly hurt. He runs a Sri Lankan bakery in Chennai, which serves kothu roti, veg and chicken rolls, and types of triangular buns called kombuvan, sangilivan and fish van. He came to India after spending two years in the camps for the internally displaced in Sri Lanka, and started his business by selling rolls and tea at the Koyambedu market from 2am. Everyone there used to call him ‘Roll Ravi’. Later, in 2000, he registered with the refugee rehabilitation department and launched his own bakery with his savings.
While the Sri Lankan refugees can adapt to life in Tamil Nadu because of similar culture and language, it is much more difficult for the Rohingya Muslims like Thosalima Mohammed Yusuf, 28, who migrated from Bangladesh and has been living at a government-run camp in Chennai for the past 12 years. She says she is yet to adapt to Indian food and culture. There are over 18 families and 90 Rohingya Muslims living in the camp. “I am not particular about food, even when we have our own traditional cuisine,” she says in broken Hindi, adding that it does not matter when they do not have a country. Thosalima and her neighbour Shaji Begum, 22, will cook dhoofida (made with rice, coconut and jaggery) faasfida (a traditional vegetarian snack made with wheat flour, coconut and jaggery), lapasu (a salad prepared with green chilli, onion, cucumber, tomato and oil) and sana (another salad made with potato, onion, tomato and noodles). The two work as home chefs at the camp. “The men are mostly daily wage labourers. The women also go out to work sometimes. So we help them by taking orders from home,” says Thosalima.
She explains that Rohingya recipes mostly revolve around fish, vegetables, rice, milk and chilli. One of the mainstays is gura fira, a sweet rice pudding that is consumed in the morning before prayer and during religious festivals like Eid. But the most important Rohingya dish might be durus kura, a whole-fried chicken curry that is prepared on special occasions.
For Thosalima and the other refugee chefs, the food festival offers an opportunity to connect with other members of their community from across India. After all life, much like food, is meant to be shared.