The Gujju guide to being economical and ecological

INDIA IS MY COUNTRY and all Indians are my brothers and sisters―all Indians are familiar with this oath taken in schools. But only in Gujarat, it is taken seriously. For, all Gujarati men and women have their names suffixed with bhai (brother) and ben (sister), respectively. At times, even couples―married or otherwise―call each other bhai and ben!

We have a funny bone and know how to take a joke. We do not take much offense at the exaggerated and stereotypical portrayal in Hindi movies or serials; we just laugh at it. In mainstream Gujarati plays and movies, comedy is considered a safe and sure-shot formula.

We also know how to laugh at ourselves. Popular humorist Sairam Dave made a cracking observation: “We are a community that doesn’t want heaven or hell after death. We just want the contract for a shop on the road connecting both! We are such a funny bunch that we always toast the soft bread and soften the hard toast by soaking it in hot tea or coffee!”

We enjoy the sweet things in life, so much so that we tend to add it even when it is not usually required. Once a friend, a non-Gujarati, came home for lunch. He avoided having the dal, and when asked, said, “Dal? I thought it was dessert!”Be it dal or sambar, a dash of sugar is a must for us. But we do love spicy food, too. A favourite Gujarati snack is ganthiya, perhaps the only dish that can be had with extremely hot chilli or sweets like laddu or jalebi. That’s how Gujaratis are―sweet and spicy at the same time.

Food is visibly an obsession for Gujaratis. Perhaps we think that one must eat with passion and that getting fat is a sign of getting wealth. Anyway, during the last rites, the weight of our corpses will be borne by someone else! At our weddings and in restaurants, we will go looking for Punjabi or Italian food or for that matter any other cuisine, but when in Punjab or Italy, we will scour the place for Gujarati food. Ironical? Maybe. Economical? Absolutely, especially if it involves foreign currency.

And, it is not just about money; we even reuse juice bottles. We get the most out of mangoes. In almost all Gujarati homes, one can find pickles―both hot and sour―or sweet jams that last almost a year till it is mango season again. We also make a mouth freshener out of its dried seed and use its peel as feed for street cows!

No wonder, we are masters of recycling. We barter old clothes for utensils from vendors. In many affluent Gujarati homes, one can find a handmade quilt made of old saris or an old but expensive pant or shirt turned into a vegetable bag and later into a rag or wipe. The plastic wrap on our luxury car’s seats does not come off for months, purely unintentionally for ecological reasons. We save energy by not using the dryer in our washing machines; we rely on the sun, wind and wire to dry our clothes. We reduce carbon emission in a way by going for honeymoon in a group.

Sant Morari Bapu, who always uses humour in his spiritual discourse, once said, “Missed call as a communication tool is a Gujju invention. We give missed call to the fire brigade! Without sense of humour, life is boring and one should not bow down to a master who cannot laugh.”

Gujjus get a kick out of getting a free pass, even if the ticket is affordable. We can form an alliance with an absolute stranger just to fetch more discounts. It has all trickled down from our moms and aunts, who would insist on free puri from the chaat counter or free coriander or curry leaves from the vegetable vendor! But we are finicky about our freebies―political campaigns run on freebies seldom make a mark in the elections.

We are perhaps the only community that shows pride in its children’s ignorance of their mother tongue and are impressed by their basic fluency in English. We even have our own version of English, what we call Gujlish―a hotchpotch of English and Gujarati words―that would make any native English speaker faint. The American dream is the Gujju dream. Going abroad, particularly to the US, automatically ups your social standing. And, we take the garba wherever we go, be it the US, a wedding reception or a religious ceremony. We are a people in haste―we rush to get into the flight and we are the first to stand up once the plane lands; we honk at trains at railway crossings!

Though Gujarat has a long history of prohibition, every second urban Gujarati movie has a scene with a drinks party or a hangover conversation! Contrary to popular belief, we really love books―the bank passbook and the cheque book. Stock market gambling is like a drug addiction in many Gujarati households. It has even become a religious ritual during festivals like Janmashtami, though Lord Krishna was against gambling. We easily condemn cinema but have no qualms in borrowing filmi tunes for our devotional songs. We take marriage counselling from sages who have taken celibacy vows. We can have more orgasms by saving tax than having sex.

That’s us―we pick laughter over slaughter!

Jay Vasavada is an author and speaker