If you’re a woman in the Dharavi area of Mumbai, India, you’re expected to be homebound — leaving the house only to do chores and ferry children to and from school. Through recipes and personal stories, The Indecisive Chicken, a book by art historian Prajna Desai, celebrates the contributions women make to Indian art and society by preparing food for their families.
Dharavi Biennale (2015) was an arts initiative organized by a Mumbai nonprofit called SNEHA (Society for Nutrition, Education & Health Action) with support from Wellcome Trust (UK).
What was it that compelled you to engage these women, their food, and their stories?
To begin at the start is to start with the Biennale. My project was one of over 30 in the Biennale, which installed its projects during an exhibition called Alley Galli Biennale in Dharavi from February 15th – March 7th, 2015. A number of women came in and out of the workshops. It was agreed at the start that anyone who wanted to be in the book would have to commit to attending every single session, contributing recipes, and cooking them in front of the group.
Those who were most inspired to share their stories and their food, those who were most intrigued by the idea of workshops in which they were being asked to play the lead, rather than the usual format of being taught, were the ones who ended up being in the book.
The Indecisive Chicken is an intriguing book title. What’s the story behind it?
The phrase popped out of the blue, at the very start of the project. It was the orientation day of the Dharavi Food Project in June, 2014. About thirty women were assembled.
To break the ice, I started with introductions. I asked the women about their food preferences. Why did they cook what they did at home?
It was at this point that one woman piped up. She said she didn’t cook chicken because her husband didn’t eat it. Why? Apparently he thinks the chicken is a stupid bird. They’re indecisive. You can tell by the way they run around madly when they’re set free in a yard. That’s what she said he said. No one seemed to believe her — that this was why her husband didn’t eat chicken. Yet she insisted on it, until she was no longer able to.
The truth was that her husband simply didn’t like the taste of chicken.
I was struck by her thinking. To be honest, I found it remarkable. On a poetic level, I thought of it as an allegory of the way certain people justify why they eat certain foods and avoid others.
Her words continued to haunt me (in a good way), and I decided they would make the most apt and witty title for the book.
You talk of the influence women have over culture via the production of food — tell me more about this seemingly quiet yet powerful influence.
Women are supposed to cook because they are female. That’s generally how housewifery plays out in India, even for professional women with a full-time job.
But most of all, what would happen to Indian society if women like the ones in my workshop simply packed up and went on strike one day?
Whereas I started on this project thinking of something more conventional, along the lines of an ethnographic culinary history of Dharavi, the project developed into something far more challenging. Everywhere during the workshops — whether while the women were cooking, and especially when they were struggling to record their recipes, which some found it incredibly hard to do because their daily work is extremely internalized to the extent they don’t think about it as work but as something they must do because they are female — I was always seeking to demolish the stereotype of women as cooks.
How do you take the life history or story that someone has shared and tell a history about labor and beauty through it? How do you read and approach personal recipes as modes of living, or as a personal philosophy? But most of all, what would happen to Indian society if women like the ones in my workshop simply packed up and went on strike one day? India is no country of packed, readymade foods. Everything, and I mean everything, in most Indian kitchens is made from scratch.
Cooking for no pay is not just an art and a beautiful thing. It’s hard labor and work with value.
In a culture such as this, would society begin to take the women who put food on the table seriously if they decided to turn their backs on their apparently God-given role to serve men and the family as kitchen drudges? The book asks these questions and answers them by the rhetorical implications of the questions. Cooking for no pay is not just an art and a beautiful thing. It’s hard labor and work with value. It keeps families together at the cost of what women might otherwise want. But it also nurtures a respect for humble ingredients, local produce, the seasonal, and for preserving complexity within minimum means. It’s a model of how imagination functions, where women perform multiple roles, as chemist, economist, historian, nutritionist, and manager all through this single act of cooking.
At the same time, the complexity of ethnic and cultural differences compacted with such intensity as they are in Dharavi is undeniably unique. There are about 700,000 people speaking more than a dozen languages all within 0.6 square miles — many of whom are from far-flung parts of the country. Dharavi is in the heart of Mumbai interwoven with desperate poverty mixed with 100 percent working class-conditions.
What did you learn from the women featured in The Indecisive Chicken? What about their stories did you find most compelling?
The question of what I learned from the women is a tricky one. I say this because we live in a world of TED talks which have prepped us to be awed and open to be inspired. We’re meant to say that we learned this, that, or the other from certain experiences. This is especially so in a project such as mine, which has an inequality element built into it — a nonprofit organizing a Biennale for people in India’s purportedly biggest slum. People from the outside are understood to go into it to learn something, or discover themselves. The women are understood to emerge from the project “empowered.” I find those dynamics shaky and only interesting if one subscribes to the idea of inequality.
This was a project involving complete strangers who cared to commit their time and effort to produce something most of them (by this, I mean the women) did not imagine would turn out as it did. “The Book” was a clear goal from the start, but when the book was finally out, there was an element of disbelief on their part. For me, that was a revealing moment. If I learned something, it was that people don’t get their hopes up. And maybe that’s because what they frequently want doesn’t turn out the way they want it to be. But they still keep coming back, either because they’re bored, or intrigued, or because they want to be witnessed.
What did the participants get out of the experience?
For most of the women in the Dharavi Food Project, the workshops gave them a good reason to leave the home, homes they are expected to leave only for chores or to drop off and fetch their kids from school. That they made something amazing out of this “excuse” to leave the home is what’s worth talking about.
That they made something amazing out of this ‘excuse’ to leave the home is the fact, as it were, that’s worth talking about.
Their complete confusion at the start stunned me for a while. Most were initially suspicious of someone featuring them in a book. They were also confused that someone would find their recipes interesting enough to include in a publication. I think this says something about the notion of the self and the work that one produces everyday.
Curious women came up to me to say that they weren’t certain that what they do at home, how they cook, what they make, or what they think about the world was anywhere close to being interesting enough to be shared, let alone written about.
Despite these uncertainties, no matter how strong their scepticism, no matter how apprehensive they often were about incurring the displeasure of their husbands who expect them to be homebound, there is also a hunger for art (for making it and having it being witnessed) that trumps everything. This is the richest lesson to be learned from these women in Dharavi. That you don’t have to bear the label of an artist or have that label presented to you by a certain economy of art to know what it means and what it takes to be one.
Learn more about Prajna Desai and The Indecisive Chicken. Follow the project on Facebook.
Beautifully expressed.
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It is beautiful to recognise that the job of women providing for food for the family is a valuable task and not just a taken for granted duty.
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Great title!
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Such a pleasure reading a blog with so much traditional essence. Amazingly written😊
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You can say that again. Awesome
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An eye opener! Thanks for the great read!
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Keep the spirits high Prajna. You did a commendable job and wish you luck for future work.
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Thank you!
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Loved the idea of the book.. Great pictures too.. 🙂
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It’s been a difficult and fascinating journey with this book, so the appreciation is so welcome! Thank you.
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Nothing else could be said, even the title have said it all.
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I like your article. Every woman should be allowed to learn and to feel free. Hoping that the world will accept this one day. 🙂
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So appreciate your comments.
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You’re welcome! 😀
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Love the title! Great post and photos.
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A thoughtful effort and very inspiring outcome. Loved the article.
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Such an incredible, beautiful story that is, fortunately, delicious as well. The strength of women who put food on the table are seemingly forgotten in society but provide one of the most valuable services ~ I know this first hand as my Mom tirelessly did the same for everyone in my family until I grew (and moved away)…and it is only today I realize what an incredible act and commitment this was. Cheers to a great article.
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Beautiful.
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This is fantastic- how beautiful and inspiring! THESE are the kinds of stories I look forward to- how powerful.
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Thank you, Krista, for covering this project and featuring my book. Dharavi is a hugely fetishised area, both in popular culture but more so in academia, so it’s all the more exciting to collaborate on projects that approach the area as a living history with the humanity and intelligence and beauty that might characterise so many other place, regardless of the economic demographic. As for food, yes, Dharavi is brimming with a rich culinary dimension that this book whose tip the book has made a modest attempt to reveal. Thank you all, for your interest.
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Beautifully written. Love tradition.
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What a wonderfully written article. Absolutely loved reading it from start to finish.
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Such a beautiful project! It really requires a lot of creativity to get inspired from something so mundane and present it so beautifully. Most of the people don’t appreciate or even talk about the contribution women make by cooking, every female is just expected to do that without complaining about it. I think we really need to glorify women for that because its hard work.
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Desai thank you for creating time to inspire those women. I guess now they have a reason to appreciate their work. When I come to Mumbai thus coming April for Sankalp conference I would wish to buy the book. Wish you all the best as you strive to make this world socially just.
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Excellent and fantastic. You have conceptualised, articulated and expressed in apt, beautiful words a seemingly uninteresting but a great hidden truth which lies at the core of a family almost across the world. What you say about cooking, art and aesthetics not only touches the heart but intellect too. A queer idea to start with worked out beautifully and expressed amazingly and depicted fantastically. I await more beautiful books from you. Mom
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Enriching and original!
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That was a great idea and you nailed it.
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I love those photos.
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This is an inspiring one. Loved your article!
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I wrote about something similar yesterday, I am a stay at home mom and so similar to the women you have featured in your book
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The pictures are very good, they stimulate the taste buds!
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Beautiful and Inspiring!
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Beautiful written and a real eye-opener.
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Thanks for posting!!
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This is so commendable. The answers seem so honest and refreshing (:
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All the best for your all future endeavors in the direction of building a scenario where people should start seeing cooking as a labour of love than considering it as some obligatory job for Indian women…
You are doing a great job 🙂
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Fascinating! Made my mouth water, too! Thank you so much for sharing. 🙂
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Inspiring project…..
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Inspirational!
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That’s awesome.
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Beautifully depicted the real story of such a great work by women.
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Beautiful and inspiring!
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This is a really interesting article. Thankyou for writing a book. I am definitely getting a copy of it! I love cooking and this is the best thing to invest in making my cooking better.
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It’s a pleasure to read these comments. Thank you. And yes, please do seek the book.
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This is a beautiful article. My co-founder and I started a cooking project that features several cooks from India. The passion they have is simply incredible and I’m proud to be with them. The website is http://www.theworldcookingproject.com please give it a look. Thanks!
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These photos are lovely! I am ordering this book! 🙂
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Wow, so cool! I’ll have to check out this book!!!!
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Fascinating and awesome work! The seemingly mundane “task” thrusted upon women in the country as a part of being a woman needs more appreciation, for sure! The truth is in India whether you are a SAHM or full time worker; an uneducated wife or an equally qualified partner, you are still expected to don the chef’s hat and churn out dishes day in and day out…so much so that they become a part of your existence…how you cook will be more important than what you achieve at work! Kudos to you for bringing this out in the dialog above; and in your book…
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A very enjoyable read indeed. The title is definitely intriguing. This piece well illustrates how any and every action undertaken with love and appreciation for its importance to others and ourselves becomes sacred…… Husbands in India and everywhere ought so also to love their women/wives as Christ loved His Bride/the Church and gave Himself for Her.
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Heartwarming – women cooking and their hearts.
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What you said about the dynamics being shaky and only interesting if one subscribes to the idea of inequality, is important. I hope people of so-called privileged backgrounds can for once go into or look at these slums and not immediately think, “Oh the poverty! What a shame!” And instead, really see the people as their own brothers and sisters, people who love and provide for their families and make a contribution to mankind just like anyone else. I hope they can learn the beatitudes and how blessed it truly is to not get what (they think) they want.
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Really nice article. Nice for slum society of India. 🙂
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I really enjoyed your article. The project seemed to make the woman aware of their potential ,what they can achieve and that they have useful skills ( and are not just to look after husbands and children). Well done for highlighting women that are usually forgotten about in Society. I’ll have to seek out the book!
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Beautiful story. Thank you for sharing the voices of those that often are misunderstood
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Awesome! I am a teacher and am taking 10 students to India this March. We will be hiking and camping through the Himalayas and learning about food, education, and cultural practices in India. I am going to share your post and the book with my group!
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I’m not sure if you watch the Great American Baking show. There is a young man named Tamal who has an interesting background on it, and his family is originally from India. They find it strange that he’s interested in the hobby of baking cakes. I was curious how common it is for men to be interested in cooking/baking for their families in India?
It would be wonderful to read the reverse side of this and see how a male who enjoys cooking and baking for the family in an environment that doesn’t see this as conventional deals with it.
I’m definitely intrigued by this book now and wish you all the best in your future endeavors!
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Loved this article. So many women around the world are true artists–within their own kitchens. Food doesn’t have to reach an audience further than the people lucky enough to taste it to be deemed art!
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Interesting title and you’ve done a great job of bringing all the recipes together and the stories that go with it!
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