A seafood treat for goddess Gauri
Non-vegetarian fare and alcohol maybe a strict no-no during Ganesh Chaturthi but not for these Maharashtrian communities
Dressed in a sari, wearing verdant bangles and other finery, Gauri sits comfortably beside the elephant-headed god in Draupadi Koli’s home in Thane. The goddess has kept her annual date with the family on every Ganesh Chaturthi for over 50 years.
Each year, a dish that she feasts on has also been a constant: nivticha ambat, a curry studded with nivti or mudskippers found in low-tidal and intertidal mudflats of sea creeks and estuaries. “Gauri and Ganpati may sit next to each other but their naivedya (offering) is different. Ganpati is only offered vegetarian fare but Gauri is served non-vegetarian too, and nivti is a must for our family,” says the matriarch’s daughter-in-law Vaishali Koli.
Once spotted across the seven islands of Bombay, the amphibious fish that resides in burrows with air pockets, is now restricted to the concretised city’s fringes, found along the stretches of Thane creek and other marshy, mangrove shores. For the Kolis, catching the fish is a challenge, one that requires dexterity, patience and earthen pots.
“One has to trudge through the mud to catch it,” says Vaishali’s husband Parag Koli. His late father had been entrusted with the task to bring home the fresh catch for naivedya. The evening prior, he would venture out with half a dozen pots and bury their narrow mouths in the burrow holes so that the fish would get caught when it would come up for air. “They would stay in the pot through the night because there was no space for them to swim. The next morning, my father would return to bring them home but if it rained through the night, we would find nothing,” he says.
Since the fish is brought live, it is left to rest in salt for half an hour. This is followed by removing its scales and cooking it in a curry with freshly ground ginger-garlic paste, tamarind, Koli spice mix and chopped alu (colocasia) leaves. “My mother-in-law believes the goddess will accept the offering only if she cooks it, so she guards this recipe. Many guests visit our home for darshan specially to eat her nivticha ambat,” adds Vaishali.
Crabs are also part of the naivedya in Koli homes. Elsewhere in Maharashtra, communities offer prawns, chicken, mutton and sometimes, a tipple to the goddess too. The food depends on the community and family traditions, the privilege of access and availability of resources.
Meat and some me-time
Lord Ganesha maybe a well-known foodie but it is Gauri, often identified as his mother or sister and a reincarnation of Parvati, who has a more experimental palate. Unlike the modak-loving pot-bellied god who is usually offered goad taat (sweet platter), she is believed to prefer a tikhat taat (spicy platter).
“Gauri is said to be the [married] daughter who has come to her parental home and hence, she’s served food that she loves,” says Pune-based Parikshit Vilekar, founder of Cloves Catering, a delivery outfit specialising in the fare of Chandraseniya Kayastha Prabhus (CKPs), a migrant community settled in Maharashtra, tracing its origins to the Indus Valley. “The general distinction is that CKPs from along the Konkan coast serve non-vegetarian food whereas the ones from the ghats serve vegetarian food,” he adds. This difference, perhaps, is dictated by local availability of ingredients.
Many CKP homes, he adds, also bring two types of Gauri idols, one treated with vegetarian fare and other, served non-vegetarian. The latter includes mutton curry and fish fry, usually surmai or pomfret since they’re the community favourites. The mutton is cooked using home-ground CKP garam masala “which is usually tad spicy”. The dish is mopped up with deep-fried puri-like vade made from multigrain flour.
Vegetarian varieties such as masala bhaat, batata bhaji and vaatli dal (soaked and ground chana dal) are part of the meal too.
Fresh prawns, meanwhile, are a mainstay in the naivedyas offered by the SKPs (Somvanshi Kshatriya Pathare), who are regarded as one of the original inhabitants of Mumbai and share food and history links with the Pathare Prabhus.
The crustaceans go into aluchya gaathachi amti, a labour-intensive dish where symmetrical pieces of colocasia leaves are stuffed with chana dal (Bengal gram), coconut and peanuts, rolled and tied into knots. These knots, with prawns, are cooked in an amti, a curry thickened with coconut milk, tamarind and jaggery.
“In my family, my aunt would keep the knots ready on the eve of the naivedya but the dish was cooked fresh on the day itself. Our homemade SKP or Pachkalshi masala was used to flavour the dish,” says Naina Goregaonkar, founder of Paisley Experience, a catering and delivery venture that specialises in the fare of the community. The aromatic spice mix of SKPs is replete with flavours of red chillies, cinnamon, coriander and mustard seeds, along with lentils such as urad dal (split black gram) and chana dal (split chickpea).
In some Maharashtrian homes, the naivedya includes alcohol too, and similar practices are seen during Navratri. “On Ashtami, a few CKP families offer mutton and a tipple as the goddess is a form of Maa Shakti and Shakti is offered a sacrificial animal. Other families don’t offer any of this as their dev are ‘godache’ [sweet],” adds Vilekar.
Let there be bounty
Just like ancient Hindus weren’t vegetarians, the Indian deities weren’t always seen as vegetarian gods. It’s a notion that has stemmed from caste hegemonies and polarisation that ignores plurality of religion, as mythologist Devdutt Pattanaik points out. Till date, devotees gorge on fish, meat and eggs at Durga puja pandals and a sub-sect of Kshatriya community in Karnataka’s Koppal district, too, offers non-vegetarian fare and alcohol to the deity during Ganesh Chaturthi.
As the nature-worshipping natives of Mumbai “older than the cocoa-nut palm, older than the Bhandari palm tapper…” [The Gazetteer of Bombay City and Island], the Kolis have been offering sacrificial meat and fish to gods for centuries.
“A chicken would be sacrificed on Sakat Chauth [an auspicious day dedicated to Lord Ganesha and Goddess Sakat] and fish was offered into the fire lit on the eve of Holi,” says Parag Tandel, a Mumbai-based artist who documents, archives and showcases the community’s culture and practices through his research endeavour, Tandel Fund of Archives.
The naivedya of nivti then is not only a celebration of the goddess but also a prayer for protection and abundance. At the lowest level in a food chain, the mudskipper is an indicator of healthy mangrove habitats and eco-system because it thrives only in creek waters with balanced pH levels. Its disappearance signals the pollution levels of the water and disrupts the food chain.
Since many of the Kolis continue to use artisanal fishing techniques and operate in river creeks, the nivti’s presence symbolises livelihood. “At a time when the forest cover is reducing and unsustainable methods of fishing are catching on, the naivedya becomes even more relevant as it is a way to offer a silent prayer saying, ‘Let there be bounty every day,’” sums up Tandel.
