Mahabali and Papadam – A speculative flashback

This stream-of-consciousness yarn, spun on an impulse, was recently triggered by a news item and video doing the rounds on social media about one. Battle on Pappadam at a feast in Alappuzha, The festive Onam season is near in Kerala. The absence or lack of pappadam in the upper left corner of the Malayalee’s traditional banana leaf ‘sadhya’, led to a verbal brawl that quickly escalated into fistfights, setting off this speculative flashback.

Statutory Warning: This figurine should not be confused with legend.

So, as the story goes, once it was a king, Maveli or Mahabali, whose rule was so liberal and egalitarian, taking care of everything or wanting each and every one of his subjects, that they should have no worries or troubles or incompleteness. There were no needs or aspirations. , and had no thought about the afterlife and did not bother to pray or worship their gods. The gods, in utter panic, called an emergency meeting and decided that something had to be done, and urgently, to bring the people back for prayer and worship – because otherwise the gods are regarded as a heavenly category. That the ultimate charge of everything would be made redundant and redundant. After much divine deliberation he came up with a plan and entrusted Vishnu with the task of implementing it.

And he brings Vishnu in the form of a Brahmin dwarf, Vamana, to Mahabali, who pleads with the king to give him a parcel of land of just three feet to live in. Mahabali immediately saw the game of cunning, for there was no one in his kingdom who needed anything, at least a small piece of land for a house, and everything seemed suspicious about this brahmin dwarf. Nevertheless, he played along and asked Vamana to go ahead and measure the three steps of the land he wanted. In the blink of an eye, and with a mischievous twinkle in the other, Vamana (aka Vishnu) takes the height it takes to measure the whole earth in one step, the whole sky in the next, and then, raised one leg, towards Mahabali. Saw, seemingly shocked and annoyed, as if to ask where the third step would be to fulfill the full measure promised to him. Because one step was all that was needed to cover the entire kingdom of Mahabali; There was really no need to move with the sky.

Anyway, to go ahead with the story, Mahabali asks Vamana (now showing his true form as Vishnu) to get down on his knees, offering him three feet of land to make his point. “Where the hell is right,” under his breath, and while holding his head in front of the sizable figure in front of him, says, “Okay, go with it, take your third step right here.” Vishnu then proceeds to place his foot on Mahabali’s head and pushes him into the bowels of the earth, called ‘Patala’ in Sanskrit and ‘Naraka’ in English, which was (and is) inhabited by demons. When only his head was left to go down, Mahabali called out, “Wait! I want you to know that I already knew who you were when I laid my eyes on that fancy-dress Waman; And just because I wasn’t a push for a god because I gave my people a great life, you guys decided to push me down; And since there’s no one to say this foul, I guess I’ll have to go down. But before I do, I am blessed to ask you for a change. I want to meet my state and my people for about a week once a year in the Ashwin season (of September). Despite Vishnu’s Vishwaroop (or XXXXXXL) size, it was quite an effort to push Mahabali into the earth. So he could only let a suffocating grunt through in response to Mahabali’s parting request. Which Mahabali accepted yes.

come september

I am sorry that I have not yet reached the place where pappadam comes in all this.

So, to follow, come next September, when Mahabali reappeared in his erstwhile kingdom, he was pleased to find that the people were eagerly waiting for him. The rule of the gods was not going very well for them. It was Mahabali who was forcibly taken home in the first house in which he was welcomed. The host and many of the guests who had come to attend the feast for their beloved former emperor sat in rows on the floor, before them to deal with the magnificent spread spread on banana leaves, a commotion in one corner of the large hall. Gone. Mahabali heard the noise, but pretended that he did not, as he did not want to embarrass his hosts. But soon a group stood in front of him who was pleading with him to mediate the quarrel. It was related to pappadam. More specifically, it was related to the number of papadams that a single person could expect or demand in a given spiritual practice. Mahabali was surprised, and then overtaken by guilt, in quick succession.

Surprisingly, there would have been no such issue in the golden age of his reign. It was well known then that each banana leaf had four pappads. It was impersonal, authority. It was leaf based. So if two persons are eating from the same leaf, then they will have to distribute four pappadams. It also discouraged communal eating from the same leaf. Everyone had enough and more leaves to go. Of course, during Mahabali’s reign there were enough and more papadams to quell hunger and nausea. Char-Pappad-Patta was a sacred culinary principle.

A man dressed as King Mahabali greets people enjoying Onam Sadhya, a traditional feast on a banana leaf, on Onam at Kerala House in New Delhi. file photo | photo credit: RV Murthy

papadum The means of food were to be differentiated as follows: the first with rice and an initial course of ghee and lentils, the second with sambar, the third with rasam and/or curd, and the fourth with payasam and/or the last rice with curd Top-up scoop of. It was full, equitable fare in Mahabali-raj and never caused any problems. Mahabali wondered whether such a stampede should now take place on this score – after all, it was a well-established tradition.

But wait, did we say that Mahabali’s surprise was followed by guilt? Yes, because Mahabali also realized at the same time that he had broken his own rule. He himself had eaten seven papadums when the dispute started, and when he was asked to settle it, he took two bites in the eighth.

Here is a word to explain why the king violates his own rule. First, he was a former king and an exile. Therefore, strictly speaking, the rule no longer applied to them. But there was a more practical, compelling reason. You see, in Paatal Lokam, cooking oil is precious and rationed and, as we would imagine, not used for cooking anything to eat. Like the western hells, the oriental hells also force their inhabitants to regularly fry them in oil. When you go to hell it’s the third degree you sign up for. So while Mahabali had a perfect idea of ​​what was in fried papadum, he had never been able to taste it since he was out of his kingdom. So you can understand why he went with such enthusiasm to this feast on his first holiday on earth.

Anyway, whatever happened, it happened, papadum was eaten. What was needed was to address the problem and set a new benchmark to avoid futile fighting in the name of pappadam in future. Inspired partly by this call for good governance that comes naturally to a good king and partly by guilt, apart from a slight embarrassment in having Mahabali caught red-handed in his seventh-plus-half pappadam, Having been confiscated, he then and there announced that from now on based on a new and more developed gastronomical principle – the quota of pappadam per plant leaf would be seven and a half.

When Mahabali passed this decree, he might not have been a king. But his word was the implied law for the people. And so for many years, many years after that, peace and quiet prevailed throughout the country in times of ordinary or celebration. The soft crunch of papadams together in communal feasts underlines the unity and bond between the people. The Pappadam Agreement remained intact. Until one day, Narada, the middleman of the land of the gods, narrated this anecdote, to various deities lying on fluffy clouds – and all hell broke loose in heaven. How dare Mahabali interfere in our divine rule and abuse his post-monarchical authority! What Mahabali did was immediately prepared by the gods to start all over again.

But that’s another story…

(Shashi Kumar is the President of the Asian College of Journalism)