Sep 29 2024 to Sep 29 2024 11 a.m.

EVENT HAS ENDED

Price: Rs 100 Book/Buy

Where

Courtyard Koota

Ground floor, Good Earth Tarana Good Earth Malhar, near Rajarajeswari medical college Kambipura, Bengaluru, Karnataka 560074

Event Description

The Sweet Curse: Sugar’s Hidden History Talk by Pankhuri Agrawal Founder of Yayavr Food Readers’ Club Sugar has become an indispensable part of our lives - be it in our cups of chai or coffee, in the sweets prepared for festivals, or in the brownies ordered on Swiggy. However, we know little about its history and production.

Through this meet, we will attempt to trace how sugar production is connected with intergenerational trauma, geographical identities, and national memory. Participants are strongly encouraged to read the materials shared with them before the talk. We will begin with Uzma Aslam Khan’s haunting short story “The Origin of Sweetness” which follows the daughter of a mithai shop owner in Karachi. The adolescent girl Zulekha tries to come to terms with her father’s suicide.

The short story is a part of "Desi Delicacies: Food Writing from Muslim South Asia" (2021), an anthology of essays, short stories and recipes edited by Claire Chambers. We will then move on to excerpts from Sidney Mintz’s seminal book “Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History” (1985), as well as heartbreaking portions of Gaiutra Bahadur’s “Coolie Woman: The Odyssey of Indenture” (2013) which make visible the global footprints of sugar.

Lastly, we will discuss palm sugar which is closer to home through fragments of Aparna Karthikeyan’s brilliant book “Nine Rupees an Hour: Disappearing Livelihoods of Tamil Nadu” (2019).