Coffee, a naturalised white man's drink, was introduced by the Portuguese, who also introduced the original version of the rasogolla. The natives, as the imperial mind put it, took to it with alacrity, abandoning their rice gruel for this bittersweet affair. Coffee was called complexion coffee in the family. It was something that the Brahmin mind needed with that other meticulous creation, The Hindu.The book under review is In those days there was no coffee: Writings in Cultural History by A.R. Venkatachalapathy. It sounds interesting, and I'll surely read it one of these days, soon as I find a copy. But till then, any guesses?
Late last month I realized that I had never read Irina Polyanskaya’s second
novel, Читающая вода [(The) reading water; Water that reads], and decided
to re...
3 comments:
That Poruguese intorduced the first version of Roshogolla is Dhop or bullshit.No such reference worth its mettle is there.This is misguiding.
Hehe. Bongs get so offended.
Nice blog! Indian English rocks!
The paragraph ends really abruptly. but it seems that the writer has played with the idea of coffee being a western beverage, and complection (the fairer complection), which plays an important role in India. He has entangled coffee&complection that fall on a upper strata level and The brahmin and The Hindu wich also fall on the same level...Fantastic!!!
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