Of spoons and snarkiness: Why it's about time to go thali-katori in official banquets

Visuals of Prime Minister Narendra Modi attending an official banquet in Denmark with Queen Margrethe on Wednesday led to unkind comments by his usual social media detractors about his ability to use cutlery. Their concern, however, is understandable. Because the array of knives, forks, spoons flanking china and glassware would seem like a small armoury to the uninitiated and serve to intimidate all but those who are not to the manner (and manor) born. Once upon a time the ability to tell a dessert spoon from a soup spoon and a fish knife from a butter knife often determined a place at Western high tables. Indeed, wielding a knife and fork with suitable dexterity was possibly seen as a better qualification to lead a country — and society — than other more plebian skills acquired on the ground or via education. That naturally led to the preclusion of certain classes from that charmed circle of banquet habitues. Now things have supposedly changed. It is very politically incorrect to assume or assert that these social skills are necessary for leaders of either polities or societies. Of course, in Modi’s case such niceties are allowed to be given the go-by, especially when it comes to his sartorial preferences, his headgear, his accent and now, his presumed lack of proficiency in using Western cutlery at a formal European-style banquet — itself an anachronistic ritual. Cultures around the world have traditions of communal meals, whether among congregating leaders — invariably royalty and chieftains — or just celebratory gatherings for weddings or religious festivals. But for reasons not hard to gauge, the stiff, formal silver flatware-china crockery-crystal stemware European style of banquets became and remain the norm for visiting dignitaries in most places even though white ties and ballgowns are no longer de rigeuer. Unfortunately, while menus have diversified from what the famous 19th century chef Marie-Antoine Careme established as the norm for banquets in Paris and London, the procedures of state banquets have remained the same. There are courses — appetiser, soup, fish, meat, dessert, petit-fours — and wines, (in India’s case only apple juice), as laid down by social arbiters of a bygone era. Even independent India has inexplicably stuck to those rules. Indians who initially attended such banquets — and aided the percolation of these protocols to the wider anglicised Indian society in the 19th and early 20th centuries — were to the manner born themselves. Maharajas and their courtiers, the Oxbridge-educated gentlemen of the Indian Civil Service and their soignee spouses, military brass and even many leaders of the Congress party were comfortable and conversant with these Western social norms. Why it continued even after Independence is harder to understand. A book on banquets at Rashtrapati Bhavan published during the tenure of President Pranab Mukherjee reveals that even after 1947 they were remarkably similar in style and protocol to those before 1947. Perhaps because the Comptroller of Rashtrapati Bhavan is still always a military official, and our armed forces retain many of the arcane banqueting traditions of their British forebears. It is curious that while Western hegemony is challenged in so many spheres, the protocol of official banquets still hew to old protocols. Veering from the norm is rare, and not always successful. I am reminded of an incident recounted by my late mother at an official banquet in Washington DC hosted by Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru for US President John F Kennedy in 1961, which was in many ways a surprising departure from the norms of the time. As the PM and the Indian ambassador (the PM’s cousin, BK Nehru) had roots in Kashmir, the menu was also from there. Mrs BK Nehru, a feisty Hungarian named Fori, also boldly decided that instead of the bone china official dinnerware, she would use typical silver thalis and katoris and had them shipped from India. She even got the Indian authorities to persuade the US to allow the import of fresh mangos! It helped that she was the PM’s bhabhi, of course. She reportedly also took another very radical decision: the only cutlery to be provided was a silver spoon. A grand meal on a thali would have been anathema to Washington society at that time and her thali-katori-spoon departure must have led to much consternation among Indian embassy officials. A lesser personage than Mrs Nehru could have even been intimidated into conforming to the usual banquet protocol. But she stuck to her guns — and spoons. She also had all the items in the katoris covered with gossamer-thin edible silver warq — a royal predilection with ancient Ayurvedic roots — which flummoxed the average Washington A-lister invited to that dinner, JFK included. He would not have known back then that pure silver has scientifically acknowledged anti-microbial properties which probably informed the decision of subcontinental cooks to cover their creations with it in hot and humid India. JFK apparently toyed with the spoon and poked very tentatively at the bowls which were covered with strange metallic foil. He also looked in vain for some other receptacles to aid the transport of food. He was gently told to use the flatbread provided as an additional scoop but clearly did not have the dexterity to accomplish the exercise that comes so naturally to many non-Western people. No one thought any less of him for his inability, naturally. He on his part was too polite to voice his unfamiliarity with what was put before him. So JFK ended the banquet with an empty tummy (even mangos were not very commonly eaten in the US) and sat through an Indian cultural programme for several more hours with remarkable fortitude. My father was later told by a White House official that a famished JFK raided the kitchen upon his return but found only a half-dozen bananas to assuage his hunger! Today US Presidents and indeed dignitaries of all countries would be advised by their aides about the protocol of Indian meals in the unlikely event that they remained totally unaware of our cuisine and the traditional methods of eating. None of them would be expected to use their fingers perhaps — a skill that is fast depleting among ordinary Indians too these days — but nor would they be deemed ‘inculte’, boorish or foolish for their lack of expertise. There is an oft-quoted story about how Queen Victoria supposedly drank from a finger bowl to avoid embarrassing a visiting 19th century foreign ruler who had mistakenly raised it to his lips instead of dipping his fingertips in it at the end of an official banquet. That story is still doing the rounds more than a century later with Queen Elizabeth II as the considerate British queen. But the unnamed uncultured princely guest is still described as Asian or African. It is highly unlikely that Denmark’s Queen Margrethe had to take any measures to help out her Asian guest at the banquet at Amalienborg Palace in Copenhagen this week. She is probably more liberal anyway in her approach to what is acceptable than the average arbiter of social norms — especially those on social media. But as we celebrate Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav, it is time for us to consider graduating to a thali-katori-spoon official banquet protocol. The author is a freelance writer. Views expressed are personal. 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