Kunal Ray and Sumana Roy of On Eating explain how the seemingly ordinary turns out to be wondrous, and also announce their Hindi-language anthology

On Eating (www.oneating.in) is an e-journal publishing prose, poems and photos on food cultures from India. In contrast to food magazines or websites that promote “premium” eating as an expression of lifestyle, the publication embraces the everydayness, messiness, and political and emotional shades of food and eating. Editors Kunal Ray and Sumana Roy talk about the endeavour. 

At a time when politics over what to eat and other aspects of culture leaves India in a turbulent state, On Eating focuses on food cultures to look at the country’s art, history, politics, sociology, science, literature, poetry, and spirituality.  How would you like to join the discussion? 
If you notice, the first essay that appeared in our journal or inaugurated On Eating was written by Manoranjan Byapari, a Bengali Dalit writer who, amongst other experiences, recounts his journey as a randhuni (cook) in Bengali weddings and the humiliation that he faced in that role. We thought, in some ways, this beginning would set the tone for the journal because there are many experiences associated with food – joy, memory, oppression, and subversion, among others, that constantly overlap and intersect. As editors and curators, we have endeavoured to publish a diverse cross-section of writing and art on food in India with the understanding that what is marginalised does not necessarily owe to socio-political marginalisation. It also has to do with the invisibilising of lives and stories that are not considered worthy of national attention. We want to be a repository of these private and secret histories. That is why stories of pickle-making are as important as trying to understand the role caste often plays in determining how and what we eat and with whom. 

Which readership do you wish to attract? How does your translation of some pieces into two languages (one is Hindi) reflect your aspirations?
When we started On Eating, we did not have a specific kind of reader in mind (we still don’t), but we are happy to share with you that, in the last two years, since we began, it has been read by people whom we could not have imagined as readers. We have a simple looking website, no glitzy photos – we wanted to resist that look; food doesn’t have to be Instagrammable, because hunger isn’t Instagrammable. We wanted to capture the overwhelming everydayness of food we are not Zomato, we are not interested in the ‘best and tastiest’. Through the emails that we regularly receive, we feel supported when academics tell us that they follow our journal and teach the essays that are published. We recently heard from friends in Mumbai that their book club has special sessions whenever a new issue is out. But that is again a small segment of the population who can access the internet. We are soon going to publish an anthology of essays from On Eating in Hindi – the volume is tentatively titled Satrangi Dastarkhan and will be published by Rajkamal Prakashan, and is likely to be available by the end of May. We hope it will also reach those who cannot access the internet.

The multilingual nature of the journal seemed natural to us as people who live in this country, surrounded by more than one language. We wanted On Eating to be an archive of as many kinds of eating cultures as possible – keeping it an English language journal would have restricted its scope. English India eats and writes differently from the other Indias, as you know. It is our ambition that the people and culture being written about should be able to read what is being written about them – and hence the natural decision to keep the writing in the language in which it has been written, along with English, and another language. We usually ask the writer to choose the language they would like their
writing to be translated into. This choice, our writers have told us, is quite often a political one. Think of a menu card on a streetside mobile restaurant – its unique language of English, Hindi, the local languages and their received pronunciation. The language of that menu is a living thing. We want the same for On Eating. 

The journal was launched during the Covid pandemic. Was it because of a delay owing to lockdowns?
We have always discussed food with each other, but this substantially increased during the lockdown. The journal was actually conceived during the lockdown when we acutely felt the lack of a space where we could read about people like us who lead fairly regular lives and are fond of eating or want to know more about eating cultures. While doing this, we were also aware of our privilege, of being a handful who could earn a living from the safe confines of our homes while a large majority was underfed or remained hungry. 

Who funds On Eating and what is their mandate for the journal?
On Eating is supported by Takshila Educational Society, run by Sanjiv Kumar. He is an educationist who supports a range of arts-based initiatives. He was the first person that we had approached and he instantly accepted our proposal. As editors and curators, we exercise complete autonomy in running the journal. Sanjiv Kumar and his colleagues have been a wonderful and most encouraging support to us.

How and why did you go about securing funding?
I think part of this question is answered above. We wanted to pay our contributors. We pay a small honorarium to all our contributors – writers, translators, illustrators etc. It is just a token of appreciation for their effort and hard work. All artists ought to be paid. Nobody should have to work for free and a journal on free labour may not eventually be sustainable. 

Would you speak of your personal experiences or interests which feed the journal’s theme?
There is a growing interest in food writing in India, and while that is interesting, we have also noticed a kind of sameness in the vocabulary of writing and ways of looking at food in the writing that is coming out of Anglophone India. Many essays we read are like extensions of Instagram posts – manicured and consequently lifeless. A subject such as food is, by its very nature, messy – messy in many ways, messy because of faulty and corrupt systems of distribution, of inequities in the country and the household, messy on tables and clothes and mouths. Anthropological discourses are helpful, but we wish that they were accessible to those that are being written about. There is great inequity in that. Food is inevitably about community, about sharing a life of the senses with others, known and unknown. It is also about deprivation – of those without food, the systems that keep populations hungry. And it is also about love. 

What considerations drive your editing of the work of some contributors who aren’t writers?
When we began On Eating, we aspired to have various kinds of people write for us and not just those who identify or are identified as writers. Aren’t these labels boring and conventional? We are a genre-agnostic journal. We don’t think there is only a certain kind of writing that we want to publish. In fact, we are often surprised by the submissions we receive which also educates us about what writing could be and the form and shape it could take. And how can we be inclusive if we just uphold one kind of voice or style of writing? Two of the most read essays in our journal have been written by danseuse Leela Samson and vocalist Kalapini Komakali, both of whom are not professional writers. Samson glimpses into her life through the food choices she has made and Komakali writes about her father, Kumar Gandharva, through the food he ate and liked to feed others. There are no pre-conceived or pre- determined editorial standard that we follow at On Eating. We work closely with the writer, work with them on drafts – that’s how the process flows and evolves. There cannot be a fixed preamble for this or at least we don’t have one. 

Does the high number of non-female contributors come as a surprise to you?
Not at all. In fact, it helps to break the stereotype. Having said that, you will also notice that we have published more women than men. 

In this interview piece, Prof. Kunal Ray, Faculty of English Literature, FLAME University, and Sumana Roy have shared their valuable insights.