19 March,2023 06:13 AM IST | Mumbai | Sumedha Raikar Mhatre
A farmer selling her millet produce at the recently-held Millet Festival organised in the city by the Marketing department of the Government of Maharashtra. Pic/Sayyed Sameer Abedi
The bajra number, dormant in my consciousness for four decades, came back to me as I recently attended the Millet Festival organised in Mumbai by the Marketing department of the Government of Maharashtra, much in keeping with the 2023 United Nations International Year of Millets; the Government of India had notified millets as nutri-cereals in 2018.
The festival, which also coincided with the launch of the book Know Your Millets (edited by Principal Secretary of Cooperation and Marketing, Anoop Kumar), celebrated traditional grains - nine fibre-rich gluttenfree superfoods cultivated in Maharashtra's soil for ages - and brought together farmers, who specialised in processing and selling these magic millets in the form of easy-to-cook ready-to-eat retail products.
I stood amid 50-odd pandals selling bajra chivda, bajra puffs, bajra cookies, bajri papdi, bajri kharvadi, roasted bajra, and not to forget the flour made of coarse grain.
The poor man's crop, also used as cattle feed, was showcased as sustainable and low-maintenance meal fare for the urban consumer's awareness. So were other millets vended in creative forms - jowar appams, nachni vermicelli noodles and banyard millet semolina or vrat ke chawal.
At the base of these modern avatars of fritters, batter, malt, wafers, and biscuits are grains. These essential everyday cereals recur in Maharashtra's folktales, saint poetry, popular myths, health and lifestyle advisories, and most importantly in culinary traditions, which pride on the use of millets. The references to Lord Vitthal helping in household (griding) chores "kari dalan-kandan" are educational. Be it Saint Dnyaneshwar's seminal work Dyaneshwari (1290) or Saint Tukaram's abhang poetry (1632), the no-frills grains are mentioned with fondness. In Bahinabai Chaudhari's kapni (harvest) references, the swaying crop is nothing but jowar or bajra.
Saint Janabai's shivar (farms) also dwell on the millet crops. The oft-talked about ambil served to the family and guests (a hot/cold concoction) is made of either jowar, bajra or nachni. When guests arrive at Rajai's house (Saint Namdev's wife, also a poet), she wonders how suddenly a grocer arrives from nowhere with a bagful of proso millets (varaichi goni kalali rajaisi). Well that was the all-knowing Lord Vitthal, who replenishes the stocks, de-stressing his devotee, the woman of the house with meagre resources at her disposal.
Saint poets articulated a pride in simple culinary delights - jowar bhakri made of semi-ground grains, peeth-lahi for faral (puffed varai for fasting days), and the stale bajri bhakri, which hardens overnight. In fact, some saint poets define themselves in agrarian kunbi settings, where wheat and rice are not part of kitchen stocks. Saint Tukaram says, "Bare deva kunbi kelo/nahi tar dambhe asto melo [Thank God for the Kunbi birth, else I would have died of duplicitous behaviour]." This indicates his gratefulness for a birth in a humble land tiller's family, as against an upper caste arrogant clan. Millets form the core of being a kunbi by birth.
Polished rice recipes and wheat chapatis entered Marathi kitchens post Independence, but mostly after 1970s. The supposed higher castes and upwardly mobile classes, particularly Brahmins in urban settlements, were among the first to embrace the soft wheat poli, as against the thicker coarse bhakri. The rolling pin was a convenient tool to achieve the evened out golakari poli, as against the handmade bhakri, which required skillful handling.
It is another story that in today's Maharashtra, wheat is slowly losing its clientele to the coarser millets. This shift is driven by health considerations, mainly due to the low glycemic load and high antioxidant properties in millets. Digesting a wheat roti is harder as against the ragi or bajri bhakri, claim nutritionists like Rujuta Diwekar who inaugurated the Millet festival. Millets form the backbone of Diwekar's fitness project 2023, in which she concentrates on preparations that optimise, rather than lose out on, millets' health benefits. Experts like her advocate against ragi tacos or jowar nachos or multigrain breads, because these products only use the millet label to sell rather unhealthy stuff, which aggravate further lifestyle ailments like hypertension and diabetes.
In this context, I was pleasantly surprised by the recipes recommended by the Indian Institute of Millets Research, earlier called Directorate of Sorghum Research. Amazing are the 90-odd sorghum (jowar), ragi, bajra, varai dishes, which hold experiments with millets on such an imaginative scale. For instance, the jowar-barley sharbat with the citrus twist is quite an achievable health shot. Bajra vermicelli kheer is a low-fat option for those with a sweet tooth; so is the dehulled proso millet in the payasam. Little millet also serves as a great alternative to rice. Proso goes well with mint or tomato garnish, and becomes a good substitute for a tangy pulao. Multi-millet khakra or bhel are also colourful delights, which add to the healthy items on the table. This columnist is taken in by the simple steps and miminal time required to make these millet preparations. Be it millet upma or ladoo or chuduwa (flaky chivda), no recipe involves multiple chores; some demand an overnight soak.
The pan-Indian vocabulary provided by millets across states is also worth an academic dissertation. Just as millet crops are diversely spread across geographies, nomenclature also differs region-wise.
Kodo millet, mistaken for finger millet, is minor millet or cow grass in English. It is kodra in Marathi and Gujarati, and harka in Kannada. While the foxtail millet is a lyrical shyama in Bengali, it is a bit prosaic kangni/rala in Marathi. But Marathi goes closest to Bengali in defining banyard millet as shamul, which is shamula in Bengali, and sama in Gujarati. In Maharashtra's millet lexicon, finger millet has four Marathi nouns - ragi, nachni, nachna or nagli. Varai/vari (proso millet) is called mordhan, barti, sava and bhagar. India's powerhouse adivasi lingo has even more unheard evocative names for millets, which should be embraced in the year devoted to millets.
In Maharashta, the morning temperatures of March have risen to 31 degree Celsius. Monsoon is two months away; water scarcity is an impending reality. In this seemingly bleak scenario, low-maintenance millets offer hope. Millet farming, even done on hillocks by small land holders, augurs well with the mood of the moment. It gives a new meaning to the adage: The growing millet does not fear the sun.
Sumedha Raikar-Mhatre is a culture columnist in search of the sub-text. You can reach her at sumedha.raikar@mid-day.com
