The Chronicles of PETTI Peruma & AAPA Dorei

It seems that my previous entry has been misunderstood by some of my readers. Now when i talk about everyday bodily extensions such as slippers, i do not mean to universalize my claims in any way. For to claim that all those wearing helth slippers are sri lankans would be problematic. Firstly health slippers may be worn by tourists 'patronizing' the beaches of Hikkaduwa or the more remote beaches near Galle! Secondly, what about those not wearing the hybrid slippers? Well, as I alluded to last time around, no need to feel any frustration...You too are Lankan--in your non-healthy slippery way ;)

All that talk about McDonalds, got me hungry and thinking.

Which is when i remembered my childhood friend by the name of 'petti'. Yes Yes, the ‘petti pan’, with its brown, and at times teeth cracking crust, semi-soft interior and half-burnt under layer!

The story of petti paan, from the fragmented social memory that i can muster, is interestingly a political and social one. My generation of readers may recall the year 1994! Someone by the name of KBC came to the realm of bread making supremacy on promises of a solution to the bread-makers problems. O those days, when the petti paan costed just 3 stones and 50 pebbles! To quote a newspaper report gone awry: Lankans sell bread for country, Only Tunai Panahai! Did the journalist ever stop to consider that the bread actually tastes good?

Apart from the politics of it, we should also recall the narratives of bread-making itself. The yuppies of Ko-lerm-bow would say, “have you ever been inside one of those bakeries? i prefer sandwich bread” Yes i have been inside those bakeries! And frankly, they smell good and the bread tastes even better!

Now apart from the parody of food and consumption regimes in SL, much remains to be said about the bread itself in the diasporic context. As Lankans living abroad, apart from the family, friends and significant loved ones that we miss; we also crave for that authentic lankan taste of crackling petti pan, dhall and pol sambol... to taste lanka!

Of course this notion of ‘authentic’ needs to be problematized a bit. Let me demostrate this by calling upon, the well-known cousin of petti, Aapa! Aapa, many would claim is a Sri Lankan construct, born and bre(a)d. I would phrase my claim differently by asking, how much of it is a Sri Lankan construct?

If we are to ask the genealogist, he/she would state something entirely different. As a good friend once exclaimed, “I dont think Aapa was born in SL, didn't he migrate from South India many many years ago?” And anyways, does it even matter where he came from? He is here now, lets eat him!

I would like to make two points in this regard. First, there is no such thing as “authentic” lankan or “watever” cuisine. Second, (and i claim the first because of the second) is that there is no way to find out the “origins” of Aapa or petti. For the more you dig, the deeper the whole gets, we discover more and more Aapa's of a kind. But no true Adam or Eve of Aapa’s. So then who indeed own Aapa? No-one, Aapa is not a slave! Aapa is free! Maybe thats why he chose to make SL his “home”.

Maybe (and this is where i openly celebrate my biases), we should stop “looking” for whats authentic about 'us' or 'them' and just appreciate the 'actual' for what is. For after all, does this not make us hybrid creatures? Lets celebrate how “messed up” Aapa is, and not let it be a fault line like the one which lies between KBC and Prada! Maybe, and this is a big maybe mind you, its time we all stop worrying about who made Petti first or where Aapa came from and just eat them!

Oh hold on, i think Petti is at the door, but am i not in Singapore...? He just got himself a new passport! Petti's going global! See what i mean?