LLDC 2019 – Part 1: A trip down two memory lanes at once!

Ever since I returned from Kutch in 2014, I knew I would go back someday; I was just waiting for the right opportunity. And late in November 2018, when I learned about the LLDC Folk Festival 2019: Namaste, I knew I had my chance!

A four-day cultural exchange program between the district of Kutch and the North Eastern Seven Sisters of India, this was the second edition of the Namaste festival, organized and hosted by the Living and Learning Design Centre (LLDC) in Ajrakhpur, Kutch.

The LLDC grounds decorated for the festival

LLDC is managed by the Shrujan trust. Shrujan (meaning creativity in Sanskrit) is a not-for-profit organization that has been working with craftswomen in Kutch, to research, document, and revitalize their traditional craft of hand embroidery. The Namaste festival is an extension of their work beyond Kutch, and aims to showcase traditional culture, crafts and skills of other regions of India.

In its first edition in 2018, the scope of the festival was limited to Kutch, but went beyond just embroidery. With this second edition, the festival is now becoming a platform for cultural exchange between Kutch and other regions of India. LLDC, in association with the government and tourism bodies of the North Eastern states, invited and hosted artisans, craftspeople, musicians, dancers and traditional chefs for this four-day cultural exchange program.

Each morning, the artists and artisans invited from the North East would visit the homes of their local Kutchi counterparts, and spend the first half of the day with them, learning phrases in each other’s languages, exchanging snippets about their respective work and lifestyles, and having traditional home-cooked meals with them.

In the evenings, they would all come together at the LLDC grounds to showcase handicrafts, music, dance, and food of Kutch and the North East. The festival was open to all locals and tourists in Kutch at the time – and of course, for enthu cutlets like me who were willing to make a trip just for it!

Of course, of all the aspects of culture covered here, I was most interested in the food. And keen as I was to go back to Kutch after the 2014 trip, I had also made my first foray into the North East when I visited Meghalaya in 2016 (read more about those food travels here). So this was a chance for me to go down two memory lanes at once!

Only, this time I got a chance to experience the food of two different states from the one I had visited in the North East: Assam and Manipur! Every evening for dinner, there were three traditional meals on offer - an Assamese thali, a Manipuri thali, and of course, the Kutchi thali. Three separate kitchens had been set up for this purpose. Each day, the three kitchens offered up a different menu, so there was lots of new dishes to try. Luckily, I was at the festival with my aunt, uncle, cousin and dad, making us a group of five. And you know the best part about eating out in groups – you get to order one of everything and try it all!

The thali menus for each day - so much to try!

One important thought did strike me: while the North East does eat a huge variety of fresh greens and vegetables, I had a notion that a meal in those regions was incomplete without meat. So I wondered how they would serve up meat-based thalis in a predominantly vegetarian region like Kutch… Enjoying the completely vegetarian thalis at the festival was my cue to reassess that notion and avoid culinary stereotyping!

Manipuri Thali

The vegetables, spices, cooking techniques, the dishes and the people making them – I had never imaged that I would be experiencing the cuisine of the North East at the most western end of our country!

Overcoming my initial shyness, I wrested a chance to visit all three kitchens, prior to the evening's dinner service. And as the chefs went about preparing their elaborate menus, I poked about, asking strange and silly questions.

Preparations in the Manipuri kitchen

More on that, and the meals themselves, in the next few posts. Stay tuned…