I Want to Eat With My Hand in Public

I was born in a country where English is the first language, but it wasn't mine. Inside my home existed another world where we prayed to blue-hued Gods and four-armed Goddesses. We watched Hindi language movies, and I rewinded the songs I liked. We bought extra fireworks and sparklers around Halloween for Diwali celebrations. We talk in a weird Hindi dialect. We ate my nani’s (grandma on my mom’s side) and my mom’s homemade Indian food with our hands.

If you didn’t know Indian’s eat with their hands then you've probably never been to India, and most Indians outside of India eat using cutlery unless in the privacy of their homes.

As a teenager I switched from my hand to tablespoons because my yellowed fingernails got made fun of in high school. A brutal act of brown-on-brown crime as only an Indian would recognize haldi (turmeric) stains on another Indian.

I wouldn't have cared if it was just an idiot Indian boy making fun of me. They'd made fun of me throughout my life, so I was used to it. My high school crush, a white boy, was sitting beside him though. How foreign the concept of eating with the hand probably seemed to him. I tucked my curry-coloured fingers away, and didn't eat with my hand again for a long time. The insecurities we’re wracked with become clear in retrospect.

I carried that trauma from high school into adulthood. I didn’t want a jaundiced looking hand in the club.

I’ve been on a spiritual journey for a few years, and over a year ago I began water fasting. Typically during a fast I crave certain foods, but an unexpected craving showed up; I wanted to eat with my hand again.

Indian food is truly satisfying when eaten the way it is meant to be eaten - with the hand. Unless it's impossible or weird, like soup or pasta, I now eat everything with my hand. It may look savage, but it requires skill, or you end up wearing your food.

There were a few times I ate with my hand when eating Indian food with white friends. They didn't know Indians ate with their hands and were curious to try. I warned them it’s not as easy as it looked.

“How hard can it be?” They asked before attempting to shove a fistful of food into their mouths. They ended up red in the face, because it was smeared with butter chicken.

I eat with utensils in non-Indian restaurants, but why am I doing that in Indian restaurants? All the Indian people in the Indian restaurant are doing that. Why? No one in there would even bat an eye if someone ate with their hand. A non-Indian might, but who cares? The Indian restaurant is the one public place I can eat Indian food with my hand and have a satisfying experience.

I grew up in the 80s and 90s, and back then Asians ate their noodles, pho, and sushi with chopsticks. There were double takes and comments made under breaths because it was an unfamiliar sight. How could we know that their cuisine would be better when eaten with chopsticks?

Now you won't catch me eating noods with a fork or sushi with my hands because it’s not as satisfying as eating those foods with chopsticks. Truly, those who don't use chopsticks because they don't know how are doing themselves a disservice.

Indians, be like Asians. Eat Indian food with your hands in public if that's how you like to eat. Yes, people might side-eye at first because they’re unfamiliar with the practice. If we don't, eating with our hand will always be an unfamiliar thing. Perhaps we will entice other's to experience that aspect of our culture, and everyone will eat Indian food their hand. Wouldn’t that be something?