Why Indians are stressed and unhealthy
By Aakar Patel
Manmohan Singh had his arteries bypassed on Saturday, a procedure
that increasing numbers of Indians are having. Last year, medical journal
Lancet reported a study of 20,000 Indian patients and found that 60 per cent of
the world's heart disease patients are in India, which has 15 per cent of the
world's population.
This number is surprising because reports of obesity and heart
disease focus on fat Americans and their food. What could account for Indians
being so susceptible -- more even than burger-and-fries- eating Americans?
Four things: diet, culture, stress and lack of fitness.
There is no doctrinal prescription for vegetarianism in Hindu diet,
and some texts explicitly sanction the eating of meat. But vegetarianism has
become dogma.
Indian food is assumed to be strongly vegetarian, but it is
actually lacking in vegetables. Our diet is centred around wheat, in the north,
and rice, in the south. The second most important element is daal in its
various forms. By weight, vegetables are not consumed much. You could have an
entire South Indian vegetarian meal without encountering a vegetable. The most
important vegetable is the starchy aloo. Greens are not cooked flash-fried in
the healthy manner of the Chinese, but boiled or fried till much of the
nutrient value is killed.
Gujaratis and Punjabis are the two Indian communities most
susceptible to heart disease. Their vulnerability is recent. Both have a large
peasant population -- Patels and Jats -- who in the last few decades have moved
from an agrarian life to an urban one. They have retained their diet and if
anything made it richer, but their bodies do not work as much. This transition
from a physical life to a sedentary one has made them vulnerable.
Gujaratis lead the toll for diabetes as well, and the dietary
aspect of this is really the fallout of the state's economic success. Unlike
most Indian states, Gujarat has a rich and developed urban culture because of
the mercantile nature of its society. Gujaratis have been living in cities for
centuries.
His prosperity has given the Gujarati surplus money and,
importantly, surplus time. These in turn have led to snacky foods, some deep
fried, some steamed and some, uniquely in India, baked with yeast. Most Indians
are familiar with the Gujarati family on holiday, pulling out vast quantities
of snacks the moment the train pushes off.
Gujarati peasant food -- bajra (millet) roti, a lightly cooked
green, garlic and red chilli chutney, and buttermilk -- is actually supremely
healthy. But the peasant Patel has succumbed to the food of the 'higher' trader
and now prefers the oily and the sweet.
Marathi peasant food is similar, but not as wholesome with a thick
and pasty porridge called zunka replacing the green.
Bombay's junk food was invented in the 19th century to service
Gujarati traders leaving Fort's business district late in the evening after a
long day. Pao bhaji, mashed leftover vegetables in a tomato gravy served with
shallow-fried buns of bread, was one such invention.
The most popular snack in Bombay is vada pao, which has a
batter-fried potato ball stuck in a bun. The bun -- yeast bread -- is not
native to India and gets its name pao from the Portuguese who brought it in the
16th century. Bal Thackeray encouraged Bombay's unemployed Marathi boys to set
up vada pao stalls in the 60s, which they did and still do.
The travelling chef and TV star Anthony Bourdain called vada pao
the best Indian thing he had ever eaten, but it is heart attack food.
Though Jains are a very small part (one per cent or thereabouts) of
the Gujarati population, such is their cultural dominance through trade that
many South Bombay restaurants have a 'Jain' option on the menu. This is food
without garlic and ginger. Since they are both tubers (as also are potatoes),
Jains do not eat them, because in uprooting them from the soil, living
organisms may be killed (no religious restriction on butter and cheese,
however!). The vast majority of Ahmedabad's restaurants are vegetarian.
Gujaratis have no tolerance for meat-eaters and one way of keeping Muslims out
of their neighbourhoods is to do it through banning 'non-vegetarians' from
purchasing property in apartment buildings.
Even in Bombay, this intolerance prevails. Domino's, the famous
pizza chain, has a vegetarian-only pizza outlet on Malabar Hill (Jinnah's
neighbourhood) . Foreigners like Indian food, and it is very popular in
England, but they find our sweets too sweet. This taste for excess sugar
extends also to beverage: Maulana Azad called Indian tea 'liquid halwa'. Only
in the last decade have cafes begun offering sugar on the side, as diabetes has
spread.
India's culture encourages swift consumption. There is no
conversation at meal-time, as there is in Europe. Because there are no courses,
the eating is relentless. You can be seated, served and be finished eating at a
Gujarati or Marathi or South Indian thali restaurant in 15 minutes. It is
eating in the manner of animals: for pure nourishment.
We eat with fingers, as opposed to knives and forks, or chopsticks,
resulting in the scooping up of bigger mouthfuls. Because the nature of the
food does not allow for leisurely eating, Indians do not have a drink with
their meals. We drink before and then stagger to the table.
As is the case in societies of scarcity, rich food is considered
good -- and ghee is a sacred word in all Indian languages. There is no escape
from fat. In India, advertising for healthy eating also shows food deep fried,
but in lower-cholesterol oil.
The insistence by family - 'thoda aur le lo' -- at the table is
part of our culture of hospitality, as is the offering of tea and perhaps also
a snack to visiting guests and strangers. Middle class Indians, even families
that earn Rs10,000 a month, will have servants. Work that the European and
American does, the Indian does not want to do: cooking, cleaning, washing up.
Painting the house, changing tyres, tinkering in the garage, moving
things around, getting a cup of tea at the office, these are things the Indian
gets someone else to do for him. There is no sense of private space and the
constant presence of the servant is accepted.
Gandhi's value to India was not on his political side, but through
his religious and cultural reforms. What Gandhi attempted to drill into Indians
through living a life of action was a change in our culture of lethargy and
dependence. Gandhi stressed physical self-sufficiency, and even cleaned his
toilet out himself.
But he wasn't successful in making us change, and most Indians will
not associate Gandhi with physical self-sufficiency though that was his
principal message. Indian men do no work around the house. Middle class women
do little, especially after childbirth. Many cook, but the cutting and cleaning
is done by the servant. Slim in their teens, they turn thick-waisted in their
20s, within a few years of marriage.
Since we are dependent on other people, we have less control over
events. The Indian is under stress and is anxious. This is bad for his health.
He must be on constant guard against the world, which takes advantage of him:
the servant's perfidy, encroachment by his neighbours, cars cutting in front of
him in traffic, the vendor's rate that must be haggled down. Almost nothing is
orderly and everything must be worried about.
In the Indian office, the payroll is a secret, and nobody is told
what the other makes. Knowledge causes great stress, though the lack of
information is also stressful, leading to spy games and office gossip.
Because there is no individualism in India, merit comes from
seniority and the talented but young executive is stressed by the knowledge
that he's not holding the position he deserves. Indians are peerless detectors
of social standing and the vertical hierarchy of the Indian office is
sacrosanct.
Dennis Kux pointed out that Indian diplomats do not engage
officially with an American of lower rank, even if the American was authorised
to decide the matter. In the last decade, when Indians began owning companies
abroad, the Wall Street Journal reported on cultural problems that arose. Their
foreign employees learnt quickly that saying 'no' would cause their Indian
bosses great offence, so they learnt to communicate with them as with children.
Indians shine in the west where their culture doesn't hold them
back. In India honour is high and the individual is alert to slights from those
below him, which discomfort him greatly. There is no culture of physical
fitness, and because of this Indians don't have an active old age.
Past 60, they crumble. Within society they must step back and play
their scripted role. Widows at that age, even younger, have no hope of
remarriage because sacrifice is expected of them. Widowers at 60 must also
reconcile to singlehood, and the family would be aghast if they showed interest
in the opposite sex at that age, even though this would be normal in another
culture.
Elders are cared for within the family, but are defanged when they
pass on their wealth to their son in the joint family. They lose their
self-esteem as they understand their irrelevance, and wither.
With Best Regards
SHENOY INVESTMENT AND FINANCIAL
CONSULTANTS PRIVATE LIMITED
11-A, KASHI NIKETAN, 2ND ROAD,
CHEMBUR, MUMBAI - 400 071
TEL : 6797 3433 / 2521 2111
EMAIL : [email protected]
[email protected]
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Why Indians are stressed and unhealthy
Shenoy Investment & Fin. Cons. Pvt. Ltd Tue, 24 Feb 2009 04:35:04 -0800
- RE: Why Indians are stressed a... Shenoy, Sheshagiri B
- Why Indians are stressed ... Shenoy Investment & Fin. Cons. Pvt. Ltd
