"Have you eaten yet?"

“Have you eaten yet?”

I put my key in the door and open it.

It is the first time I have returned home in weeks. I haven’t seen my parents or my sister or my nani or the small, slow-moving streets, with sidewalks on both sides. I haven’t driven past the bookstore and all eighteen coffee shops on Main Street in weeks. maybe months.

I haven’t been home.

I haven’t heard the sound of home.

I haven’t smelled the indian food I used to hate.

But I walk into the house.

And the first thing I hear, the first thing said, is “Have you eaten yet?”

For people from the region of the world my family is from, food is far more than a simple commodity. Food is not the three meals you eat every day. For much of history, the region of the world known as the asian subcontinent experienced ravaging famines, with weather destroying crops and everything else. Food was not something always had; it was something my ancestors wanted for, died for, but did not always receive. Now, we have food in abundance, and I never return home to an empty fridge, and often I walk through the door to see my nani at the stovetop, cooking.

Food is also our culture. When the British colonized India, they took everything from her. They took her jewels, her labor, they took her intelligence, they took her language, her cotton, her clothes. What they could not take, what they could not bastardize, was our food. The most popular British food is indian. When the British pushed people out of their homes, they still kept their recipes. They passed down the food when the culture was destroyed. When the British banned books that rebelled against them, indians rebelled the only way they knew how. They maintained our culture through our food. Through our spices, when they westernized our religion, they could not westernize our food. Our food remained ours. It always has been and always will be.

Or, take India’s Geopolitical state. Also, as a result of the British colonization, Hindus and Muslims don’t really get along, because the white man pitted us against each other. They split the nation in two to segregate us. The caste system we created for ourselves was nothing compared to what colonisation ingrained in us, but I know that Hindus and muslims are no different from each other. We both bleed red, we both have tan skin, and most importantly. We have the same food. Our food is shared because we are one and the same. We may pray to different gods, but we are no different than each other in any other way. This is true to an extent about every religious divide in the world, but this is so especially true about Hinduism and Islam, two religions that developed parallel to each other in this region, and that merged and split continually for centuries, sharing ideas and beliefs. We also shared our food. Our food is the remaining piece that the British were never able to take. They couldn’t change the cuisine of either religion because a religion does not have a cuisine. Food unites us all. We eat the same kebab, and we bleed the same dark red.

It is a massive stereotype in the south asian-american community that an auntie will always feed you. No matter how full you are, A plate will end up in front of you, and you are expected to eat every crumb off. It doesn’t matter if you just ate in front of her; you will eat.

When I would fight with my parents as a kid— or sometimes even now— My mom would always call me downstairs, and i’d think I was in even more trouble, about to fight again, but she just wanted me to eat. She had cooked a meal.

Every time I come home, whether it be from hanging out with friends, going away for a summer camp, or going to work, I come home to food being cooked. I am asked if I have eaten yet. Now, to some this feels so arbitrary, but to me It is security. Because as much as home is the people, as much as home is with my family, or as much as home is my house. I am not at home until I’ve been asked, “Have you eaten yet?”

Food is how we show love. When there are no words to be said, when there is no word left in the English language, “Have you eaten yet?” conveys it all. It conveys caring about someone on a deeper level, on a level beyond the barriers of language that diaspora creates, because its semantics are not in the root but in the truth. “Have you eaten yet?” is something so casual yet so intimate, because its meaning is dependent on its context.

I love you— is just a variation of “Have you eaten yet?”

Inspired by prestonrack on Instagram + my life generally

Thanks for reading,

Aarav