Dear Auntyji
My hubby and I are both of Fiji-Indian descent, and both 46 years old. Lately my husband has been acting quite strange and I seek your guidance.
He loves the Fiji Indian gulab jamuns and barfis and pedas. But about a month ago, he said he was going to stop eating sugar and would give up all sugary treats. Now he wasn’t doing this for health reasons – but because he said he had issues with the industrial sugar trade – and how it has caused misery to so many people in the world, including our own ancestors. Both mine and my husband’s great great grandparents were brought as slaves from India to work on cane fields – by the gore log. My husband refuses to call them indentured labourers because he insists they were slaves. I don’t disagree with him on any of this. But Auntyji, we all know that the drug of choice for us folks of Indian descent is sugar – so giving up the barfis is hard for me. How do I tell him that we can’t control what happened to our ancestors – but sugar is sugar and we need to eat it. How do I solve this peculiar problem?
Auntyji says
My, oh my! What a wonderfully thoughtful man your husband is, and I am most impressed by his philosophy. He is quite right in that the sugar trade was essentially built off the backs of slaves from places like India and Africa. And yes – this demand for sugar led to millions of people being displaced and being forced to work as slaves. So today, when we chomp into our gulab jamuns and barfis mindlessly, without taking a moment to acknowledge that it was the demand for sugar that led to people like you and your hubby living in Australia today – we fail to understand the price our ancestors paid.
So, my little laddoo, I know it’s hard to give up the barfis and jalebis. But here is what you can do to live more mindfully – and to acknowledge the price paid by your par-dadi and par-nani and others who came to Fiji as slaves (let’s not call them indentured labourers because softening words gives legitimacy to the abhorrent practice of the slave trade). So, instead of buying sugar from the supermarket, investigate which brands of sugar are sustainably sourced. And which are not part of the industrial complex. Use this instead. And each time you have a laddoo or a peda, take a moment to thank your ancestors for their sacrifice. We all know that for the bulk of people who were taken as slaves from the motherland, their families never laid eyes on them again. Can you imagine the pain? Now imagine the sacrifice the slaves made to give better conditions to their kids – the result of which you are experiencing today. So, living mindfully is the way to go. Tell your husband that this might be a more reasonable approach. He sounds like a smart man. No need to give up the suji laddoo or the coconut barfi. Everything in moderation.
Send over some barfis if you are making a batch for Diwali. Love those Fiji Indian gulab jamuns too….
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