By Daiaphira Kharsati
SHILLONG: The long queues outside cake shops decorated with stars and balloons have become a common sight on Christmas. The wide variety of cakes displayed at the numerous bakeries in the city is mouth-watering and complements the western ways of celebrations in most parts of the city.
But residents of Mawlai Umthlong celebrate Christmas by baking traditional festive delicacies like putharo, pusla, pumaloi, pukhlein, pudoh. Some of them also sell these traditional Khasi food items.
The delicacies are made of rice and require hard work.
A walk around the locality and one can hear the rhythm of pounding of rice in a wooden mortar, which can hold around 10kg of rice, with a pestle. Many houses follow this ritual every year.
The task is not for the weak and one needs stamina and patience to grind rice manually. Machine grinders are also used for making it into fine powder.
Also, “the rice that it is used to cook the food is not the ordinary rice but it is of different quality”, said W Thabah, a maker of traditional food items.
This time of the year is the busiest for them and they start work early in the morning.
When asked about demand, some said it has come down over two decades.
Merin Mylliem Umlong said the current business of traditional food is not as thriving as it was back in 1997-98 though the decline in sales is not even half.
“Back then there was demand for 30-40 kg but nowadays it is getting difficult. We cook about 10 kg only these days,” she said as she prepared putharo in a small earthen dish (saraw) with the flames from firewood heating up the hovel used separately for cooking the traditional items.
The recipes and the techniques of cooking the traditional foods are passed down through generations, she added.
Merinda starts her work at 5-5.30 am and sometimes at 3 am when she gets order usually from schools, church or any special occasion.
But Thabah has a different take. He said the number of customers has increased and besides locals, people from Delhi and Haryana are also placing orders.
“The demand for traditional Khasi food will never die and the demand is still picking on any occasion,” Thabah added.
Speaking of the challenges, Thabah said procuring the wooden mortar, saraw and the sieve is a problem. Over 10 kg of rice can fit in the wooden mortar and one would need to summon one’s physical and probably mental strength to pound the rice, he observed.
To pound 10 kg, it takes more than an hour while using the machine reduces the time to 20 minutes.
Kortila Mylliem Umlong echoed Thabah’s claim saying, “People are now aware of Khasi food. Hence, there is an increase in the order.”
The makers of the traditional food items are eager to pass on the legacy to their children. Thabah said, “Our children are well educated. It is this job that has supported us through the years enabling our children to go to school and now they are well educated and have their own jobs. They come home from their jobs to help us with the cooking also.”
The headman of Mawlai Umthlong, Tyllilang Mylliem Umlong, said there are around 1,200 households in Mawlai Umthlong of which 15 per cent cook the traditional Khasi food.
“In the previous years, the cooking of traditional Khasi food was done by a few people only. Nowadays, the trade has been enthusiastically taken forward by others,” he said.
He added that the business is another means of employment as there is a need for young energetic people to pound the rice and women to cook.
“The method of traditional Khasi food will never be weakened. In fact, this is a source of livelihood for many,” he said.