Authenticity is something all of us look forward in whatever we buy. Biggest gift for one’s work happens when they are given the due recognition. I would like to go over the “Geographical Indications” topic in this blog. Basically products which carry GI tag are nothing but products originating in a region or a locality in that territory where its quality, reputation or characteristic is essentially attributable to its geographic origin. This is a great initiative from Government of India in partnering with WTO and other affiliated organizations. With the recognition it gives huge boost to Exports of these products, promotes Tourism, protects goods from fake competition, livelihood of people involved improves due to recognition from World market.
I wanted to share couple of my experiences in recent past where couple of terms – “Chettinad” and “Montessori” were overused and in fact misused in Tamil Nadu.
Misuse of the term Chettinad: I love trying different restaurants and one such category is ‘Mess food’ since I enjoy the taste. This was a newly opened mess in Trichy and went for Dinner and ordered Ceylon parotta and Fish chettinadu kulambu. In few minutes I got both the items and was shocked to see the Fish kulambu. Basically fish pieces were deep fried like Chicken-65 and then dipped into curry which was creamy and rich in taste and had heavy dose of ginger,garlic,onions and Tomatoes. In short words it was more suited for Rohit Sharma and Harbhajan singh and not for Ravichandran Ashwin. I asked the server to look into my face and see that my face has Chettinad written all over it in Times new roman font size 72; I had no problems if the dish was mentioned as North Indian curry since taste was good but using the term ‘Chettinad’ whose characteristics are primarily being extra spicy laced with roasted spices was completely missing. Every damn restaurant, mess, hotel use this term but unfortunately do not adhere to the cooking methods adopted in Chettinad.
Overuse of the term ‘Montessori’: Hunting for schools is not a joke in India since this is one area where competition is much more fierce than Thalapathy and Thala fans. When hunting for schools for Skandan I visited one such school which was taken over by some big weights in the city. My goal was to focus on curriculum and not on the infrastructure and I asked a simple question “Does the school adopt Montessori education for kindergarten” and the mam goes on explaining they have fully air conditioned classrooms, swimming pool construction to begin, artificial grass lawn, huge playground, blah blah …..appreciating her response I once again asked the same question for which she said she has to have a kindergarten teacher come and answer the question. Teacher came and said they are awaiting paperwork and should most probably get the approval soon to adopt Montessori education and I was shocked not looking at the school but the parents who have signed up like crazy for admitting their kid into their school. Once again the term ‘Montessori’ lost its credibility since every damn school either use ‘Montessori’ or ‘International’ as the tagline.
Therefore I feel there must be a system where we need to safeguard our strength (produce, skillset) by stamping our authority in World Market. Examples of some of the GI tags that has been given to Tamilnadu are Salem fabric, Madurai Sungudi, Coimbatore wet grinder, Kancheepuram Silk, Tanjore paintings, Madurai Malli, Tanjore veena, Erode Manjal, Chettinad kottan, Dindigul locks, Swamimalai Bronze icons, Arani Silk, Kovai Kora cotton saree, Tanjore Doll, Srivilliputtur Palkova, Pazhani Panchamirtham, Kandangi saree, Kovilpatty kadalaimittai etc., Now let us go through couple of these in detail.
[1] Srivilliputtur Palkova: So what makes this dish special which is made by simmering milk? Basically it is the Milk that makes the difference since Milk has more fat content and rich in nutrients; They also use tamarind wood and traditional clay made stoves for the fire to fuel the making process. Looks like they on every pan only 3 kgs of palkova is made since making more than that will spoil the traditional taste.
[2] Dindigul Locks: These locks are known for their superior quality and durability. Once again raw material is iron and that is available in abundance for the growth of the industry. These locks are made up of iron and brass and are completely handmade; The way these locks are designed will surprise many with different lever pattern and the city manufactures quite a number of models based on the needs of the public. One such variety is ‘Partner locks’ where in a Business if there are two partners and if they want the lock to be opened then both the keys has to be simultaneously used; Other variety is ‘Grand master’ locks which is used in family business where head of the family holds the master key and sons have the subordinate keys and if Father locks then all the keys son hold becomes dummy like a heroine in Kollywood masala movies. Since they are handmade the locks lasts many years unlike machine made locks and these locks cannot be duplicated since they are handmade.
So I welcome the GI tag concept and happy for all the workers in those respective regions, money can fetch the requirements but beyond that if a weaver in Kanchipuram, painter in Tanjore, cook in Kovilpatty realizes that their products made out of them has got International attention and recognition then that is much bigger gift than Money which is a mere legal paper.
No comments:
Post a Comment