My Experience with the Changed Eating Together Patterns

I was born in a joint family of 17 members in Bhubaneswar, Odisha. From the very childhood I have seen all my family members cooking and eating all together. Not only inside the house, almost every person has the culture of eating together. I have seen it since my very childhood but with time this has been missing. Now, we have to fix a separate date and time for family and friends to meet at a place and eat together. My cousins grew up and went out for their higher studies or for their jobs but mostly we used to miss their presence, we used to meet our time. I realised it when I had to come to Bangalore for my higher studies. A place where I was all alone and none of my family members were with me. Then I realised how painful it is to stay away from our families. We used to wait for other cousins, parents and siblings to join and they used to wait for me to join the table but, when i came here i realised that now there isn't anyone with me who would wait for me to join the dine. Nor do I have to wait for anyone to eat with me.

Figure 1: Eating together during pandemic.

Back in my home, I used to ask my mother that, why is it that we all wait for others to join us?'' and she would politely reply, “if we eat together, we share a good relationship”. She once explained this with an example, that when we meet someone suddenly in a party and eat together, we get a chance to talk to them about the memories we had together. Then I realised it's actually very true. Just like we share a coffee together in a coffee shop, similarly we can share our food and have a great time together.

But, this COVID-19 pandemic has changed the whole lifestyle of people and has almost changed the mindset of people. Now, we have to think a lot many times to even invite someone to meet and share some food. Because now everyone is very conscious about where to eat, how to eat, if it's safe or not, etc. Now a lot of questions come into picture to even share food served in different plates. This culture of eating together is still affected in most people's minds. After the lockdown was over and things were relaxed, my family decided to plan a picnic, because after a long time, all cousins were together. The first question that came into mind was, is it safe? Then when we planned to hire a cook, we had to think hundred times, which was generally not the case. In the picnic spot also, we ate together but with a certain distance and not like before.

I remember, my mother and my aunts crying “come all of you, dinner is ready”, but now after the pandemic, we eat together but maintain distance. Now, we don't talk while eating, in the fear of this corona. When the pandemic was at its peak, we used to maintain distance, not share food together, etc. Even now, after the state restrictions have reduced, people have become so conscious that they still think before going out and eating together. Hardly people used to find some time with their family and friends, but after this pandemic we can meet them because everything is now virtual, but we can not think of sharing our stories over a meal. We can’t now think of meeting together at a place and cooking our favourite dishes and sharing our stories.