The Magical Stone

Glancing through the old pictures of my gallery, my eyes caught hold of this monochrome picture. Such a good picture it was! Not many of us know the significance of the grinding tools used by our ancestors. Our ancestors had a unique approach to each task they performed. They not only fulfilled their own needs, but also noticed the needs of our mother earth.

‘Sil’ or ‘Batan’ was earlier known as the ‘Mixi of the Mountains’. It was basically used to grind spices, which is rare these days. We being the lazy species of our planet, prefer tinned and packaged spices over the freshly ground ones. Our ancestors were deeply connected to the five elements of nature. This was the probable reason behind their glorious and long lives!

In Bhopal, I have seen my grandmother grinding spices and rice batter in this magical ‘Sil’. You must be wondering, why I call it magical? The taste these spices rendered to the food being cooked, still entices me. I doubt if there would have been a South Indian kitchen from any social stratum that did not possess these tools of the trade. The essence of the stone ground chutneys takes me back to my childhood days. With the advent of technology in this fast paced world, where passion and patience comes with deep meditation, these old practises are losing their identity. Now we don’t meet often and our adapting the new cool! Zomato and Swiggy promise to serve healthy and ancestral dishes at affordable rates.

‘Necessity is undoubtedly the mother of invention’, but why not remind ourselves; where and how we started and not forget that painstaking solid stone grind from once upon a time!