Why "India Outside India"?

Since I came to NYC I have been trying to capture for the benefit of my international friends what is ‘India’ or ‘Indianness’. We have discussed various facets of Indian people, culture, ways of meaning making and what it means to live as an Indian. It was also interesting when my international friends shared what they thought being Indian was/must be like for me. I have been capturing visuals that I thought express non-Indians’ perceptions about India and also the expressions/visuals shared by the Indian community in US that must be shaping this perception. After a year of gathering images and talking in my head about it I thought why not put it all down in a blog.

Saturday, August 19, 2017

Trinis at Patel's

Yesterday I was pleasantly surprised to see my colleague from Brown University in the Patel's store. Since the opening last year we have been regular customers but never imagined meeting anybody I know professionally.

She had three big bags of dried hibiscus flowers. I have never seen dried hibiscus as food ingredient in Indian stores in USA or consumed dried hibiscus except once as part of some exautic tea. My colleague told me that Trinis make a tea with the hibiscus flowers and some spices for Christmas. I wonder if availability at Patel's is because a lot of Trinis and Caribean customers frequent the place or I missed some Indian connection, which is qute possible given the culinary diversity of India.



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