Documentary: Seva - Selfless Cooking

 For privacy reasons, the film is not open to all. For access email: hetgroeneoor@gmail.com

 

Synopsis

Every Sunday morning, a group of volunteers enters the Dew Mandir temple to prepare for the Puja ritual. Seva: Selfless Cooking follows these volunteers and explores their activities and experiences during these preparations. In doing so, the film provides insight in devotion and ritual as experienced by this group of the Indian Diaspora in the West Schildersbuurt in the Hague.

“Service which is given without consideration of anything in return, at the right place and time to one that is qualified, with the feeling that it is one’s duty, is regarded as the nature of goodness.”

— Bhagavad Gita Chapter 17, Verse 20 [1]

Seva: Selfless Cooking captures how part of the voluntary work is performed and given meaning. The volunteers refer to their work as performing Seva, which they define as ‘selfless service’, and refer to it as a direction for self realization. Part of the voluntary work is the preparation of the sacred temple space and shrines with a collection of murties (statues) of the Hindu pantheon, used for the Puja ritual. Performed by Ram, who has been affiliated with the temple for over a decade, these preparations demand an embodiment of the Hindu tradition as the temple members approaches them. The body of the film consists of an exploration of the preparations for making Prasad, six or seven different sweet foods that are offered in Puja rituals [2], performed by a group largely consisting of women that have also been affiliated with Dew Mandir for over a decade. Here, the same embodiments are needed as well as knowledge of how the traditions apply to the preparations of the foods, and an ability to work together.

[1] https://archive.org/stream/DeBhagavadGitaInHetNederlands/De_Bhagavad_Gita_djvu.txt

[2] https://hindoedharma.nl/rituelen/handleidingen/prasad-offeren/

Research

The research was conducted by Juan F. Díaz Cuyás and Dirkje Baris. It is an extension of the  film Seva: Selfless Cooking and the result of insights gained through three months of fieldwork between october and december of 2018 at Dew Mandir Den Haag.  It provides audiovisual content of the temple and its area, ingredients of Prasad, personal and shared meanings of Seva (through interviews), and Puja.

Methodology

During the fieldwork, the objective was to create a mainly observative and participative film. We performed a number of social research methods such as participative observation, interviews, elicitation interviews and informal conversation to produce the film and knowledge about Seva . Participative observation was done at the temple, especially in the ground floor. Whenever there were chores we could participate in, we helped along and had informal conversations with the respondents about their experiences at Dew Mandir and a variety of personal topics. These interactions became more rare as we exposed the respondents to the camera because they expressed unease about being recorded. We will further discuss the ethical consideration we have made in the next section. Not all the fieldwork took place in the same area. The interview with the secretary of the Mandir was held in an upstairs office of the temple space, whereas the elicitation interview with Dineesh was held in a more quiet university building.

We were also able to incorporate poetic expressions into the film, because of the richness in religious interpretations, immaterial concepts and social aesthetics in the temple. Initially, we intended for the protagonists to be able to direct the attention of the camera to what they believe is important, but in practice this rarely happen. The protagonists directed the camera in the sense that they expressed their desires for us to stop recording activities, especially personal religious experiences and work that is supposed to be performed in accordance with strict procedures. But even though we might have missed some additional content, we didn’t see this as an obstacle since the protagonists were glad to reveal their work as volunteers – and this is the main theme of the documentary.

Ethics

There’s a wider political discussion among Hinduïst communities around the world about the way the religion is organized. These social and political discussions were also found at Dew Mandir. This confronted us with a ‘no-harm’ principle (AAA: Point 1d. to 1i.) [1], because it meant we had to be careful with what activities and expression in the mandir we could responsibly record. We had to take into account the way respondents wanted to be represented in order to protect them from judgments and continued scrutiny that stem those political discussions.

As a research topic, Seva at the Dew Mandir temple contains a range of complex materials. Making a film on experiences of Hindu devotion and ritual may require specialized knowledge that the researchers were not able to gain before the fieldwork started. A reflection on what kind of knowledge they are able to produce about Hindu devotion and ritual is therefore needed. For example, the respondents shaped the answers to our questions to fit the needs of  a research team that was largely unfamiliar with Hindu religion. The film is thus shaped by these immediate impressions and knowledge that the researchers could produce by observing and participating.

The result is a mosaic of observations and episodic poetic expressions. Welcome to our research!

[1] https://www.americananthro.org/ParticipateAndAdvocate/Content.aspx?ItemNumber=1656

What is prasad? 

 Prasad is a Sanskrit word referring to ‘blessed foods’. This means that once foods that meet the criteria for sacrifice are blessed in specific rituals, those foods become Prasad. After those specific rituals, it is meant to be distributed among visiting parties and worshippers. When preparing Prasad, there are criterias for the ingredients as well as for the intention and feeling. It is believed the foods have to be sweet and ‘lacto-vegetarian’, meaning no meat or egg, as well as fresh and natural. These last two criterias are flexible in Dew Mandir because of limited availability, and the large amounts of Prasad that are made for their visitors.  A need to strictly follow criterias for hygiene is expressed among volunteers however, since it is believed that Prasad  needs to be pure and uncontaminated. While performing the fieldwork, we saw that when the volunteers were cooking they needed to keep conversation to a minimum because talking could contaminate foods with saliva. During the preparations, volunteers often make little prayers before producing a new product. We were told that this is a manner for making a connection to pure emotions and intentions – plus a confirmation of devotion to God (often referred to as ‘Bhagavan‘).

“Living creatures are nourished by food, and food is nourished by rain;
rain itself is the water of life, which comes from selfless worship and service.”

—Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 3, Verse 14.

Dew Mandir Den Haag is one of few mandirs in the Netherlands that make their own Prasad from scratch, according to their secretary. Since the mandir positions itself in a Surinam-Hindu tradition, they maintain making those products that have been part of this tradition. During our fieldwork, the following products were made in the Mandir kitchen:

• Panjiri: a gruel of wheat flour, dried fruits and powdered sugar
• Meetha bhaat: a rice gruel with sugar, cow’s milk and coconut
• Mohanbhog: a mixed paste with wheat flour, ghee, cow’s milk, sugar and raisins
• Laddoo: small spheres of wheat flour, ghee, sugar and nuts or raisins
• Lapsi Roti: pancakes made of wheat flour, cow’s milk and ghee

Many products are either made of, or prepared with Ghee. This is a butter that is clarified under another set of Hindu criteria, making it a primary product for cooking but also for rituals where it for instance is used as candle wax. Fruits such as banana, grapes and cucumber are also part of this Prasad. The documentary  focuses on the preparations and plating of these foods as it is done by the volunteers at Dew Mandir, here we expand on these recordings with fragments of the Puja 

The offerings of the foods so that thew become Prasad is done in diverse rituals. At home, this can be done with a recitation of mantras or offering the foods to a small murti (statue) of a deity. Both mantras, as well as the offerings, are done at Dew Mandir, with the help of a Pandit – the Hindu scholar, in what is called the Puja ritual. While the Pandit recites short mantras about the forms of divinity, guests of the temple offer the foods to the murties. The guests who perform this last part of the ritual differ every week, and often do this because they have a celebratory motive such as a wedding anniversary or graduation. 

After the food is offered in the Puja ritual, the Prasad is brought downstairs and distributed into small plastic bags by the volunteers. While they are preparing these bags for the visitors, a Pandit gives a lecture. After the lecture Prasad is distributed, along side sweetened cows milk and an aarti – a copper bowl with a candle in the middle by which light is offered to the deities.

 What is Puja?

Puja refers to a range of ritual worship and devotion, taking different forms within various communities, countries or even personal demands and time.

In the Dew Mandir temple, depending on the occasion, various versions of Puja  are performed. Sometimes the ritual revolves around the lighting of a fire in honor of a fire deity. The  Puja  as it is performed in the Dew Mandir every sunday, is an offering to the Deities as a way of connecting and giving back. It is assisted by a Pandit, a scholar and teacher of Hindu scripture. The sweet foods that are prepared in the ground floor kitchen, go through a sacred offering to the different deities accompanied by prayers, so that they are ready to go as far as  Prasad. Though this ritual is guided by a pledge, the offerings are often performed by visitors who have special occasions like marriage, birthdays or graduation. 

 

 

What is Seva?

 Seva, is described as ‘selfless service’ by the volunteers at the Dew Mandir. It refers to an attitude of selflessness and an effort to contribute to well being that transcends the individual, which often translates to voluntary work. These practices are described as a relation to and dialog with Hindu deities, for an exchanging of energies and fulfillment of dharmatic achievements.

During this interview, which was one of our first, Nishad explains a variety of concepts that are fundamental to the organization of the temple. He gets his knowledge from the lectures that the Pandits give, and often relies on Hindu scriptures like the Bhagavad Gita. In this ancient Hindu scripture, a meaning of Seva is given as follows:

“Service which is given without consideration of anything in return, at the right place and time to one that is qualified, with the feeling that it is one’s duty, is regarded as the nature of goodness.” BG 17:20

During the fieldwork, Seva was often referred to when we asked the volunteers about their work. All respondents emphasized that it is not necessarily a Hindu concept, as Nishan explains in the previous fragment, but that it is a ‘general phenomenon’ that can be found everywhere. We were also told however, that it is a fundamental value to raise children within many Hindu families and several volunteers explained that they were brought along with their parents when they went to do their own voluntary work.