Hi, I’m Apoorva Sripathi, a freelance writer and artist. If you enjoyed reading this issue or think shelf offering is great in general, you can buy me a cup of coffee // simply share the newsletter, and ask a friend or two (or three?!) to subscribe.

Two ways to say goodbye

2020's legacy is a dubious one. History will record the year for a singular reason -- the coronavirus pandemic. But there were other turning points, such as the bushfires in Australia, the movement for racial equality in the US and its elections, the domestic migration crisis in India that saw millions of unemployed labourers leaving cities for the countryside coupled with a precarious food supply chain, Brexit, never-ending Zoom calls and online classes... the list is endless. Like any other year, 2020 too has been filled with events. The detail is in how we remember it.

Newsletters, websites, blogs, Instagram and Twitter have published lists -- the 10 best things I ate, the 10 best things I read, the 10 best things I wrote, drank -- reviews, throwbacks, and picture grids of various foods, places, skincare among other measures of achievements and happiness (the two are separable!) as ways to remember the year gone by. Normally, I bookmark and read them on the 31st, savouring each piece like the corner bits of brownies; saving the best for the last and all that. But what good is productivity, achievement, or the 'best', in a year that has changed the way we live? As someone close to me said, "a lot doesn't mean better".

Instead, I thought I'd look back to a few good things, in the vein of Ruby Tandoh's nourishing piece for Eater London and Rachel Hendry's gentle one for Burum Collective. Both are records of good things and pleasures; of finding soft comfort in chaos, a concept I wrote about in one of my earlier issues.

Which admittedly seems like a long time ago. What was supposed to be a month's break to finish some freelance work, turned into a break for the rest of the year. I kept coming back to write but somehow I ended up in tears. I suffered more breakdowns than any other year, lost people to both old age and coronavirus this year, left a life in London to come back to my family, and gave up on writing. Well, almost. I managed to submit the pieces I had pitched, until someone's death always came in the way. Before everything erupted, I managed to get in this piece on mangoes; an "anti-mango love letter" as it happens. I love mangoes and like many foods, that are well loved around the world, they are symbolic of divisions and inequalities.

But in this year's assemblage of good food things, this newsletter ranks very high. I started it on a whim -- to keep myself occupied and to write essays that no one would ever want to publish or read -- but the response I received was heartwarming. So many subscribed and tweeted, some wrote kind emails that turned into lovely friendships spanning continents, and some others tipped my freelance jar. Taste were kind enough to mention (and Alicia Kennedy -- thank you!) my newsletter as one of the indie newsletters to read. This praise notwithstanding, I was also finally in a place where I was happy with my writing. This newsletter gave me the confidence to pitch and write other essays, all of which come out next year. It also gave me the confidence to give into impulses, and to say yes to things that seem too good to be true. As a result, Anna Sulan Masing, her partner JB, Holly Catford and I have now started a magazine on cheese.

Where would pleasures lie if not in cooking and eating? I cooked my way through depression+anxiety this year. I made pizza from scratch (but cooked it on a non-stick tava) that tasted like a cross between focaccia and naan, experimented with fruit rasams, ice creams, pasta, pancakes on a frying pan and pancakes in a paniyaram pan, a veggie burger that held its shape!, naan and kofta, steamed chocolate cake and orange cake, a lush paneer paratha, two batches of avakkai pickle, apple & pumpkin soup, tepache that failed colossally just like the pineapple head that I planted, nolen gur rasagullas, mashed spinach, barbecue beans on parotta, perfected lachha paratha, mango cheesecake, plump crispy gyoza, and bao buns for NYE that I made while also writing this. In the week that saw the death of my maternal grandmother and when amma was too sad to cook, I chipped in by making whatever food that could help ease her grief -- sambar rice, dosai batter that would feed us for a week or two, and rasam.

I woke up thinking about food, and went to sleep thinking about it. Food were gifts I gave, and gifts I received -- as cookbooks, chicken, cheese, and bread. Food took a place of prominence in the TV shows I watched when I was too depressed to function -- as much as butter and sourdough and rice gave me life, so did Nigella. Her old videos on YouTube nourished me, they gave me strength and support. My (personal) food system changed drastically from when I lived in London, to, now, when I live with my parents in Chennai. I am one of the lucky ones, being able to afford food and water, and being able to live with my family right now. The collapse of the global economy affected me in terms of unemployment and worsened my mental health -- but not in the access of food. And for that privilege, I'm extremely grateful.

Eating for pleasure can be seen as a path of resistance -- to reclaim our whole selves perhaps previously broken down, because eating for pleasure is somehow preceded by guilt and anxiety. But what eating for pleasure almost always misses is that the foods on a plate, represent foremost labour systems and an agricultural sector that are essential to the development of nation's economy.

Which is why for the tens of thousands of farmers who congregated in New Delhi to protest the new agricultural laws, it is a resistance to protect their livelihoods. The new laws, according to PM Modi supposedly give the farmers more autonomy on who they can sell to, such as supermarkets and private businesses, and therefore can set their own prices. But the move dismantles decades-old structures in place and does away with the guarantee of a minimum support price (MSP) for the farmers. The MSP is important because it guarantees a price on crops even if something goes wrong, like floods, drought, bad harvest season... It is important in a country that depends on the public distribution system, which feeds off the surplus -- a food security measure that was established after the Second World War. During the many lockdowns of last year, over 100 million were not entitled to the food transfers that public distribution system ensures. Now imagine a market that is open to privatisation in a country that has the largest stock of grain in the world, in a country that is ranked quite high on the Global Hunger Index.

Instead, what the new farm laws will [potentially] give rise to are: private regulation and a globalisation of the food chain, which will have multiple impacts on how we eat. Mangoes may become available all round the year -- which sounds amazing -- but will its all-the-year-round availability, thanks to industrialisation, be valuable anymore? As Alicia Kennedy writes in her essay On Luxury, "[ecological and plural] knowledge won't be respected unless the people who hold that knowledge are respected and allowed the fullness of self-determination." The new farm laws overturn that self-determination, and place substantial barriers and risks on primary producers. As a result, knowledge -- ecological, plural, and indigenous -- is reduced to and exploited for capital to make further investments to procure further wealth. When agricultural knowledge is exploited, so are the farmers and the food that is produced, because food isn't just food -- it requires labour and time. And knowledge.

The protesting farmers in Delhi are "fighting for the rights of us all", writes P. Sainath, founder editor of the People's Archive of Rural India. In particular, he highlights Section 13 of The Farmers' Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, 2020 -- the act not only aims to do away with the Agriculture Produce Marketing Committees, but also excludes prosecution and legal proceedings against the central and state governments or the officers/persons who aim act "in good faith". In short, it takes away a citizen's right -- not just a farmer, but anyone -- to legal recourse or intervention and "magnifies the already most unjust imbalance of power between farmers and the giant corporations they will be dealing with". In even shorter terms, it is unconstitutional. These new laws aren't just the anxieties of farmers; they are the anxiety of a country.

Even if the laws are overturned or modified -- the seventh round of negotiations are set to take place on Monday today -- it does not excuse the way they were passed. Nor does it explain why they were passed now, during a pandemic, when food security is one of the highest priorities. I have said it before, and I'll say it again: food is sustenance, food is fundamental. Food lies at the centre of human activities, which means that food is social, political, a metaphor for other things, an indication of class, caste and religion, and transformation. It is resistance in many different ways.

Miscellaneous

• Happy New Year! My song pick for this year is this beauty by Ilaiyaraaja and SPB. வருங்காலம் வசந்த காலம் நாளும் மங்களம்!

I would love to hear from you — idea, shoutout, or just a chat about shelf offering. Or if you want me to write on food, culture, identity as well. Reach me at seriouscheats@gmail.com.