Category
Talk
Artists
Pankhuri Agrawal
Date
September 27th 2024.
Pankhuri Agrawal, founder of the Yayavr Food Readers’ Club, recently delivered an insightful talk titled The Sweet Curse: Sugar’s Hidden History at Koota. Pankhuri explored the deep and often overlooked history of sugar, connecting its production with intergenerational trauma, geographical identities, and national memory. Participants were encouraged to engage with materials provided prior to the event, including Uzma Aslam Khan’s haunting short story “The Origin of Sweetness,” which tells the story of Zulekha, a young girl in Karachi grappling with her father’s suicide. This story is part of the anthology Desi Delicacies: Food Writing from Muslim South Asia.
The talk also covered excerpts from Sidney Mintz’s seminal work Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History, shedding light on the global impacts of sugar production. Pankhuri further discussed the emotional and historical weight of Gaiutra Bahadur’s Coolie Woman: The Odyssey of Indenture, which traces the indentured laborers’ journeys tied to the sugar industry. The event concluded with a discussion on palm sugar, drawing from Aparna Karthikeyan’s book Nine Rupees an Hour: Disappearing Livelihoods of Tamil Nadu.
Pankhuri Agrawal is an independent facilitator, writer, and researcher based in Bangalore. She founded the Yayavr Food Readers’ Club in June 2022, which delves into the literature, history, sociology, and politics of food in India, focusing on various ingredients and concepts. The club has grown into a close-knit community, completing 17 meets so far. Pankhuri has also conducted research on street vendors with Prof. Krishnendu Ray at New York University and was a visiting professor at Vidyashilp University in 2024.
