WHAT MAKES A CHATORI? Women, appetite and food in small-town U.P.

Growing up in Banda, Nazni did not cook, unlike most young girls. She recalls her initiation into adulthood through food. When she turned fourteen, relatives came calling and she was married by consensus into a family of four brothers in Moradabad. The brothers had great trouble with food, being compelled to eat out constantly, at small-time hotels and dhabas. Their parents were long-dead. A bahu would provide hot, home-cooked food waiting at home, the relatives said. And so there was a wedding. The man to whom Nazni was married was twenty two at the time. They had five children together over the next ten years. He gambled away their money until she left for her parents’. Soon after giving birth