• 5/17/2005
  • Mumbai, India
  • Anand Giridharadas
  • International Herald Tribune Asia-Pacific

The way some tell it, there is nothing paan won’t do. They say it is a stimulant, breath freshener and strengthener of gums. It raises sperm count and lowers blood pressure. It releases oxytocin, the love hormone, and blood chemicals believed by ancient Hindus to rouse motherly affection

There is more. Paan ingredients are said to hone memory, ease depression and forestall aging. It is a cancer therapy that doubles as lipstick. Not bad for an egg-sized snack consisting of a betel-nut leaf draped around a polychrome blend of slaked lime, shredded betel nuts, tree-bark extract and rose-petal preserves.

Every night in this vast subcontinent and across India’s global diaspora, tens, maybe hundreds, of millions of Indians pop a paan. At its simplest, it offers both digestive penance for the sins of a too-heavy meal and a chemical boost to keep drooping eyelids aloft till bedtime. It is something like an antacid tablet and an shot of espresso rolled into one

“There is an old relationship of man with stimulants: He has sought to be stimulated from anything which is organic around him, like tea leaves and coffee,” said Mahesh Bhatt, a top Bollywood film director and a paan chewer. “That is an essential need that paan fulfills in the paan-chewing population of this country – that it gives them a kick. It is oral pleasure.” But increasingly, despite that kick and ancient healers’ view of it as a cure-all, paan is being cast as the ailment itself. It was long known to contain an addictive chemical related to cocaine; now scientists say it also increases risk of oral cancer, with which 153,000 Asians are reportedly diagnosed every year

Some researchers suspect that the cancer might be caused not only by paan that is laced with tobacco, but also by traditional herbal paan.”People have been emphasizing a lot on AIDS and other epidemics,” said Suwas Darvekar, a dentist in Mumbai who leads a mouth-cancer awareness project. “This is one of the rampant epidemics that is going on in the world, and the irony of it is that a lot of people are making millions on it.”

The “millions” referred to the growing presence of branded tobacco-and-paan substitutes. They worry health officials, who believe them to be even more addictive than paan, and they pose a threat to the peddlers of traditional paan. New offerings include gutka, sachets of powdered betel nuts and tobacco; and Dentobac, a tobacco-laced toothpaste that is rubbed onto the teeth and gums

Will old-fashioned paan endure the two-flank attack of the health watchdogs and Big Tobacco?

“In spite all the other kind of stimulants that are now available on the shelf from the world over, the consumption of paan continues,” Bhatt said. “While culture is something that is dynamic, visible in all the food habits, clothes and arts, somehow, when it comes to paan, the recipe has not evolved.”

To a country so fast-changing, it offers continuity. To a country so diverse, it offers contiguity. And as a defining ritual of this most labyrinthine of nations, paan is tempting as a metaphor

Not unlike India, it is a teeming, triangular democracy of clashing tastes, riven on the inside by a perpetual jostling for space and expression but remarkably harmonious when swallowed as a whole. Not unlike India, paan brims with contradictions that no mind could possibly resolve – reputedly being both laxative and antidiarrheal, both cancer-treating and carcinogenic

Paan has long occupied a venerable place in Indian culture. It was frequently cited in ancient Sanskrit texts. The Kama Sutra, written before the 6th century, advised men to eat “betel leaves, with other things that give fragrance to the mouth.”

The most celebrated vendor in Mumbai is Muchhad Paanwala, a shop name that translates loosely as whiskered paan seller – after the vast handlebar mustaches adorning the four brothers who own it. On a recent Thursday night, the eldest brother, Jaishankar Tiwari, was reclining in the stall, which abuts a building on the sidewalk of a Mumbai thoroughfare. Tiwari had the air of a paterfamilias, wearing a tunic with removable gold buttons and a stained towel across his lap for the regular washings of his thick-fingered hands

It was past midnight, and the business was brisk. With each order, he rinsed a leaf, then began a ritual layering of ingredients: A spot of chuna, or slaked lime, a clumpy, limestone-based juice; then katha, a bark extract; then gulkand, a jelly made of sugared rose petals.
Depending on what was ordered, there were various add-ons: coconut shavings, shredded betel nuts, honey-flavored cardamom, cherries, silver foil or, if desired, tobacco. Tiwari would then bundle the leaf, and a green bulb soon would land in a mouth inevitably too small for it

Much of paan’s appeal lies not simply in paan, but in paan moments. At his stall, Muchhad provides an Indian roadside version of what the founder of Starbucks, Howard Schultz, once called a “third place” – a domain between work’s anxieties and home’s entanglements. Teenage boys mill around past midnight, standing among motorbikes. They chew paan, of course, but mostly they just savor the night, perhaps staving off naggings awaiting them back home. To consume a paan is not time-consuming, but it can be made to consume time

In this most stratified nation, paan is also a classless treat. You can get something for 3 rupees, or $0.06; few orders exceed 15 rupees. Some customers come on foot, others on motorcycles. Some order by phone, others send servants. Many rich families, commonly known as “the classes,” come nightly, stopping factory-fresh cars in the traffic and barking orders out the window: “Two salty ones. Make it quick!”

“This is the area where the classes stay,” said Harsh Parekh, 21, a recent college graduate. “They all come here for paan. They might go to have some wine or something, but then they still come here.”

And what keeps them coming to Muchhad?

“God has something to do with that,” Tiwari said. “It’s up to Him whose paan tastes good. There are as many tastes as there are shops.” Then he gazed skyward at the prompting of his own thought