Gujju Maal! We made this dish by slow-boiling dried fruit in milk until it thickened and became a divinely delicious dessert which we named Gujju Maal.

There was a time in our youth when my friend and I made this amazing Gujarati kheer every single time we met, and lucky was anyone who happened to be visiting at the time! They got to taste it. She had inherited the recipe from an aunt domiciled in Ahmedabad; we christened it Gujju Maal. Transfer this name to Salil Tripathi’s book, The Gujaratis: A Portrait of a Community, which I have been reading with great curiosity and enjoyment, and it fits just right. The book is like a yummy meal with all the flavours bursting forth. There’s even the occasional mouthful that tastes ‘off’.

Tripathi’s account of being Gujarati and the myriad ways this manifests is a wonderland of masterful writing that extends to some 650 pages, every single one deserving to be savoured with relish. And so, I urge you in the words quoted at the beginning of the prologue, to read this month’s column indulgently: ‘Aavo, beso; shu lesho, thandu-garam? Nasto pani? Welcome, do sit down; what will you have, something hot or cold? Some tea? Snacks? Water?’ But before moving on, a special thank you to Aleph, the publishing house, for giving us this series. The Tamils is on my table, waiting to be read, and I look forward to reading about all the others who enrich this multilingual, multicultural, multiethnic, multifaith, multi-many mosaic called India.

Some of you may remember Salil Tripathi’s name from the April 2022 column: The Colonel Who Would Not Repent: The Bangladesh War and Its Unquiet Legacy. He is a well-respected journalist, fabulous writer, and Gujarati to boot. This book is the result of meticulous research across a wide spectrum of aspects and agencies, and draws energy from the personal experience of being a Gujarati with deep connections with all things Gujarat. The following extract from the prologue provides the perfect context for a definition of Gujarati: ‘the one who speaks the language, possibly counts in it, dreams in it, and thinks in it; the one who has moved to the land where Gujarati is spoken by the majority; the ones who may speak other languages but have made Gujarat their home and preserve their minority identities; and the ones who may live anywhere else in the world, but are of Gujarati heritage. Gujarati is a language, not a religion, not a caste, so the Gujaratis you will meet in these pages belong to all the strata of the society, and include Hindus, Muslims, Parsis, Jains, Buddhists, Dalits, Christians, and others who identify with other ethnicities and may be of no faith.’

This is no impressionistic or sentimental painting. Tripathi sketches from the inside out where he is part of the cast of characters, in a sense, while at the same time stepping out of the subjective framework to share clear-eyed accounts and observations. Divided into twelve main sections, the book introduces the people through a range of lenses such as who Gujaratis are, the way they are, where they came from, where they live inside and outside India, their work and work ethic, their politics, their creativity, their charity and worship, their food, their recreation, and even their peeves, to put it mildly. The chapters under each section are generally short although readers should be ready to contend with packed text! However, the writing is so lucid, it’s like reading fiction. While Tripathi shows us how his people are pragmatic and practical, and courageous, he also points to their proclivity to laugh… at others. In a fascinating — and unusually long — chapter titled ‘What is our asmita?’ Tripathi discusses the idea often used to describe Gujaratiness: a sense of identity of oneself, awareness of oneself, pride but not arrogance. He applies the idea to Gujarat’s historical context, and quotes the Gandhian scholar Tridip Suhrud whose words resonate at different levels, given life today: ‘Asmita depends on the context. … Pride is fine, but is arrogance part of that pride? Identity is great to have, but does it lead to narrowness and does that create otherhood? Consciousness is desirable, but does it make you self-righteous? And conscience — is it exclusionary or inclusive?’

Skimming over the nearly 90 chapters, you see how the titles themselves map a storyline. Take the section, ‘The Way We Are’. Here you have ‘Who is Gujarati, anyway?’; What are you? Who are you? How are you?; Rich like us: Bhatias, Kapols and Lohanas; Richer than us: Jains; We love them and hope they like us: Parsis; Patels ‘r us; Not equal to us: Dalits; Left behind by us: the Adivasis and Denotified Tribes; Neither them, nor us: Pastoral communities and Nomads; Them, not us: Muslims; Where is the rest of ‘us’?

Tripathi quotes the Gandhian scholar Tridip Suhrud whose words resonate at different levels, given life today: ‘Asmita depends on the context. … Pride is fine, but is arrogance part of that pride? Identity is great to have, but does it lead to narrowness and does that create otherhood? Consciousness is desirable, but does it make you self-righteous? And conscience — is it exclusionary or inclusive?

An overview of Gujarat’s history, migration patterns within and outside India, the business sense of the people, how politics works (or doesn’t), Gandhi and others, literature and the arts, faith and worship, culinary habits and vegetarianism, sexuality, riots…. All of these are tackled in detail yet with a deft, light touch that keeps you reading on and on.

Here, I must offer a disclaimer: Perhaps the reason why I haven’t been able to put down this book — and believe me, holding it up is no joke! — is due to my personal connections with Gujarat. I arrived in Ahmedabad 46 years ago to take up my first job. I knew nobody. There was no direct train to Ahmedabad. Thinking I was being considerate, I would speak to people in Hindi, only to be met with baleful looks. But switching to English transformed the faces into smiles! The first three months were spent in a hostel for tribal girls who showered me with affection. That’s where I was introduced to a range of rotlas and huge tumblers of chhaas! And often, looking out of the bus window, I found myself at almost eye level with camels, also waiting patiently at traffic lights!

This said, it’s a brilliantly written tome that anyone who is interested in knowing how people ‘work’, simply must read. I tend to be linear and so read from page-to-page, but you can pick any page or chapter or section. How Tripathi has managed to keep the tempo throbbing throughout is a miracle in itself. The Gujarat I knew and what it embodied was very different from what it is now and what it is made out to embody. When Gujarat was growing into itself back then, the best minds from all over the world visited and contributed their bit, people such as architects Buckminster Fuller, Le Corbusier and Louis Kahn, choreographer Merce Cunningham, photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson, among others. Then there were Indian stalwarts such as Tagore and Sarojini Naidu. Then again, there were visionary resident families such as the Sarabhais and the Lalbhais, many of whom set up pioneering institutions such as the Physical Research Laboratory, the National Institute of Design, and the Ahmedabad Textile Industry Research Association, to name just a few. Scientist Vikram Sarabhai’s wife, Mrinalini, set up her dance academy, Darpana, which has trained innumerable young people in Bharatanatyam, that quintessential South Indian art form.

So much in this book can help us resist the onslaught of misinformation and false narratives drowning us. For sure, Salil Tripathi has pulled off a literary coup.

Btw, Gujju Maal is best consumed cold.

The columnist is a children’s writer and senior journalist