Music, dance, rangoli & crafts
Festival food, thalis & temple meals
Made less often, still worth keeping
Traditional food for everyday wellbeing
Culture Chronicles explores the India behind the food: the festivals we celebrate, the offerings made in temples and homes, the recipes our elders remember, and the traditions, from rangoli to music, that still shape everyday life. Some stories begin in the kitchen; others take you to the art, rituals and celebrations that make India what it is.
Living Traditions
From the morning rangoli at the doorstep to centuries-old music and dance, India’s traditions are still lived every day, not kept only in museums.
Music: India has two great classical music systems. Carnatic music, rooted in the South, is built around compositions by saint-composers such as Tyagaraja, while Hindustani music of the North grew through gharanas, schools passed from teacher to student, and is often heard at all-night music festivals. Both rest on raga (melody) and tala (rhythm), and both are still learned the traditional way, at the feet of a guru.
Dance: India’s classical dances tell stories from the epics through gesture and expression. Bharatanatyam from Tamil Nadu, Kathakali from Kerala with its painted faces and towering headdresses, Kathak from the North, Odissi from Odisha, Kuchipudi from Andhra Pradesh, Manipuri, Mohiniyattam from Kerala and Sattriya from Assam are the eight forms recognised as classical.
Rangoli: Every morning, in homes across India, a pattern is drawn at the doorstep to welcome the day. It is kolam in Tamil Nadu, muggulu in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, alpana in Bengal and mandana in Rajasthan. Traditional kolam is drawn with rice flour, which also feeds ants and birds, and the designs grow larger and more colourful for Pongal, Onam and Diwali.
Crafts: Each region has its own: Madhubani painting from Bihar, Pattachitra from Odisha, Warli art from Maharashtra, Kalamkari from Andhra Pradesh, Paithani and Banarasi silks, phulkari embroidery from Punjab, blue pottery from Jaipur, Channapatna wooden toys from Karnataka, and the bamboo and cane work of the North-East. Many are still made by families who have practised them for generations.
Our first stories for this section are on the way.
Feasts & Offerings
Some food is cooked only for an occasion or for God: festival dishes, temple offerings, community kitchens and the great thalis of India.
Temple kitchens: At the Jagannath Temple in Puri, one of the largest temple kitchens in the world, food is cooked in stacked earthen pots over wood fires, without onion or garlic, and offered to the deity before it is shared as Mahaprasad. Many temples have their own famous prasadam, from the laddu of Tirupati to the panchamrit given after a puja.
Langar: At the Golden Temple in Amritsar, the community kitchen serves free meals to tens of thousands of people every day, whatever their faith. Volunteers roll rotis, stir dal in huge cauldrons and serve everyone seated together on the floor, a tradition that goes back to Guru Nanak.
Festival offerings: Before a festival meal is eaten, it is first offered to God at home: modak for Ganesh Chaturthi, sakkarai pongal for Pongal, panakam and kosambari for Rama Navami, Ugadi pachadi for the Telugu and Kannada new year, and kheer and mithai on countless other occasions.
The thali, across India: The idea of a complete meal served together is shared from one end of the country to the other. Kerala’s sadya is laid out on a banana leaf with more than twenty dishes for Onam; Himachal’s dham is cooked by traditional cooks called botis and served on leaf plates; Assam’s thali brings rice, dal, khar and pitika; Gujarat and Rajasthan serve sweet, sour and spicy bowls side by side; and a festive Maharashtrian thali comes with varan bhaat and puran poli.
Old Family Recipes
Recipes passed down in families that are made less often today, or only in some homes and regions, recorded with the memories behind them so they keep being cooked.
Pickles and preserves: Before refrigerators, summer was spent preserving. Raw mangoes became avakaya in Andhra, chunda and methia keri in Gujarat and aam ka achar in the North, while lemons, gooseberries and green chillies were salted and sun-cured in ceramic jars. In Rajasthan, ker and sangri were dried to last through the year.
Sun-dried staples: Vadams in Tamil Nadu, vadiyalu in Andhra Pradesh, sandige in Karnataka, bori in Bengal and wadi in Punjab were made on rooftops in the hot months and stored for the monsoon, along with hand-rolled papads.
Festival dishes: Many sweets and savouries are made only once a year and are slowly giving way to shop-bought versions: athirasam and murukku for Deepavali in the South, anarse for Diwali in Maharashtra, pitha for Bihu in Assam and Sankranti in Bengal and Odisha, and thekua for Chhath in Bihar.
Old ways of cooking: Masalas were ground on a stone (ammikal or sil-batta), and dishes were slow-cooked in clay, brass or iron pots, which many families say gave them a taste modern kitchens cannot match. Millets such as ragi, jowar and foxtail millet, once everyday food, are only now returning to city kitchens.
Healthy Living
Long before wellness became a trend, Indian homes practised yoga and meditation and ate with the seasons. Modern research is now catching up with many of these habits.
Yoga and meditation: Yoga brings together postures (asanas), breathing (pranayama) and meditation, and has been practised in India for thousands of years. It is now followed worldwide, with 21 June marked as the International Day of Yoga, and studies suggest regular practice can lower stress and improve flexibility, balance and sleep.
Eating with the seasons: Ayurveda calls this ritucharya, adjusting food to the time of year. Summer brings cooling buttermilk, curd rice, kokum, sattu and aam panna; the monsoon calls for light, freshly cooked food with ginger, pepper and a warming rasam; winter is for sesame, jaggery, ghee, bajra and greens like sarson; and spring festivals such as Ugadi bring bitter neem flowers to the plate.
When to eat: The traditional advice to eat a good breakfast, make lunch the main meal and keep dinner light and early is now supported by research on the body clock. Studies suggest the body handles food better earlier in the day, and late, heavy dinners are linked to poorer sleep and higher blood sugar.
Everyday habits: Fermented foods like idli, dosa, curd and kanji support gut health, spices such as turmeric, ginger and cumin are part of daily cooking, and eating seated, by hand and without hurry encourages slower, more mindful meals.
These are traditional practices shared for interest, not medical advice. Our first stories for this section are on the way.
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