Issue 4: Hyperlocal

With the fourth issue of dhoop, we wanted to explore food through the lens of places and places through the food that defines them. During this journey, the term hyperlocal presented itself through literature, pop culture, media, reels, and branding terminology — it was everywhere. Did we know what it exactly meant? No. Do we know what it means now? Not completely. Well, in this case, defining is only part of the objective because defining it limits how we understand it, how we view the world, and how we imagine. What if we deconstruct the term and what it has come to mean, and remake it in our own way? 

Through this issue, hyperlocal took different meanings:

Hoithem writes about Wai Wai and its integration into the cuisine of Manipur, highlighting the bizarre ways in which a product can become specific to the identity of a cuisine. 

Dona, a tea sommelier from Assam, nudges us to think of the spectrum of tea culture beyond the milky version we all love and consume, and challenges us to stop and evaluate how certain commodities have more specific meanings for communities. 

Deepa Reddy, also known as Paticheri, pushes the cafes and French-tainted backdrops away to reveal Pondicherry’s greens.  

Priyadarshini transports us back in time – through her Begun’er Raita – to her South Kolkata home, recognising the four walls of her family home as a place of its own where food and meanings were created. 

Further up, close to the eastern border, in Bangladesh, Ishita Dey opens a big box of mangoes to tell us what it means on both sides of the border, blurring the man-made mango boundaries.

 Speaking of man-made, who decided what is local to a place? Can only native, indigenous things be local? If origin doesn’t make something truly hyperlocal, what does? Could it be the destination? Indigenisation? Re-territorialisation? Or, naturalisation? Is local something you are born with, or is it something you simply become? Anushka Mukherjee challenges us to think about what it means to eat locally and how it might not be as straightforward as one might think. Reading her piece might leave you with more questions than answers (but in a good way!). And while we complicate the idea of hyperlocal, some things are novel, wacky, and simply delicious – like Banana and Beef, as Meenakshi takes you on a trip to Poonithura. We travel to Kayalpatnam and Madurai with Sumaiya and Arun, Delhi with Varun, Adilabad with Bollu, Mumbai and London with Snehal, many cities with Divya, whilst drinking Panjabi beverages with Pearl, briefly taking a detour to Mysore, and crossing parts of Kashmir and Gujarat with Vrinda and Anushka.

We are travelling to a lot of places throughout this issue, but all I can say for sure is that it doesn’t end here, because there are so many stops that we have yet to explore. So, could there be a sequel to hyperlocal? Maybe…

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Pages: 112
Dimension: 6.625" x 9.25"
Cover: Xtella 300 gsm 
Inside: Xtella 128 gsm