Khanabadosh in Bombay

Mona Gandhi makes art and loves raw food.

“Khanabadosh” is the Persian word for people who carry their homes with them. A Bombay art project of the same name aims to promote a similar unity between nutrition and aesthetic practice. Every month Mona Gandhi organises a meal of uncooked food – and challenges her guests’ attitudes and assumptions.

Making a meal of (raw) food together at the Flyover Farm, a community rooftop space in a crowded neighbourhood of Bombay.<br/><small>© Gitanjali Dang</small>

Making a meal of (raw) food together at the Flyover Farm, a community rooftop space in a crowded neighbourhood of Bombay.
© Gitanjali Dang

For the fifth year now artist Mona Gandhi has organized monthly meals consisting of raw and unprocessed plant-based foods. Mona's daily nutrition is a reflection of her aesthetic choices. Contempoary art demands that we pay attention to the gap between artists and their work, and this gap is a key concern for Khanabadosh. Mona's project evolves from a practice that she decisively embodies. Thus by no means is the raw and unprocessed food she serves meant ironically.

The project engages with a range of spaces and types of public situations, such as Fresh & Local: Flyover Farm, where the last meal took place. Since its inception in 2010 the rooftop farm, situated in the overcrowded Mohammad Ali Road area of Bombay, has successfully created a thriving atmosphere for the like-minded.

The project is an invitation to examine everyday food choices, questioning individual and collective assumptions, beliefs, and practices. Through an inquiry into nutrition, can we reinterpret our relationship with the body and the earth? As we ingest seeds of change together, can we open our minds to alternatives to consumerism?

Despite its line of questioning, the project is not predicated on any kind of moral superiority, nor is it interested in being rabidly missionary. While Mona Gandhi's “Something to chew on” events are undoubtedly a place for engagement with food, the terms and conditions of this engagement are generated by the people involved in making and eating the meals.