Johan de Smidt

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<h4><span style="color: #702999;">JOHAN DE SMIDT</span> is a journalist and photographer from Cape Town, South Africa,
  who visited the Heartfulness Headquarters at Kanha Shanti Vanam before COVID-19 struck, and documented some of the
  activities. Here he showcases the kitchen, which since March has been supplying meals to up to 50,000 disadvantaged
  people per day in the wake of COVID-19.</h4>
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<p style="text-align: justify;">To find the secret ingredient in the kitchens of the Kanha Shanti Vanam ashram, you have
  to start your hunt before dawn. That is when the cooks are adding spice to their day with a Yoga wake-up routine.
  “They are a bit dull when they arrive, so we are boosting them, waking them up,” says the kitchen manager, Mr. Moganty
  Adinarayan.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">On the morning that we visit the kitchen, a Russian volunteer Yoga instructor is guiding
  the cooks through their <em>asanas</em> at 5 a.m. This dose of waking up will certainly come in handy, because the
  kitchen has suddenly been informed that they have to cater for many more than the 2,500 people they expected for
  Sunday meditation. But this is par for the course for Adinarayan and his team of workers – every day brings its own
  surprises and they are used to changing plans at short notice. To be effective, they have to remain flexible, and the
  meal planning has to be spot-on. It is also of utmost importance to have close communication with the main gate
  officials who constantly update them with the latest attendance figures.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">It is no mean feat to cook three meals a day for over 78,000 people, as the kitchen
  staff did for the inauguration of the Kanha Shanti Vanam meditation hall in February 2020, and still be able to hit
  the ground running when work starts at 4 a.m. every morning. In one stretch, the kitchen can provide food for 30,000
  people. On this Sunday, after most of the people have left, they are still cooking for more than 2,500 people. “We
  always cook for 100 more than expected,” Adinarayan says. On the breakfast menu today there is idli, sambar, rice and
  banana chips, and if the scale of the cooking is awe inspiring, the quantities of ingredients used is even more mind
  boggling. Just for today, a total of 100 kgs of raw rice will be required to satisfy the visitors’ appetites. Apart
  from planning for the large quantities of ingredients, there is the added challenge of getting the menu right to
  please the diverse palates of people from all over India, as well as from abroad. This is enough to give any kitchen
  boss a case of indigestion. “We have the difference between north and south of India. People from the north prefer
  wheat, they will have roti for breakfast, lunch and dinner if they can help it, while those from the south eat more
  rice,” Adinarayan says.</p>
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<h4><span style="color: #702999;">Divine Food for Thought</span></h4>
<p style="text-align: justify;">As far as approach is concerned, the biggest difference between this ashram kitchen and
  others catering to big numbers is that food here is made in constant divine thought, and handled by devoted
  practitioners. “It is mandatory for kitchen staff to attend the 7 a.m. group meditation and have weekly individual
  sessions too,” says Adinarayan. “Only Heartfulness practitioners work here. They come to work praying and leave
  praying. There is a lot of love and devotion, and willingness too. They put their hearts into their service, so the
  results are good. That is the main reason we are eating in divine thought. While cooking, they have the thought, ‘This
  is divine food.’”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Adinarayan takes pride in their work, and such is his confidence in the quality of the
  food, that some of it is sent daily to the house of Kamlesh Patel, the Heartfulness Guide, who is fondly known as
  Daaji. “We expect it to be good enough for our Guide,” he says. Offering Yoga classes is not the only way in which
  other volunteers can contribute to the kitchen work. Daaji has invited all visiting international practitioners who
  attend training programs to cook in the kitchen, too. He has suggested that they be taught one dish of Indian cuisine
  and, in turn, they teach one dish of their cuisine to the kitchen staff.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">After digesting all these magic ingredients that go into making the ashram food, we part
  with a 5 a.m. invitation from Adinarayan to be at the kitchen the next day to witness the almost alchemical making of
  12,000 idlis, the steamed, soft pillows made from rice and dal, and eaten with coconut chutney. The batter for this is
  ground the day before and left to ferment overnight before being scooped onto huge stainless steel moulded pans and
  cooked in a massive steam oven. But of course, the magic ingredient is Yoga. And for that you have to rise before
  dawn.</p>
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<h4 style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #702999;">Cool as a Cucumber</span></h4>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The kitchen floor area is an impressive 46 m x 24 m. To keep the kitchen staff
  comfortable, happy and cool in an otherwise hot situation, much thought has been given to the layout and ventilation
  of the huge space, which is 8° to 10° C cooler than the outside environment. This is accomplished through
  cross-ventilation provided by the side windows, elevated work stations, double-walled pots and an 8 metre high ceiling
  with a 2 metre wide canopy extension right at the top. Each row of six pots is positioned on a concrete slab that is
  about 1 metre above the floor, which ensures that steam from the pots rises from above head-height straight up to the
  roof, where it evaporates through the canopy. “That way the cooks don’t sweat,” Adinarayan says, and that is evident
  as they coolly go about their business.</p>
<h4 style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #702999;">Steaming Hot</span></h4>
<p style="text-align: justify;">To speed up cooking time, a diesel-powered plant outside the kitchen generates and
  delivers steam at 80° to 90° C to the double-walled stainless steel pots, in which the temperature is increased to
  130° to 150° C. The preheating of the steam maintains a constant temperature in the cooking pots and reduces the
  cooking time of rice from half an hour to just 10 minutes; lentil dal is cooked in 30 minutes and vegetables in 15
  minutes. The closed nature of the system ensures reduced heat loss, and therefore, efficient energy consumption. The
  double-walled structure ensures very little heat is lost from the sides of the pots; indeed, we stand right next to it
  and feel very little heat radiating.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">When frying is required, to make a curry or sambar, it is done at floor level in
  moveable 800-liter pots, which can be easily wheeled onto gas cookers, and to the base of the doublewalled pots, from
  which the liquids are tipped into the frying pots. Vegetables boiled in the pots are mixed together to make curry, and
  lentils are added to the curry to make sambar. With the ongoing current threat of the coronavirus in the air, the
  focus is on boosting people’s immune systems. “We add jeera (cumin), white pepper and turmeric to boost the immune
  system and keep people healthy,” Adinarayan says. “Food is medicine.”</p>
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<h4 style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #702999;">Leftovers</span></h4>
<p style="text-align: justify;">At Kanha, special efforts are made to ensure minimal food wastage by reusing leftover
  food, feeding the rotis to the ashram cows, or making compost with it as a last resort. On the day we visited,
  leftover idli from the previous day was chopped up and fried with spices to make idli upma for breakfast. Leftover
  rice is added to milk to make curd rice, while leftover curry is immediately put in the fridge at night for making
  other dishes in the morning. While they make every effort to reuse leftovers, food that was made for breakfast or
  lunch is easy to manage, however, leftover food after dinner is problematic, according to Adinarayan. That is when the
  leftovers end up being fed to the cows, or put in the state-of-theart compost maker.</p>
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<h4 style="text-align: center;">Article and photographs by JOHAN DE SMIDT</h4>
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