What is the history, you might ask, behind “curry”? “Whenever Indian food is mentioned,” writes Shashi Tharoor, “the non-Indian says with a knowing nod, ‘Ah yes, curry.’ Unfortunately though, there is no such dish.” Tharoor goes on to say that curry, essentially, is “any dish with a gravy” and, of curse, there are countless dishes like that in every major style of Indian cuisine. In a sense, then the non-Indian’s use of the word “curry” is catachrestic “the OED defines catachresis thus: “Improper use of words, application of a term to a thing which it does not properly denote, abuse or pervasion of trope or metaphor.” In the writings of Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, the ideas of a catachresis as a metaphor without an adequate literal reference becomes a model for all metaphors, all names. For Spivak, this concept allows her to essay descriptions of subjects and processes that occupy as yet unnamable spaces. My own aim, in linking “curry” with “catachresis,” is to ask a slightly different question. If the word “curry” doesn’t have a stable referent or a fixed origin, how can its changing use by postcolonials be seen as a sign of resistance?
Passport Photos Amitava Kumar
