An old joke attributed to Ajit - the eponymous Don of Bollywood went like this. When his favourite moll, Mona, gave birth to triplets, he suggested that she name them Peter, Repeater and Suzy Wong. Seeing her flummoxed as to why the name of one sibling should be out of sync with the others, Ajit explained, "Silly girl, don't you know that every third child born on earth is a Chinese?"
Well, that was much before India overtook the middle kingdom to become the most populous nation in the world. But still, in trying to trace the origin of things -- especially items of food -- one is taken back to China at least one in three times. So, it is not surprising that the majority of anthropologists believe that Rice was first domesticated in the Yangtze River Basin as far as 13,500 to 8,200 years ago. From there, it travelled southwards to the foothills of the Eastern Himalaya in one direction and northeast to Korea and Japan on the other. But this theory is not uncontested. Another school of paleopalynology believes rice may have been found in India even earlier.
Be that as it may, it is undeniable that rice is more indigenous to India than Wheat, which arrived much later with the Aryans who brought it from the fertile crescent of Central Asia. I have yet to come across a country that has so many varieties of rice and rice preparations -- even where Rice is the primary staple.
Within India, opinion is divided on whether it was first cultivated in Southern India and then travelled to the North or like many other crops has its roots in the Gangetic Plains. The North Indians may have diluted their proprietary claims by leaning towards the golden grain while the South held on to rice in a close embrace.
The relationship of the Southerners with rice is many-splendored. They romance the rice in myriad ways. In a South Indian meal, rice is the main star and not an accompaniment. South Indians remain far more steadfast in their love for rice, unlike the people of the north who divide their loyalties between rice and wheat within the same meal. Thus, northerners sometimes find it difficult to understand that Tamarind Rice (Puliyogare) and Lemon Rice can be meals by themselves as indeed is Curd Rice (Thayir Sadam).
If South Indians love rice, people of coastal Odisha, Andhra, the lower Gangetic Plains of Bihar, Bengal and the North East have a passion for it. Still, in these parts, rice is not given the pride of place it gets down south. It took a foreign television cookery show -- MasterChef -- to teach not just the world but many Indians too about the secret of the fermented Bengali Panta or Odia Pakhala Bhath -- long considered a poor man’s diet.
I have a feeling that North Indians have been a tad apologetic about the humble rice because of the royal presence of the Biryani and Pulavs, which are the piece de resistance of a traditional banquet or feast. True, there are a zillion types of Biryani in the south. But they are not intimidating. If anything southern Biryanis (with the exception of, perhaps, Hyderabad) are considered more plebeian and less evolved than the more refined and subtle vegetarian rice specialties.
However, where the northerners score over others is in their sheer range of Khichdis -- another unexplored gastronomical gold mine. The legendary cookbook author Tarla Dalal, who many compare (wrongly as per my favourite writer on everything involving fine taste -- Reshmi Dasgupta) with Julia Child, had compiled recipes of over a hundred varieties of Khichdi.
Normally made of a mixture of rice and dal, not all of Dalal's recipes have rice as an ingredient. Some use other millets and grains like Bajra, Jowar, Oats, even Barley and Maize. Of course, for a Bengali there is nothing like a "Bhog er Khichuri" made during Pujas, which even non-Bengalis -- those who have had the fortune of tasting -- die for. But Khichdi is not just a comfort food.
A Bohri Khichdi can be as complex as a fine Biryani just as Kannadigas will tell you their Bise Bele Bhath is a work of art and Tamilians would say Pongal is the true food of the Gods (and, probably, rightly so). The Muslims of Hyderabad have a Keema Khichdi which I would compare with the Tehari of Bangladesh, though the latter is made with whole meat chunks. Then again how can the Bangladeshis not have their own Ilish Khichuri, though for me it is a waste of good Hilsa that can be otherwise relished. In Nagpur, I discovered Khichadiwala dot com (https://khichadiwala.com/menu) who serve incredible varieties of Khichdis including the exotic Italian Khichdi, which I presume is a desi version of Risotto. That is not a bad idea since the British stole our recipe to create their Kedgeree.
The story of Indian rice cannot be complete without talking about the different kinds of rice in India. As per some research literature over 200,000 varieties of rice existed in India before the Green Revolution. Chhattisgarh, called the rice bowl of India, is supposed to have had over 22,000 folk varieties of rice.
India can boast of probably the richest rice varieties in the world. Basmati rice itself has 27 recorded variants. Apart from the commercially popular varieties, each state and region has their own hyperlocal strains. Bengal has over twenty of them - all with beautiful names such as Radhatilok, Karpukanti, Badshah Bhog, Rupshal, Kejur Chhari (These included strains such as Black, Red and Brown Rice - each with its unique characteristics). It is heartening to see a counter-movement developing to save the indigenous rice strains from near extinction.
Some debates can never be closed - like which rice makes better Biryani - Basmati or Seeraga Samba - a distant cousin of Bengal's Gobindobhog - as used in Dindigul and Ambur. But, why stop at Biryani when we have the whole world of Kheer, Payasam, Pitches and other Rice Desserts still left to explore!