Q1.
Imagine you cook a meal in a Harappan house. What dish or dishes would you prepare, based on the data given above?
Answer
Everything on your menu must come from the list the chapter actually gives — no potato, no chilli, no tomato, no tea, no sugar (none of these had reached India yet). Here is the pantry you are allowed:
| Category | What you may use |
|---|---|
| Cereals | Barley, wheat, some millets, sometimes rice |
| Pulses | Beans, peas, lentils (dal) |
| Vegetables | A variety — the book does not name them |
| Meat and fish | Meat from domesticated animals; river fish and sea fish |
| Dairy | Milk, curd, butter |
| Spices and fruit | Turmeric, ginger, banana |
A full Harappan thali you could actually have cooked:
- Barley or wheat rotis baked on a hot clay griddle — the cereal is the base of every meal.
- Lentil dal tempered with turmeric and ginger, cooked in a terracotta pot over a hearth. The pot residues say this combination is not a guess.
- A vegetable cooked with curd — a kadhi-like dish, using the dairy the pots also recorded.
- Grilled river fish rubbed with turmeric and ginger, if the house is at Lothal or Mohenjo-daro, near water.
- Banana to finish — the only sweet thing on the list.
Sample answer: “In my Harappan kitchen I would grind barley on a stone quern and bake flat rotis on a clay griddle. Beside them I would cook a lentil dal in a terracotta pot with a little turmeric and ginger, and set out curd from our own buffalo. Because we live near the river I would grill a fish. There would be no chilli, no potato and no tea, because the Harappans did not have them. I would end the meal with a banana. Everything in this meal is something scientists have actually found traces of in Harappan pots or grain stores.”
The historian's rule behind this game: you may imagine freely, but only inside the evidence. Adding a chilli to your Harappan dal is not imagination — it is a mistake, because chillies reached India only about 500 years ago from the Americas. Knowing what to leave out is as much a part of history as knowing what to put in.