LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 26:5 May 2026
ISSN 1930-2940

Editors:
         Selvi M. Bunce, M.A., Ed.D.
         Nathan Mulder Bunce, M.A., Ph.D.
         Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.
         B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
         A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D.
         G. Baskaran, Ph.D.
         T. Deivasigamani, Ph.D.
         Pammi Pavan Kumar, Ph.D.
         Soibam Rebika Devi, M.Sc., Ph.D.

Honorary Managing Editor & Publisher: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.

Celebrate India!
Unity in Diversity!!

HOME PAGE

Click Here for Back Issues of Language in India - From 2001

Poetic Encounter
Available in https://www.amazon.in/dp/B09TT86S4T

Poems
Naked: the honest musings of two brown women
Available in https://www.amazon.in

Decrees
Available in https://www.amazon.com

BOOKS FOR YOU TO READ AND DOWNLOAD FREE!

REFERENCE MATERIALS

BACK ISSUES

  • E-mail your articles and book-length reports in Microsoft Word to languageinindiaUSA@gmail.com.

  • PLEASE READ THE GUIDELINES GIVEN IN HOME PAGE IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE LIST OF CONTENTS.

  • Your articles and book-length reports should be written following the APA, MLA, LSA, or IJDL Stylesheet.

  • The Editorial Board has the right to accept, reject, or suggest modifications to the articles submitted for publication, and to make suitable stylistic adjustments. High quality, academic integrity, ethics and morals are expected from the authors and discussants.

Copyright © 2025
M. S. Thirumalai

Publisher: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.
11249 Oregon Circle
Bloomington, MN 55438
USA
Custom Search

Hostel Plate: You Are What You Eat

Ayush Arun and
Dr. Sreejana S.

Abstract

The college hostel mess is generally seen as a utilitarian dining hall, but it is actually a significant site where regional and cultural identities are daily negotiated. This ethnography of a South Indian hostel mess explores how 50 students from diverse backgrounds negotiate their identities through food and language. This ethnography, based on the works of Bourdieu, Appadurai, and Anderson, reveals how the hostel mess is actually a "micro-nation" where the concept of diversity in India is actually lived. Some important findings are as follows: food preferences express regional identity, eating habits express cultural conditioning, code-switching facilitates belongingness, and nostalgia expresses the emotional essence of identity. Survey results reveal that 84% of students have eaten food from other states, but 56% still find hostel food "very different" from home food. This shows that the hostel mess is actually a site of continuous negotiation. The hostel mess actually performs the role of informal nation-building.

Keywords:Hostel mess, food identity, gastro-politics, habitus, code-switching, nostalgia, imagined communities, cultural negotiation, South Indian hostel, micro-nation.

Introduction: The Mess as a Site of Inquiry

The space of the hostel mess is normally considered a space that is purely utilitarian in nature—it is a space for the consumption of meals for the students. However, if one were to look at the space in a more intimate manner, one would realize that there is much more to the social reality of the space than meets the eye. Every evening, as students from different parts of India assemble in the space to have their meals together, the space assumes a completely different character. Metal plates would function as a canvas for the inscription of personal as well as cultural histories. Rice and curry would not be consumed; they would either be placed in a certain order, mixed, or consumed separately in accordance with deeply ingrained personal as well as cultural traits.

The paper proposes the idea that the hostel mess represents a "micro-nation" and is a tangible concept—a place where the concept of the Indian nation is being negotiated on a daily basis. While the paper is not descriptive in nature, it attempts to analyze the manner in which such seemingly mundane acts represent a concept of great importance.

This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.

Ayush Arun
I-Year Aeronautical Engineering student,
Kumaraguru College Of Technology,
Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India
ayusharun.25ae@kct.ac.in
&
Dr. Sreejana S.
Assistant Professor and Head
Department of Languages and Communication
Kumaraguru College of Technology
Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India
sreejana.s.sci@kct.ac.in


Custom Search
  • Click Here to Go to Creative Writing Section

  • Send your articles
    as an attachment
    to your e-mail to
    languageinindiaUSA@gmail.com.
  • Please ensure that your name, academic degrees, institutional affiliation and institutional address, and your e-mail address are all given in the first page of your article. Also include a declaration that your article or work submitted for publication in LANGUAGE IN INDIA is an original work by you and that you have duly acknowledged the work or works of others you used in writing your articles, etc. Remember that by maintaining academic integrity we not only do the right thing but also help the growth, development and recognition of Indian/South Asian scholarship.