“They gave rice to Matthew and Kautilya, and sweetmeats, and all blessed them as they knelt” (Du Bois 223). Contrary to what I initially believed they were, sweetmeats are simply sweets and in Hindu tradition, sweetmeats are given out at important events such as a birth or wedding, as depicted in this scene of The Maharajah of Bwodpur (“Sweetmeats”).
Sweetmeats are thought to have originated in Ancient Egypt as a way to disguise the taste of medicinal mixtures, but eventually spread across the globe and began to be made specifically as a dessert or treat in 1600s Europe (Christensen). Today sweetmeats is used as a broad term which, according to the Webster’s New Universal Dictionary, means a food item “prepared with sugar honey or the like, as preserves, candy, or formerly, cakes or pastry [or] any sweet delicacy of the confectionery or candy kind, as candied fruit, sugar-covered nuts, sugarplums, bonbons, or balls or sticks of candy.” Different parts of the world consumed different types of sweetmeats based on regional preferences and ingredients. For example, Tudor England enjoyed sugar plums while porabari chamcham is popular in Uttar Pradesh (Christensen; “Sweetmeats”).
I was intrigued upon discovering that sweetmeats, though varying across the globe, coexisted in their different forms. Those present at the wedding reflect the different backgrounds from which Matthew and Kautilya come from and the moment when those worlds come together; Matthew’s mother speaks to Jesus and God and the preacher reads from the book of Revelation. Shortly after, the group of men who bring the rice and sweetmeats arrive. They ask for blessings from Allah and Kautilya calls upon Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva to bless Madhu. This interracial marriage is celebrated, with the full customs and traditions of both bride and groom practiced simultaneously.
We first encounter Matthew in The Dark Princess as he enters his self-imposed exile after facing rejection from the University of Manhattan, only now to witness his union with the Princess of Bwodpur, and to meet their child, the subsequent Maharajah of Bwodpur. At the start of the book, he voices his anger over being seen as less than a man, and at the conclusion, he discovers that his child will be a king. The ceremonial presentation of the rice and sweetmeats cement his child’s cultural acceptance and place in the royal lineage.
The fact that sweetmeats are all recognized under the same umbrella term despite their extensive variety seemed to help enforce the idea that Matthew and Kautilya shared more in common than one would think on the surface level. On a slightly unrelated note, if we go back to what Professor Goffe mentioned about the dedication of The Dark Princess to Queen Titania, I wonder whether there is some parallel from this to the story of A Midsummer Night’s Dream and the romance between Titania and Nick Bottom (since those characters have such different backgrounds, as Matthew and Kautilya seem to do) and the potential significance behind it.
Citations:
Christensen, Tricia. “What Are Sweetmeats?” wiseGEEK. Conjecture Corporation, August 21, 2020. https://www.wisegeek.com/what-are-sweetmeats.htm.
“Sweetmeats.” Banglapedia, February 4, 2015. http://en.banglapedia.org/index.php?title=Sweetmeats.
