Across most of India, a meal is eaten with the right hand, not cutlery. It’s not a lapse in manners. It’s a much older idea about what a meal actually is.
In Ayurveda, each finger is treated as an extension of one of five elements — the thumb for fire, the index for air, the middle for space, the ring finger for earth, the little finger for water. Bringing them together over a plate is thought to bring those same elements, and the person eating, into balance before the first bite is even taken.
