Do not return the vessel empty!

       

 Have any of you heard of this practice before? It is considered offensive to return a vessel empty. If you're from Bharat, I'm sure you've heard of this. Inquisitive to learn the geographic spread  of this practice, I asked the seemingly all knowledgeable Google mama (mama is "uncle" in many Indian languages - just for clarification). And I learnt that this is a practice that has surprised some English people, but is common in some other parts of the world, such as Turkey, as per my very brief discussion with Google mama.
         On some online forums where this practice was discussed, there were some comments by people who were evidently ridiculed by this concept, such as, "I thought it was manners to return the dish clean", and "I thought we shouldn't be wasting food!" Well, these people have got the concept completely wrong, especially the second one.
         The very idea of not returning the vessel empty is to fill it with something the recipient might like to eat. In Bharat, it is very common to share sweets with neighbours, relatives and friends. It could be to share goodwill during festivals, birthdays or anniversaries, or to rejoice for an achievement by a family member, or to even celebrate the winning of their favourite party in the elections! Sometimes, it could be for no apparent occasion. People share food items even if they have successfully tried out a new recipe. A vessel with some food reaches another house, and the other house must not return it empty. In order to fill the vessel with another food item, the recipient essentially spends time to think about the likes and dislikes, culture, and even the health conditions of the family that gave the vessel. After weighing all of this, they cook something delicious, something that they feel might be relished by them, and return them their vessel with this food. In modern days, where people don't have the interest or time for this whole procedure, people at least fill the vessel with chocolates or biscuits while returning the vessel. Thankfully, we haven't forgotten our roots to the extent to have begun to return the vessel empty.
         Just a superficial analysis of this practice would help us conclude that the concept behind this practice is to develop a friendly social relationship between two families. We get to know tastes, cultures, habits, choices, dietary requirements based on health and so many other minute yet essential details about members of the other family. Needless to say, it also improves cooking skills, to put it in modern terms, "personalised or customised" cooking skills. 😋
         A deeper analysis would tell us that this practice echoes the concept of equality. It is rude to return a vessel empty, when you received it with sweets, love, care and goodwill. You need to return the same values. To a parent or teacher who taught you so many lessons for life, you cannot return any amount of money to equalise it - you cannot, no matter what. Hence, we add values such as "respect" in return. We return love for love, respect for respect, gratitude, blessings or heart felt good wishes for help, honesty for honesty ....and intolerance for intolerance. The last of this list is to emphasise that it is this very idea of "equality" rooted innately in our hearts, that helped us wade our way through the British rule and snatch our freedom from them. Now it might blow you away if I tell you that not returning the vessel empty has got something to do with the freedom struggle. But it all makes sense if you think of it this way - we always return exactly what we get.

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(Picture source: https://www.in-between.org.uk/experiences/empty-vessel/)