Paan once symbolised courtly status in India. Then it became an unsanitary, ‘native’ habit
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The 18th-century portrait of an East India Company official, by the artist Dip Chand, contains a detail that one might easily miss. The ornate hookah with its coiled pipe is obvious as the Englishman, likely to be William Fullerton, reclines on a richly carpeted platform, as Indian attendants, two of them holding fans, stand around him.
But placed prominently before Fullerton is a pāndān, a spittoon and vessels, likely containing lime, areca nut, or aromatics, arranged with deliberate care. A rosewater sprinkler and itr container complete the ensemble. These objects signal that chewing paan was an accepted component of elite sociability.
The spittoon, within easy reach, acknowledges the bodily process associated with paan while containing it within the codes of courtly decorum.
In pre-colonial artwork of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, paan appears across canvases as an integral element of courtly culture and elite status. In these images, the paraphernalia associated with paan – the betel box (pāndān), spittoon (pīkdān) and implements used to prepare the leaf – are part of a carefully ordered constellation of objects that structured elite social interaction.
Paintings and written accounts from the pre-colonial years show that European travellers to the subcontinent, growing in number as colonial ambitions expanded, were curious...