NY Mayor Bill de Blasio eats pizza with fork against the norm of “hands only”

Since New York has been the scene of a huge fork in Indo-US ties, it was serendipitous that the first controversy to divide that city and its new mayor also centred on a piece of cutlery that goes by the same name. As cultural diversities clearly lie at the centre of both incidents, it may not be inappropriate to note parallels. If one marked a divergence between India and the US on the issue of the treatment of Indian domestic help, the other highlighted an equally adamant US-Italian divide on the treatment of pizzas. The crucial difference, of course, is that in the latter case, the offender is Mayor Bill de Blasio who decided bravely to go with the customs of the land of his ancestors rather than his own: he ate a pizza with a fork, Italian style, rather than adhering to the New York norm of “hands only”.

The mayor seems to be the antithesis of the city’s politically-correct India-born district attorney (DA) Preet Bharara, who has taken great pains to assert his opposition to anything related to what his former homeland might consider customary. Of course, there has been no occasion yet to see which side the DA stands on the fork in customs between the US and Italy with regard to pizza, but he may find himself fingered on the potentially divisive issue of how to eat aloo parathas if not how to treat Indian diplomats.