getting a gi tag for putharekulu

putharekulu is a sweet from atreyapuram, which is in my part of andhra. milk is poured over a hot upturned pot, and after a minute a sheet is lifted off, thin enough to read a newspaper through. sugar or jaggery goes in the middle, the sheet is folded, and it is ready. the families there have been making it the same way for generations.

the problem a gi tag solves is simple. anybody can print the name of your town on a box and sell it. a gi tag ties the name to the place and to the method. after that the name on the box is not decoration, it is something the makers can enforce.

filing it meant sitting on both sides of one table. on one side, families who hold the whole process in their hands and have no interest in filling forms. on the other side, a registry that accepts nothing except the form. most of the work was translation. and most of the translation was listening long enough to write down what they already knew.

it is the least technical thing i have worked on, and the one i would defend first. software i can rewrite next week. this one is a name that now belongs to the people who earned it.