Table manners

Indian food tastes best when eaten with your fingers.
This is an unarguable fact. Besides, Indian dishes are designed to be eaten by hand. Rotis, parathas, nans, and bhakris all need to be torn and wrapped around the food. Rice blends with spices in the gravies so that each mouthful is a sensuous explosion. The joy of delicately licking your fingers after a spicy meal is unparalleled.

The Technique of Eating Gracefully With Your Fingers

Use Your Thumb Food, say a small amount of rice, is collected in a small pile on your plate, blended with one or more bits of curry, and then picked up with a twist of the wrist and held on the four fingers of your hand. The thumb remains free. Keeping the food level, maneuver your fingers to your mouth until the tips of your fingers are almost, or just, touching your lower lip. Don't put your fingers into your mouth. Use your thumb to pop the food inside.

Good Manners

Conventions of good manners vary from region to region. For instance, in North India it is impolite to dirty more than the first two segments of your fingers. Since North Indians eat mostly rotis and drier curries, this isn’t too difficult. In the South, where they eat lots more rice, and enjoy very wet curries, it is permitted to use your whole hand.

Use Your Right Hand

It is very important to eat with your right hand only. Your left hand rests on the table or your lap while you eat. Though it is acceptable to tear off a bit of a roti in your left hand and tear off pieces with your right, it is better to only use the right hand, pinning it with your little finger and tearing with your thumb and forefinger. The question of what a left-handed person should do is a bit complicated. If it is at all possible, try and eat with your right hand. If it is too awkward, use the left, but perhaps explain to your dinner companions that you are left handed and cannot eat with your right hand.