BANGALIYANA OVERFLOWED

There are certain occasions on the calendar when the Bengalis want to be portrayed Bangali, wherever on earth they are. If Durga Puja tops the list, Poila Baishakh (the first day of the Bengali New Year) is certainly the close second on the list. So far I didn’t have to ‘expose’ my Bangali identity to the world as I have been born, brought up and growing up in the heart of Bengal till date. To me these occasions are celebrated in a natural way. As a child, Poila Baishakh has always been a day to wear new cloths, ranging from kurta to fatua to t-shirts, and visiting a small fair in our locality with friends and close ones. In later stage, exchanging New Year greetings cards in Bengali turned out to be a fashion. Yes Durga Puja gave me and some of my friends an opportunity to wear dhoti and kurta, which I still love to wear given any opportunity, especially on ashtami day (the second day of worshipping deity Durga). It was also because, our school used to organize Durga Puja, being a private centre following the ideals of Ramakrishna Mission, and we thought it wise to wear dhoti-kurta while being part of the festival in school, rather than wearing the awkward school uniform, black shorts and half-sleeved white shirt. We opted for the same on the public function days in our school.

Despite all these facts, this time a unique urge to be a Bangali flared up in my mind. It was partly because of my half-Bengali NRB wife (she may kill me for calling her so) and partly because of my taste bud. My colleague knows how pathetic I am when my taste buds declare something and I need to hunt for that particular food. I don’t rest until I find the item. This Poila Baishakh despite an ill health, the spark came in my mind to enjoy the dinner with Bangali food in a Bangali restaurant. Hesitantly my wife agreed to give it a try. In her effort to fulfill my wish, she didn’t want to leave any flaw. The girl who never dares to wear saree (thrice she did it: on the day of our marriage registry, the social marriage and the reception. Oh no she did once more, again on a Poila Baishakh day but just for a snap), brought out a new one from the almirah. This is for the first time she wore it on her own and managed it well, I must say. (Later my mother, being enlightened about our Bangaliyana adventure, asked her if she sported sindoor to give a finak touch to her Bangali bou self. She did. She used sindoor as bindi as she didn’t have any at her disposal.) Needless to say I took out a pair of kurta-payjama to celebrate the occasion.

Everything was right until then. We called up one posh restaurant in south Kolkata to know the exact location. We took a taxi and reached bang on the spot. Things started turning around from there. We realized we decided too late. About 20-25 people were jostling there in front of the restaurant. As I approached the security guard, drenched in his own sweats, I was told we would have to wait for about an hour or more to get an entry. I listed my name. The sick pale face of mine, just struggling to get out an attack of a viral fever, started getting paler, especially in front of my wife, who was not very keen to have Bengali food tonight. But as I said, my taste buds had declared something and I felt it to be my duty to satisfy myself! Sweat drops started to appear on my forehead as I looked at the man at the entrance who was having a hard time controlling the starved Bangalis. As I looked around, I saw two couples engrossed in appreciating their own thoughts but keeping a sharp eye and ear at the gate, a group of five friends calculating when they came and when they expect an entry, half of a family of seven was squatting at the pavement, many are gheraoing the guard as if to put pressure to announce their names. Soon the friends got a call to get inside. They sounded relived. A little later a young man came talking over his cell phone, to our astonishment, before the guard could stop him, his friends came out from the restaurant to take him inside! The lucky friend indeed! Then came a family in a procession, the girl in the family in a proud voice announced they had a booking. Seconds later, the glowing faces defused, as the manager came out to inform ‘Bookings are not being allowed today. All cancelled.’ The father of the family shouted at others for harassing him like this. “Oh we had our table booked! See now what happens to your Bangali khana”, he said mockingly with enough grudge inside.

I could see the gentleman’s mood reflecting on my otherwise sweet wife’s face who so far tolerated my wish with much reluctance. My heart was still bubbling with the idea of relishing the dinner with ilish paturi, chingri malaikari, chitol machher muithya, mochar ghonto, sona mung dal and so on. My foodie self was still salivating more so when the restaurant door opened a little and the manager was trying to gauge the situation as we looked at him expectantly, when the fortunate lot coming out chewing paan after their hearty grub. Looking at my wife’s face disgusted with hunger and my madness over Bengali cuisine, I started feeling feverish again. After a while, when our own conversation fell into our own deaf ears overshadowed by indifferent and intolerable looks beyond our eyes, we realized no one was promising us a dinner in this particular restaurant as there was dearth of seats for ‘two’ especially on a busy day like Poila Baishakh. The hungry-me gave up. Putting an end to the adventure past ten o’clock in the evening, nowhere to go haunting Bengali cuisine, I surrendered to my beloved catching a taxi, being driven away from the Bangaliyana show, resting my head on the back of the seat. I told her to do whatever she wanted. My temperature was rising, so was the blood in the head of the saree-clad woman sitting next to me.

Dear friends, we were not left unfed that night. After trying three more multi-cuisine restaurants and hating to see the bee line of the hungry Kolkatans, we ultimately ended up with Thai cuisines in front of us. Trying to find a connection between Thailand and Bengal, we gulped the food little close to midnight. (We got a seat there after a brief 10-minute wait).