Amaar Sonaar Bangla!

Maa just turned 65 years old a week ago.

 We took her out for lunch at O Calcutta and she adored all the maachch, the banana flower sabzi ( mochar ghonto), the poshto, the luchis. We all groaned through their set lunch and ran home to sleep off the excess. Ther 499 deal was insane! How can they expect people to eat SO much???

I recently read a little jewel of a book,'The Hour of the Goddess" by Chitrita Banerjee ( she recently wrote "Eating India" which I never managed to finish). The book was a wonderful discovery of the delightful and unknown territory of amar sonar Bangla! Finally some insights on this particular influence in my life.

A little history: my school history teacher Manashi Chowdhary was a very proud Bengali lady, with huge bindi and perfect sari. Then there was little Malavika Banerjee at Sophia College who fed me the yummiest Shorshe Mutton I still dream about 20 years later.

I had a harrum-scarrum, absolutely mad room-mate in Max Meuller Bhavan who spoke the funniest hindi ( I thought OPORNA was adorable, woe betide if we used the Hindi version of Aparna!!). She met her fiance on the train from Calcutta to Bombay and shared her tiffin with him.

Then I worked for the flamboyant and high profile Srila Chatterji in Bombay, and saw first-and how bengalis are near-obsessed with food. Had some of the best meals at work ever thanks to Srila and developed a near-gluttonous respect for food (but then in advertising, everyone is obsessed with food, the catering and the Craft service!).

I proceeded to work for 2 brilliant, mad Bong geniuses ( White Light) in an office sprinkled with pure and psuedo bongs. Namita and Subir rattled off in bangla at meetings, and if you didnt catch on, you were toast. No surprise here that the food on set was always but always catered to by Ujjal Ghosh (of Prithvi Cafe) so machcher jhol it was four times a week.

While I have followed news articles about the quest for Ilish machch and the horror that is it's sorry state, I have never fully pursued nor discovered the true bong food connection. Do I have any bong friends who will disclose the mysteries? (nudge, nudge Ujaala)

Until then, O Calcutta and Radhika hotel near E Square will have to do.

 Oh, BTW, the Vanilla Danone tastes so much like mishti doi!!

Does anybody have a really good recipe for the dry muton curry, the chingri malai and the aloo poshto??