Bangali Ranna contd

as Salonee (one among the very few regular readers of my blog, and hence, held in extremely high esteem), pointed out, the entire blog in one go is just too long a read, at least in an online format. So, here comes the next half....happy reading!!

In a poem entitled Nimantran ("An Invitation") and addressed to an unnamed lady, the aged Rabindranath imparted a touch of his lyricism to mundane food, albeit half in jest and with a slant on the "modernist poets. "No golden lamps or lutes are available now," (I am giving a rough rendering of the passage.) "but do bring some, rosy mangoes in a cane-basket covered with a silken-kerchief, ... and some prosaic food as well--sandesh and pantoa prepared by lovely hands, also pilau cooked with fish and meat--for all these things become ineffable when imbued with loving devotion. I can see amusement in your eyes and a smile hovering on your lips; you think I am juggling with my verse to make gross demands? Well, lady, come empty handed if you wish, but do come, for your two hands are precious for their own sake." The last two lines lift the poem to a non-material realm, but the reality of the mangoes and pilaus remains undiminished. The novelists know what they are talking about and have all the words at their disposal, but I am now constrained to use a language utterly unsuited to my purpose. In course of my sporadic attempts to translate Bengali fiction into English, I have found the food words the most intractable. There are three possible ways to deal with them: to retain the originals and add explanatory notes, to invent neologisms, or to slur the matter over: none is satisfactory. Generations of Bengali cooks (mostly women) have devised and developed a variety of dishes belonging to the same genre but each with a specific name and distinctive in taste and flavour, all which, to the eternal amusement and irritation of the true-born Bengali, are lumped in Anglo-Indian English in that ubiquitous and imprecise word "curry"[2]. A "dalna" is no more like a "'chachchari" than a horse is like a goat; to label both of them as "'curries" is just like using the term "quadruped" when the goat or horse is meant. "Payasanna" is generally rendered by Sanskritists as "rice-pudding", but "'anna" means any kind of food, and Bengalis cook their payesh also with semolina or vermicelli or casein balls. It would take a dozen English words to distinguish between "amsattva" and "amshi" (both products of mangoes), or between the thick ginger-flavoured "chatni" and the bland liquid "ambal", both sour-based desserts. It's a pity one must use "lentil-cakes" for both "daler bara" and "daler bari", for they differ not only in size and shape, but also in the technique of preparation and their use in cookery. Even that dailiest of daily items, "machher jhol", remains inexpressible in English; to translate it as "fish curry" is an insult to Bengali culture, and that is the only word available. I have often been appalled by the limitations of Bengali vocabulary, which does not permit us to name al1 the shades of colours or parts of the human body except with the aid of Sanskrit words seldom used in conversation. But, now that I come to think of it, I realize that my native tongue has a marvellous array of food words--single words, I mean, unadorned by any of those adjectival or descriptive phrases which constitute the glamour of a French menu. A dish of spiced potatoes may be called by no other name except "dam", but if you add sweet pumpkin, it at once becomes a "chhaka". "Dolma" is an exclusive term for stuffed patols [3], just as "dhoka" [4] is reserved for fried lentil-cakes served in a thick gravy. No one knows why this is so, but such are the ways of the language; evidently the Bengalis have a passion for affixing a new name to every creation of their kitchen--even where the dishes are variations on the same theme. The "ghanta" and the "chachchari", for example, are both pot-pourries, both composed of vegetables plus chipped fish or fish-bones, or of vegetables only; the only difference seems to be that a chachchari may be cooked with mustard and a ghanta may not. Yet another variety of pot-pourri is the "labra" which, being a favourite of the Vaishnavas and served in their ritual feasts, mustn't ever be contaminated with animal products: according to one lexicographer, it is a hash of six vegetables--the trunk and the flower of the banana, sweet pumpkins, kidney beans, radishes, and brinjals. Likewise there are many variants of the so-called "fish-curry", of which the most common are the "jhol", and the "jhal" or "kalia", distinguished by their relatively bland or sharp taste. Cooking styles are determined by the size, the flavour, and the texture of the fish; each one of the numerous varieties eaten in Bengal has appropriate spices and vegetables assigned to it--special techniques have been devised for dealing with the smallest kinds. There are even specialties prepared with only one particular kind of aquatic food, such as the "dai-machh", which is really "it" only when the fat part of a mature rohit is cooked in sour curd with cinnamon and raisins, or the "muthia" (an emanation of East Bengal), of which the only possible base is the lean part of the chital.
(contd)