MONO ISSUE 1 PDF FLIPBOOK - Flipbook - Page 48
dollop of homemade white butter on the rice, and thinly cut crisp potato chips, lamb curry,
marinated in curd and turmeric and cooked in mustard oil, with the rich overtones of clarified butter
and the thinly veiled flavour of green chilies.
When the discovery of my dislike for fish became family knowledge, and after the predictable
consternation, the surprise and the humour were done with, my Grandmother, (God bless her sweet
soul) sensitive to my atypical likes, (or should I say dislikes) decreed that an egg curry was
prepared, only for me, on those days when fish was on the menu.
The occasion to which I now refer was a fish day, and I was prepared, (more mentally than
physically) for the egg curry with rice, steeling myself for the difficult task of ignoring the strong
aroma of fish that would pervade the dining table, overpowering in its wake anything and everything the atmosphere could assemble. Mercifully, fish appeared on the dining table twice every four
days during our visit, and having come through those days unscathed, I could relax for the other
days and look forward to the mutton.
It was time for fish again, and this time I was better prepared and quite looking forward to the egg
curry, which was excellently prepared. An hour before lunch, on the day of which I write, I
discovered, with a feeling of growing anxiety, the figure of Minu Mashi hovering behind the cooks
with an air of resolve, steely I might add, that augured ill for my immediate future. She, it transpired,
had discovered the act of betrayal by my Grandmother and the rest of the approving family, and
decided to put a stop to the compensation that eggs were to provide; determined, as she was, to
bring the delicacy of Bengal decisively home to me.
As I reached the last few mouthfuls of the first course, instinct as much as hope led my attention
attention towards the kitchen door in expectation of one of the aunts to appear, as was the routine
on fish days, with a serving dish containing the egg curry. Two hard-boiled eggs, fried and browned
on the outside, immersed in thick gravy and flavoured with onion, garlic, tomato and coriander. I
observed instead, Minu Mashi march toward me with a flatter dish in her left hand, and a long, light
brown hair comb with thin serrated edges in her right. She put the dish in front of me and waving the
comb under my nose informed me in that strikingly clear voice, which usually announced her arrival,
that I was going to make an alliance with the fish. This was no ordinary fish she said with severity,
and no ordinary preparation. She announced that this was Eeleesh Machch, and the preparation, she
proclaimed with a voice quivering with emotion, the sort that usually beckons the faithful in teeming
millions, called Shorshay Maachch- Mustard Fish. To put it simply, this was a fish called Eeleesh,
prepared in mustard gravy, second only, it appeared, to the Goddess Durga for veneration by the
Bangalee. Having placed the dish on my Thali, she looked at me over her spectacles and proclaimed
that this was river fish by way of further edification, and began to convert the monstrous creature
into small edible bits, using her thumb, index, and ring fingers. She mixed the yellow gravy with the
rice, gathered a bit of mashed fish and pushed the atrocity in to my mouth, which I had opened
unwittingly, and in a particularly servile manner, as though submitting to the inevitable. The smell
was overpowering, with something elemental about it; putrid perhaps is the word I want. I felt my
stomach climbing towards my throat and a choking sensation began to overwhelm me. My eyes
began to water, and as I struggled for composure, Minu Mashi noticed the tears, and explained that
this was a reaction to the mustard oil, its pungency quite capable of annihilating the stoutest and the
most experienced palettes, and that was not to blame the fish. She decided to reduce the gravy and
correspondingly increase the quantity of mashed fish for the next mouthful. The need for survival
was such that the instincts swung into action, and suggested to my rapidly moving brain, even as
she pushed the next instalment into my mouth, that swallowing the mouthful instead of applying
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