Rosogullas for BJP
Thrown out by Didi, the former Trinamool Congress number two, Mukul Roy sent rosogullas to BJP Bengal chief Dilip Ghosh on Vijayadashami day. As if that was not a strong enough signal of intent, he topped it with a sweet lisp: "It would be wrong to call the BJP a communal party. Remember, TMC was a BJP ally at the TMC's inception in 1997."
If Roy indeed joins the BJP, it will serve the party rather nicely. The Trinamool castaway’s fortress is the Kanchrapara railway scrap yard in the northern suburbs of Kolkata. It’s a densely populated part of Kolkata on the east bank of the Hooghly, with a mixed migrant populace. Mukul Roy’s entry would enable the BJP to establish a bridgehead in a nicely festering location ideal for social engineering.
Was it notun gur, Mukul?
But Babu Moshai Mukul Roy didn’t say whether the rosogullas were made of sugar syrup or jaggery. Surely with winter approaching, he’d have known that jaggery is the flavor of the season? Winter is when Kolkatans switch to cane sugar from the rather run-of-the-mill mill-manufactured sucrose syrup for their rosogullas. Priced between Rs 7 and Rs 10, jaggery rosogullas are given as presents and prepared in large numbers for marriage ceremonies, many of which are solemnised in winter. The special rosogullas, which are available only in winter when jaggery is aplenty, give a boost to the confectionary industry concentrated in rural Bengal.
Oxygen days ahead?
Analogous to the Sanjay Gandhi National Park in Mumbai, the east Kolkata wetlands are the city’s natural lungs, filtering out much of its pollution even though the city has grown more than three times since Independence. However, with a steady rise in pollution levels coupled with the state government plans to build a flyover right through the wetlands, it’s just a matter of before the eastern Kolkata wetlands begin to dry up the like the lost lakes of Hyderabad and Bengaluru. But wait there is a business opportunity for you: package and sell oxygen cylinders like in Beijing. Kolkata might need them very soon.
No good movies, yeti
This holiday season has been bereft of timepass movies. The much-hyped film on the mythical Yeti fell flat on its face during the Durga Puja hols and not many new releases are lined up. Kolkatans have had no good movie to go see with the family this season. Single-screens and multiplexes are wearing a gloomy look with very thin attendances. Bollywood and Hollywood aren’t helping either.
Hilsa getting smaller
This is the all-time Kolkata crib. How come hilsa sold before Durga Puja are bigger and those sold after are smaller, how dare they? It’s cold consolation to Kolkatans that prices of hilsa have come down since Puja. Though the state government does issue ‘strict orders’ to fishermen not to catch smaller hilsa and let them grow, fishermen disobey the diktat due to demand for hilsa in the festive season.