Dark and sulky, he looms over me to offer a tiny clay cup of tea. I take a sip. “This is delicious, Bikash da! How did you make it?” A smile reluctantly breaks out through his untidy stubble. “Didi, lal cha e ada aar beet noon [Sister, this is red tea with ginger and rock salt]. That is how we have it in my village.” I am in a rambling lodge in the jungles of Joypur in Bankura, West Bengal. Hygiene is semi-suspect. Safety, too, but there is a kind of brooding layer that has potential.
This morning, we—I’ve been travelling with my parents’ much-loved driver Gopal, and even more beloved Mona—were at the temple town of Bishnupur. The terracotta temples here have so much beauty, I felt gooseflesh through my mother’s old Sambalpuri sari I was wearing. For a textile designer, a weaver colony is like a sacred temple. In there, behind cocoons of complex storytelling machines, sits magicians.
There are entire epics spun in golden threads—Draupadi stands with her garland; Krishna rides as a charioteer; the exquisite carvings of Bishnupur stare back at us, only that now they are etched in silk and gold. I buy two Balucharis and one Swarnachari (the one woven in gold).
This is also the precious Nolen Gur [fresh jaggery] season. I start every day with fresh date juice. My new friends in the Bankura and Hooghly villages are perplexed by the discovery that my friend, Fredric, has no idea what Patali Gur [date palm jaggery] is. I buy several hillocks of this jaggery, promising to remedy the situation really fast.
I am a little embarrassed that I had no idea that the ubiquitous Bankura horse is also a place for worship. I enjoy seeing the roadside Nag shrines under trees.
Later, we visited Joyrambati Kamarpukur. As with many Bengali children, Ramakrishna has been omnipresent in the garden of my childhood. What has stayed with me has been the imprint of his ecstatic devotion to Ma Kali. I am delighted to have experienced the simple charm of Joyrambati
Kamarpukur and the epic evening aarti.
The Joypur jungles are where the soil is bright red—a rusty hue of carnelian gemstones and terracotta figurines. I pick up a fistful to see if it stains my palms like a henna design. Meals are always from little roadside places, served on Sal patta [a plate made from Sal tree leaves stitched together with twigs]. Yet, Bengali meals shine in sophistication.
They’re served from buckets or pots but always in courses—a bhaja (fried bitter gourd or eggplant) and aloo bhate (a potato mash in raw mustard oil with caramelised onion slices), rice with a light soupy dal, and an array of seasonal, cooked vegetables. Every course is fulfilling. The third course is a choice of fish curry with rice. Then there is mangsho (goat’s meat) or chicken curry. And lastly, the ubiquitous Bengali tomato chutney studded with ginger slivers and raisins, promising to be unforgettable every time.
These simpler places don’t serve mishti [sweets] and doi [curd]. We would stop at other mishti shops as each village has a signature mishti—Langcha, Ledikeni [named after Lady Cannings], the Burdwan Sitabhog, and countless other delicacies. And, of course, the sweet Nolen Gur in winter. And then there’s the sweetest superpower—dusky, confident, and utterly feminine… The women of Bengal!