Images – Samim Akter Sheikh
Bangla literature has quite a few Dada figures: Saradindu Banerjee created Baroda, Satyajit Ray Feluda, Narayan Ganguly Tenida and Premendra Mitra created Ghanada.
A middle-aged man with a big heart, always available at home, always ready to spin an anecdote – that is Ghanada or Ghanashyam Das, now an extinct species.
Ghanada lives in a hostel where his followers gladly pay his monthly rent; they also pay for his voracious appetite. He spends the entire day indulging in gossip, goes to a park in the evening, where he gossips with a different audience. His stories often contain a lot of fantasy elements and descriptions of his superhuman exploits. People like Ghanada were once the essential nucleus of the extended Bengali family. These good-natured individuals were a source of entertainment for children and a companion to adolescents. They were also an antidote to the stress of daily life endured by adults.
Ghanada and Tenida, different as they are from each other, are both food connoisseurs. In the Tenida stories, food moves the plot. The four main characters are always hankering after food. In fact, in many of the Tenida stories, searching for food or stealing food from friends forms the main plot. Tenida eats virtually anything, starting from sweetmeat infested with ants to whatever a passing hawker might be selling. He accepts any invitation to get tasty food. Almost all the stories begin with Tenida demanding some snack from his band of disciples. This hankering for food occasionally even borders on the obscene.
In the Ghanada stories, food occupies a different position. To prepare a sumptuous meal for Ghanada required a lot of labour. Some of the ingredients needed to be procured from obscure parts of the city, from shops specializing in those items. Even in some cases, the followers of Ghanada needed to travel quite a bit to get the exact items for that meal. The preparation of the food and serving of the food also required special techniques. And finally, when Ghanada was enjoying his meal, it was customary to remain silent spectators and enjoy the scene of the master connoisseur appreciating his choices. Of course, these extravagant meals were made possible with financial contribution of other boarders of that mess. Ghanada never paid for his own food! This detailed description of food however had one purpose. It acted as a segue to the main plotline. Ghanada needed to be bribed with adequate food to be full enough to open his mouth. And once he opened his mouth, a fountain of the most extra-ordinary stories started flowing out. But what was this food?
The first published story featuring Ghanada dates back to 1945. It was called “Mosha.” It was published in Alpona, a Puja Barshiki or a Durga Puja special story collection published by Deb Sahitya Kutir.
This story does not contain any significant description of food. In fact, for the first four or five published stories, there is hardly any description of food, except for Ghanada borrowing cigarettes from a disciple named Shisir. This borrowing of cigarettes is a recurring act in subsequent stories, with the number of cigarettes often playfully mentioned. Ghanada, though, is too magnanimous to return a cigarette loan! The first serious description of food appears in the story Maach (1949). The story begins with the description of a special lunch. Those familiar with Bengali mess culture know that these occasions of special meals at hostels or mess houses are called ‘feasts.’ The story mentions that Ghanada does not like catfish curry. He demands a spicy chicken curry instead even though he has an upset stomach. When served, he is able to finish two massive bowls of the curry at one go. The meal ends with desserts like mishti doi, pantua and sandesh. This is usually the description of a typical Bengali Zamindari meal.
The actual focus on food starts in the second published collection of the Ghanada stories, Adwitiya Ghanada. Food in these stories is a serious concern for Ghanada who uses it as a ‘bargaining chip.’ In Phuto, Ghanada threatens to leave the mess and his followers; and to placate him, they quickly arrange for Hilsha fish curry. For Ghanada, just the mention of Hilsha fish caught in the Ganges is not enough. He directs his disciples regarding the cooking method too.
As Premendra Mitra started to develop more stories in this series, the description of food acquired an identifiable pattern. Ghanada is found sulking in his room. Perhaps some untoward incident during a meal one day has put him off. And, if he is in a bad mood, his entertaining stories dry up completely. His followers then try to win him over with new tasty food.
In Daanth (1955), we find the mention of fish croquet; in Shuto (1958), there’s Fish Kabiraji. (Kabiraji is a special type of cutlet wrapped in egg white sold in many Calcutta delis). Ghanada gulps down four cutlets at one go! The food diversifies with time. In the first few stories, the main food items mentioned are chicken curry, Hilsha curry and dalpuri. The Hilsha curry is accompanied by Khichudi during the monsoon. In Dhil (1960), Ghanada is upset at being served Mullet fish instead of Hilsha. But his anger disappears on smelling telebhaja, a platter of fries and fritters, and he happily joins the adda with his followers munching on the snacks.
Ghanada can occasionally cross all limits for food. In Haansh (1957), he cooks a duck bought by a boarder in the mess. And when that boarder gets angry with him, he somehow manages to convince him that he had not sacrificed the duck for the meat, but rather, in search of a hidden gemstone. In Kencho (1961), he begs his followers to arrange for croquet made of Asian Seabass fish. In Prithibi barlo na keno, Ghanada almost snatches away a plateful of fish rolls from someone sitting in front of him. Premendra Mitra writes that Ghanada would start his meals in an acute angle and, by the end, he would reach an obtuse angle! The other boarders of that mess (Banamali Naskar Lane) gladly put up with all his tantrums.
In Tel deben Ghanada, one such feast day had a special menu— a preparation of Indian knifefish. During his evening rambles, if any particular food caught his fancy, he would order the shop to deliver it at the mess. He once ordered hing-er kochuri. Ghanada, of course, never paid for these orders. When the food arrived, it was inevitably one of the boarders who had to pay the bill.
Ghanada sometimes used this food for extracting special favours from his disciples. He even made a show of eschewing his favourite food items like Samosa, ice cream or Rabdi temporarily. Even Hilsha fish obtained after a lot of trouble was sometimes rejected under flimsy pretences. What was that pretence for? He complained that the Hilsha was from Rupnarayan river and not the Ganges! In Bhasha (1966), Ghanada eats multiple preparations of the Hilsha fish at one go— starting from fried Hilsha to steamed Hilsha. To satisfy his tantrums, his disciples sometimes arrange for exotic items like Begunfuli mango, a rare variety. The other food items mentioned in the stories include chicken kebab, mango fish fry, shami kabab etc. He was quite fastidious about food. Even before eating a papad, he would enquire whether it had been properly fried at a special shop. He would be very pleased if someone presented him with a bouquet of Bengali sweets. (It is said that the author Premendra Mitra probably had diabetes for a significant part of his life. Thus, a lot of his favourite food were out-of-bounds for him. Probably, he fulfilled his epicurean dreams through these descriptions in Ghanada’s stories.)
In Mongol grohe Ghanada, he finishes five plates of Chicken samosa at one go! However, this over-eating sometimes got him into trouble. In some of the stories, we find the mention of a new boarder named Dhanu Chowdhury, who tries to stop Ghanada from overeating. Whenever anyone gets mouth-watering treats for Ghanada, like Mullet fish fry or Chicken Kabiraji Cutlet, Dhanu Chowdhury tries to dissuade Ghanada from eating them, citing health reasons. Even the hint of a digestive supplement after a meal would greatly offend Ghanada. He not only liked to eat, he was also quite proud of his supreme digestive capabilities and any mention of health issues related to overeating would set him off.
Premendra Mitra more or less stuck to the same food items throughout the Ghanada stories. The same cutlet, Hilsha, chicken, mutton, biryani, sweets etc. The food didn’t change with time. One reason could be that the entire time period when Ghanada stories were written was a period of economic stagnation in Bengal. Ghanada, like many Bengalis, hated vegetarian food. What Premendra Mitra gives to the reader through his description of the feast in an average Bengali mess in Calcutta in the 1960s and 70s is completely wishful thinking. In reality, the food in those boarding houses was atrocious and repulsive.
As the Ghanada series progressed, the stories changed from being based in science to historical fiction. The chief readers of these stories were probably pensioners. This must have been the reason Ghanada carefully avoids any mention of food later.
It’s really,really superb! We can easily travel to our youth and remember sweet memories of engrossed in reading despite our homeworks still yet to be complete!
A beautiful essay weaved around many stories that revolve around food.
Pension and diabetes get a mention, as do cigarettes and spices.
Epicurean fulfillment is touched upon, leaving science behind.
As I got busy reading, I began to savor it piecemeal!