My friends and relatives look surprised when they find me eagerly asking questions about Durga Puja. I have, indeed, been showing a keen interest in the festival that Bengalis wait for through the year. But I am afraid my reasons have less to do with rituals and religion, and more to do with matters relating to the stomach. For the Pujas are when you get to gorge on delicious food.
I discovered this some years ago, when I was introduced to a concept called Anandamela. This is when the neighbourhood comes out with home-cooked food which is sold in the local pandal for a pittance. Big pujas, small pujas, middle-level pujas, everybody loves an Anandamela. I do, too, for I get to eat all the Bengali delicacies that you won’t find in regular sweet and snack shops — all those mutton chops, prawn cutlets and devilled eggs.
Today, October 8, is the second day of the Pujas, so Anandamela is behind us. But look out for it in 2017. In many of the Patparganj pujas, Anandamela is on the fifth day or Panchami, that is, a day before the Pujas start. In Mayur Vihar Phase II, it’s on the first day of the Puja. In the bigger pujas, it can be held on a weekend before the Pujas: in the Samachar Puja in Mayur Vihar Phase I Extension and at Durga Bari in Kailash Colony, for instance, it was held last Saturday.
In Chittaranjan Park, the Anandamelas are elaborate affairs, with enterprising people selling all kinds of dishes, and even different kinds of cuisine. But the usual favourites are all there — biryani, korma, keema paratha, ghugni (a chickpea preparation, sometimes cooked with minced meat), Bengali sweets, egg, chicken, prawn and fish cutlets and chops and so on.
My dinner on Thursday consisted of some dishes that I bought from two Anandamelas in I.P. Extension. We bought two plates of chicken biryani, four mutton kababs, four plates of plain ghugni, two plates of minced meat ghugni and five bowls of payesh — kheer prepared with date palm jaggery. I paid Rs. 660 for all of this. I stopped in my tracks when I saw some people relishing their parathas with what looked like a delicious chicken curry in one of the pandals, but I was told — with what I thought was a sadistic laugh by one of the diners — that the paratha-chicken was over.
But I had a good meal, and enjoyed the minced meat ghugni, flavoured with mustard oil and garnished with coriander leaves (sold by a journalist, as I later learnt), which I had with parathas at home. The payesh, sold by a smiling elderly lady, was absolutely superb. Creamy, nutty and flavourful, it was easily one of the nicest kheers I’d had in a long time.
But even if you’ve missed out on this year’s Anandamela, you haven’t missed out on the food. You will find in many of the pandals small and big stalls which will sell everything that Bengalis love to eat during this season. In the Kali Bari puja at Mayur Vihar Phase II, I had some delicious crumbed fish last year. The fish cutlets were fresh and crisp and very reasonably priced. I went there on Thursday and was told that all the snack stalls will start operating from Saturday.
There are similar stalls in Mayur Vihar Phase I and, of course, in Chittaranjan Park, where you should try out the Mughlai parathas — thick parathas with egg and minced meat in them. Kali Bari in Mandir Marg has other kinds of food — chatpata channey, jhaal muri (puffed rice tossed in mustard oil, with green chillies, onions, peanuts, chopped cucumber, coconut and so on).
Does it surprise you that the Bengalis even have a phrase that combines eating with worship and which is used to convey a happy food binge? It’s called pate puja.
