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DURGA PUJA: PART 6

Breaking Bread with Durga

Jhale Jhole Ambole: The foody Bengalis . . .

Tasting multifarious food items during any special occasion or festival is an integral part of Bengali culture.  And thus, Bengalis are accredited as ‘Bhojonroshik Bangali’ or ‘Khaddyoroshik Bangali’. Celebration of Durga puja is all about having good food either in home or in restaurants.  Aditi Das, articulates the gastronomic odyssey of Bengal during those five days of Durga puja.

Breaking Bread with Durga

The azure sky is flooded with golden sunbeams while rafts of white clouds set sail. The air rings with the beats of dhak as the kash flowers blossom near ponds and rivers. The autumnal sky in Bengal immediately reminds you of the line from one of Rabindranath’s songs- Aaj Neel Akash-e ke Bhashaley Shada Megher Bhela (Who set sail the white rafts of clouds in the blue sky).The season of sharot or early autumn puts an end to the ruinous rains of Bengal and is the harbinger of festivities as Durga- the goddess of power, deliverance and glory and her daughter Lakshmi-the goddess of wealth and prosperity, are worshipped in Bengal with much pomp and glory. On the sixth day (shashti) after the autumn new moon, Durga supposedly comes to visit her parents from her heavenly abode along with her four children. A special ceremony, bodhon, is carried out in the evening which marks the infusion of life into the lifeless clay idols. During bodhon and the rituals thereafter, food offerings are made to Durga and her children. These include:

“Panchashashya (grains of five types - rice, mung or whole green gram, teel or sesame, mashkalai or any variety of whole black leguminous seed, job or millet), panchagobbyo (five items obtained from the cow - milk, ghee or clarified butter, curd, cow dung and gomutra), curd, honey, sugar, three big noibeddos (food offerings), one small noibeddyo, three bowls of madhuparka (a mixture of honey, curd, ghee and sugar for oblation), bhoger drobbadi (items for the feast), aaratir drobbadi (items for the aarati), mahasnan tel (oil), dantokashtho, sugar cane juice, an earthen bowl of atop chal (a type of rice), teel-toilo (sesame oil)”(Mukherjee and Bandhopadhyay, 2013). 

Every time you push through the crowd, to pay a visit to the goddess at the pandals, mouth-watering ‘street’ food stalls would await for you to pounce on the small rounded phuchkas served with mashed potatoes and tamarind water; the coiled sweets fried in oil and dipped in sugar syrup, popularly known as jilipis (jalebis); the pink cotton-like candies; the long thread-like noodles; the bomb-like dimer devil (egg chops) and many more. You can feast your eyes on this array of street foods from jhalmuri, bhelpuri, candy floss, chops, momos, sweets to biriyani, rolls, chowmein, pizzas, ice cream, cakes, popcorn and so on. 

Several Durga Puja Street Foods

(photos taken from various internet sources)

Serving a plethora of culinary styles and gastronomic preparations, the Durga Puja street food in Kolkata becomes a major attraction for not only of the people residing in the city but also those who hail from surrounding areas of Howrah, Hugli, South and North 24 Parganas. These people arrive at Kolkata in the morning; take a tour of the well-known pandals going around the city in a circle and finally take a train back the next morning. It is then these gastronomic delights which become the source of energy and enthusiasm for these people during ‘pandal hopping’.  Whether it is 10:00 in the morning or 2:00 at night, the stalls are hardly ever empty. But if you think that Durga Puja food is all about this then you are clearly wrong!

       

Mouth-watering street food stalls, Kolkata

Photo credit: Niladri Roy

For the Epicurean Bengali, food prepared in the kitchen of each of their households form an important aspect in the celebration of Durga Puja. Whether vegetarian or otherwise, the Bengali menu on the five days of Durga Puja consists of the most elaborate and sumptuous dishes. At these times a more traditional and authentic Bengali menu is preferred. Some wish to eat at the pandals where bhog (food that is offered to God) is served during lunch. The following three pieces or excerpts describe the culinary expedition of the Bengalis on the last three days of the festival: Ashtami, Nabami and Dashami.

Ashtami’s vegetarian delights: 

Two pieces of dark fluffy begun bhaja (fried eggplant or brinjal), its brownish orange hued surface lay on the periphery of the freshly severed green banana leaf plate. Sitting carelessly atop the crests of this scrumptious beauty, was a tiny strand of dhonepata (coriander). Delicately kissing its thick fried black skin the cholar dal (lentils) seeping from a heap of nearly-mashed peas stacked nearby glistened like molten lava, only turned yellow, and meandering down the banana leaf’s miniscule veins. Clustered close by were three medium sized remotely spherical aloos (potato), the thick yellow- red dum gravy trickling slowly down its surface, its fumes harbouring the delightful fragrance of garam masala (a mixture of spices). Adorning the rest of the plate were four towering luchis puffed like balloons, looking down unto the three yellow meshes in its neighbourhood waiting to be invaded. Abound in the air the deep voice of the priest reciting the mantras (holy hymn) and the familiar beats of the intoxicating dhak dawns upon the realisation- what is Durga Puja but a Bengali’s opportunity of supreme “pet puja”. 

 A sumptuous Ashtami meal 

(photos taken from various internet sources)

Ashtami, the second day of the festival, is the most important day in which devotees after a morning’s fast make offerings of flowers to the goddess. The fast would be broken by eating prasad of fruits and sweets. Then a sumptuous vegetarian meal as described above is taken for lunch. Sometimes kichuri (a meal concocted out of rice and lentils) would be preferred for lunch while luchis would be a favoured item at dinner. At the community puja, banana leaves are used in place of thermocol or plastic plates. One would usually end with sweet dishes like bondey and kheer. After the evening ritual of arati performed by the priest before the goddess, Ashtami would end with some more tasty vegetarian delights as the lingering sounds of dhak beats and kasorghonta (gong bell) would fill the air.

Navami: Sacrifice in the name of the Goddess

In the middle of the courtyard, facing the idol of the Goddess, the goat stood; a tikah (a mark) of vermillion on the forehead, its head placed on the guillotine. As the air resonated with the sounds of dhak and kasorghonta- the rhythm slowly escalating with the priest’s mantra, a sharp penetrating cry of the goat, about to be slaughtered, interrupted the crescendo. A sudden ‘jhatka’ (blow) from a sharp sword by the priest made the goat’s head roll onto the ground. As blood seeped ceaselessly from the severed head and body of the goat, the ground stained in blood, offered a gory sight. The carcass of the beheaded goat was then to be taken into the kitchen and cooked into a delicious goat meat curry. 

Bolidan, Then and Now

(photos taken from various internet sources)

This practise of boli (a Sanskrit term meaning ‘offering’) is the custom of offering live sacrifices of goats or buffaloes to the goddess.  It was usually in the houses of the wealthy Hindus that such sacrifices were made.  It was not just one, but several goats or buffaloes that would be slaughtered to fill the appetite of the entire family. After a day’s sacrifice of non-vegetarian food as a customary ritual on Ashtami, Navami is the time for consuming the sacrificial meat. Navami, being the last day of Durga’s stay at her father’s residence, is made gastronomically most productive. As Chitrita Banerji rightly points out, Navami “is gastronomically the opposite of Ashtami; meat-eating is the order of the day” (Banerji, 1991). 

Today, however, animal sacrifices are less. Instead, vegetables like kumro (pumpkins), chalkumro (winter melons), lau (gourd) and narkel (coconuts) are offered. Even though the item of food offered to appease Durga has changed- the practise of boli and meat-eating still remains. The meat for the baroyari (community) pujas is usually brought from the market as is the case in most middle-class households. The goat, often substituted by the lamb, is usually cooked without onion, ginger and garlic. This is served with either steamed rice or pulao- the yellow rice and sometimes even with luchis. After a heavy meal of goat meat curry for lunch, Navami’s dinner is usually light. In contemporary times most people eat out at restaurants and food stalls while others feed on the leftover meat from lunch. 

Dashami: Of Sweets and Sadness

10:00 a.m., Dashami: The crescent-shaped chandrapuli, lay next to one another in a large aluminium tray, reduced to almost one-fourth the amount the tray could hold. Right beside it, the perfectly round gulabjamuns were reducing with a single blink of the eyelashes. A fly, sitting on its dark brown, almost black, surface was busy licking on the sugar syrup in which the gulabjamuns were dipped. On the other side of the chandrapuli, the narkelchhapa, designed in the shape of a flower, only made flat, was waiting to be bought. A special sweet, that was made using kheer, in resemblance of Durga’s face, her mukut (head gear) and nath (nose ring) carefully designed by the moira (the sweet maker), was put on display at the counter. Small round stone-like bondeys of yellow and red, only made softer, and the elongated pale-yellow malai-chamcham, dipped in milk and garnished with kesar (saffron) and pista (pistachio), helped break the monotony of the abundant brown and white sweets that filled the display racks of the sweet shops. From Balaram Mullick and Radharam Mullick in Bhowanipore to Naleen and Putiram in North Kolkata, the story is all the same. 

                         

Rosogulla, Malai Chamcham, Gulab Jamun and Narkelchhapa

(photos taken from various internet sources)

It is Bijayadashami, the tenth day after the new moon- time for Durga’s departure and return to her heavenly abode awaited by her husband, Shiva. 

In the evening as the idols of Durga and her children travel in trucks to the ghats for the final rite of bhashan (immersion), families, relatives, friends and neighbours drop in to convey their bijaya greetings. The peers embrace each other while younger people touch the feet of elders taking their blessings. This ritual too does not go without food. Just like a full course meal is not complete without the eating of desserts, Durga Puja remains unfinished without sweets. Sweets are believed to symbolize happiness. On the day of Ma Durga’s departure from her maternal home on earth, the women gather at the pandals to offer vermillion and sweets. Though it is customary to offer sweets on bijaya, nowadays, health conscious young Bengalis prefer savoury. A surfeit of gustatory dishes from sandesh, rasogolla, payesh to shingara, nimki, kochuri, ghugni, and many more fill the stomach compelling one to relinquish that night’s dinner. Through mishtimukh (the practice of eating sweets) the people drown their grief as they wait with the hope that ashchey-bochhor-abar-hobe. 

Five days of Durga Puja thus ends on a melancholic note. But what do we exactly know about the ‘puja’ (worship) part of this grand festival of eastern India? I remember during my first few days in Delhi, my friends from the northern parts of India were curious to know the customs and rituals which we perform at home in these five days. When I started to speak of it, all that I could say, apart from the ritual of anjali (offering of flowers) on the eighth day after a fast in the morning, were related in some way to food- be it the practices of bolidan or bijaya. I realised that our involvement with the ‘ritual’ part of the puja, to a large extent, is centred around food. Puja is the time to go back home, to visit friends and families and of course eat all kinds of mouth-watering foods from the streets. More than a religious festival, Durga puja has become a festival of people, their joys and their emotions. Puja is that bonding which brings people close and food forms an integral part of that intimacy. To us this occasion of puja is, thus, more emotional rather than religious and food is that facet of this festival through which it steps out of the ‘aristocratic’ family festival to a festival for all. Durga Puja, thus, becomes like a fest for us where we celebrate the homecoming of our daughter by offering her all kinds of delicacies and of course we don’t deprive ourselves of those either.

Author’s Bio-Note:

Aditi Das is currently pursuing her M.Phil in the Department of Geography at the University of Delhi. Her knack for studying food cultures comes from her almost obsessive love for cooking and eating.

References

• Benerji, C. (1991). Life and Food in Bengal. Weidenfeld & Nicolson.
• Mukherjee, K. L., & Bandyopadhyay, B. (2013). New Age Purohit Darpan Book 3 Durga Puja. Mahalaya.

Acknowledgement: I’m grateful to Saikat Pal for providing the vivid description on Ashtami food. I extend my gratitude to Rishika Mukherjee and Sourav Saha for the valuable discussion on Durga Puja food that has enriched this article. 

Series Editor:

Nirmita Roychowdhury