Macchh Bhaat and Being a Bengali

I am a “Probashi ” Bengali, I have always been one . In lay-man terms it means I have been living outside of Kolkata for a little too long. My family moved to Gujarat when I was 5 and the Modi-land has been my home ever since. 

My Bengali pronunciations were probably the worst hit by this westward immigration of my family . I would often inject the unforgivably crass word “yaar” in my Bengali conversations, at which point Baba would stop the conversation midway and stare remorsefully at the life-size picture of RobindroNath in our living room. My reaction to such situations was often just exchanging a quick glance with my sister tacitly saying "here he goes again!"

So yeah, I have never been a true-blue chest-thumping andolon-mongering adda-baaz Bengali . In fact I often found most Bengalis quite Neyka - a word we cannot translate accurately for any non-bengali. Most Bengalis take themselves way too seriously and if I were to give them a pointed feedback in a corporate-esque way it would be that they urgently need some bias-for-action. Like seriously yo! 

But amidst our many vices and many many Nekamo we find redemption in something magnificent - our food. There is actually no better thing in the World than Macch Bhaat.

Even in the darkest hour as a Bengali - when I found Garba more fun than Durga Puja, I couldn't choose Dhokla over Dhokar-Dalna. For all the Punjabi Swag, for all the entrepreneurial spirit of Gujaratis, for all the discipline of the Tamilians - we Bengalis have our food and we win! Every time my mom made those delicious Maccher Jhol, I would remember the pluses of being born in a Bengali household and completely forget the misplaced idealism of my Kakus and the unbearable shrillness of my Mashis. 

My mom tells me usually the kids graduate slowly from the 

peti pieces with less kaatas to the more complicated pieces, but not me. It still remains one of my more valued life skills- eating fish with minimum wastage. Fish, I have learned, is an epitome of a lot of things in Bengali culture and is part of most good things in the life of a Bengali. So when I decided to get married to my Gujarati boyfriend in Gujarat, I was still quite sure what is the single most important thing for me to have in the wedding- Shorshe Macch (mustard fish) in the Menu. 

For all the times I disappointed my Baba and RobindroNath, I made it up by eating vegetarian Jhinge-Posto without complaining. And I think I will someday find forgiveness for all my crassness, kaalchaar-less Gujju-Bong hybrid ways in being the 100% chest-thumping Macch connoisseur that I am. And that I think is what being a proud Bengali means to me :)