We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
T. S Eliot ‘Little Gidding’
No, this is no philosophy of poetry; this is about food, a culinary mapping of a city that continues to rise out of its ashes. I had a project: to return with a bouquet garni from a busy, bustling city and realized that the project itself has turned into an allegory of Quest. Flury’s sat uneasily by the side of Music World and brought back the soft chicken sandwiches with white bread cut into halves and brushed with plain, honest salted butter. The chicken was bravado itself: salt and black pepper and nothing but. Funny how that taste and smell of freshly done chicken along with the slightly sweet bread reminded me of Kalpana Pradhan and her dainty manicured hands that picked up the sandwich and reached it to her thin lips discreetly; Kalpana munched in a way that made munching a matter of high art. The tea was Darjeeling of course, and came in a pot that wasn’t chipped then, is now. It was a bi-weekly trip for Kalpana and me, just across the Street from Park Mansions, after having learnt the hopeless intricacies of Passé Composé under Monsieur Benôit’s able tutelage… It was breakfast for her, a semi –regal second cousin of Aiswarya, the then queen of Nepal , and adventure for me: a sinful way of wasting middle-class money that was hard earned: teaching High School students the difference of the ablative and the accusative. This time , on a sweltering summer afternoon, it was different. It wasn’t sandwich. It was fried Bhetki fillets, crisp, aromatic, with steamed vegetables and fries. Coffee was mediocre, but the pink writing on the glass window and the bearers and footmen, liveried and a bit distant compensated for the pale watery concoction. No care. This was actually the oddysey in search of a young university student, all wrapped up in Hamlet, Becket and what not back then… and M. Baudelaire. Flury’s was all that even that afternoon, as I dug my fork into the golden brown fry. L’Alliance was gone from the Park Mansion, but the tea at Flury’s was still the same,(Was the porcelain that cheap, really?) And then there was a buzzing fly (what can you expect? chirped the man who served. With the Patisserie and all…) why did I not try to return to the sandwiches? Because it was a dream? Or is it because I am scared to look for Kalpana?
Amber was Butter Naan, Tandoori Chicken and Tikka Masala.. Rogan Josh, the rich, creamy, scarlet gravy lacing the chunks of mutton that fell off the bones. Literally. Amber was nonchalance of run-down palaces with the chipped mirrors, liveried waiters who crowded round the print of a Botticelli that I had carried as a gift for a friend. Informal, cordial and proud. “Do not under order Naans… you will need more” was a prophecy, so was the Mutton Masala which was firmly suggested as a variant to the Saag Meat that I had insisted on… for it mingled with images from a past that may not be brought forth. It tasted less seductive this time. Why was I scared of Amber? The labyrinthine darkness I remembered and the relentless honking of cars and the stray cows … not the staircase nor the chandeliers… there was an oddness about Amber, a prince in times of trouble, with disdain for the flashy. It still is, rejection of the new writ large over the narrow stairway that brought you to the north Indian succulence. A young woman, I thought, sat there in the shadows, judging, observing the family around the large table that was now hers. There were other negotiations as well… the bright red dot on the forehead and the parting of the hair resplendent red, the ill accustomed golden bangles that replaced the functional wristwatch that had survived the rough 2B years! Can a paltry Butter Naan be a metaphor for such complexities? Amber. Waterloo Street. Near Paradise cinema, no? Please tip the Usher.
Peter Cat was different, complex. As a metaphor, I mean poised between the subjective and the historical. The original Peter was British and a cat. A resident of the Lord’s cricket ground he actually etched out his name in history as the only animal whose obituary was printed in the Wisden , the british sports journal. The one in Kolkata with its roots in the Raj nostalgia was an antithesis the the Kolkata ambience. With the sizzlers and other sins, it gave the lie to the revolutionary graffitis on the city walls, the communist paraphernalia. In short, like Mocambo, it wasn’t a hot shot from Mrinal Sen’s films and such likes. The sizzlers hissed on a wooden plank that spluttered as the waiters made their way to the tables with the planks. The buttery smell was damnation itself; so were the chunks of grilled chicken and veggies that sat smug on the plank. Under the shaded lights history was made. Nubile maidens (corporate wives in the making) met prospective grooms to impress with English small talk… ,clandestine rendezvous were also in the order of things. More of that later; then there was Chelo kabab that sat on a bed of butter rice that didn’t even remotely resemble Persian rice. But the deficiencies were hidden to a someone who was making a statement of her own: bring down cultural barriers; be at one with the different strands of life definitions, from the proletarian to the decadent declassed. The new Peter Cat… the post Stephen court one was one afternoon, after a gruelling and energizing tour of Boi Para in College Street. Honest confession: the need of the hour was chilled beer and… “Why don’t you order Chelo Kabab? We are famous for that!” looks were deceptive. The kababs were dry and the rice was lovely; so was the egg that oozed as you pitched your fork into it. The darkness was unsettling and the waiters didn’t wait after pouring out the Heineken into thick, rather uninviting glasses. As we came out, the KFC bang opposite winked at us in its crass red outfit. I wasn’t for that market. Clearly.
The Epilogue
Many ingenious lovely things are gone
That seemed sheer miracle to the multitude,
protected from the circle of the moon
That pitches common things about.
Nahoum’s. Hogg’s Market. Dark. The Eclair, Chocolate Walnut Pastry Cricket commentator Pearson Surita, Suchitra Sen, Bob Wright of Tollygunge Club, …there were Brownies too and the chocolate pastries. Rum Balls, not for children. This is scrolling up to the early seventies. A yearly visit was a ritual on the last day of the year to get an extra large box of chocolate pastries for the New Year. By some cosmic joke, it was also birthday for the little girl, who never knew how to handle the historic moment of her arrival. She still doesn’t. But chocolate pastries were ever welcome. So were the éclairs and cheese straws. Nahoum’s was shabby and arrogant and luscious. It still is. No still from ‘Chocolat’, this but you still want to click it for it is part of your exploration and arrival at… not just lovely things resplendent in the unassuming, regal glass cases. It is also your arrival at the beginning: a little girl with two pigtails.. holding firmly on to her father’s index finger, and taking in the aroma of freshly baked goodies. Just that.
Methinks... 
Beautiful!
Thanks, Ishani!