Keya Sarkar: "Green cauliflowers"

PEOPLE LIKE THEM

One of the great luxuries of living in Santiniketan is that every morning the bread man, vegetable man, fish man, milk man and sweet seller visit to allow you to replenish stocks. Unlike the rush in a city, since the mornings here are relaxed and almost lazy, there is time to interact with these vendors and get to know them as people instead of mere sellers.

Thanks to these early morning conversations and the fact that festivals are still taken very seriously in rural Bengal, we get to savour the most exotic ritualistic offerings for both Hindu and Muslim festivals. In fact, now with any festival approaching, we find ourselves seeking newer and newer excuses for not participating in it.

However, over the last couple of years, if not for festivals, but whenever we have managed to take a day off, we have visited almost all those who bring us our daily sustenance. Last week we went to our vegetable vendor's village about ten kilometers from where we live, called "Baksibandh".

Ram met us half way in order that we may not have difficulty in finding his address. In the car he filled us in on the family gossip. How his eldest sister-in-law was responsible for the family breaking up. They of course all live together because of the land but they no longer eat together.

Often while traveling by train or car and noticing a few huts in the midst of large rice fields, I wondered how the inmates get there and manage to live so cut off from everything else. Ram's village was exactly one of those. A few huts with a huge courtyard in the middle surrounded by bamboo groves and vegetable fields beyond.

We were introduced to the entire family and shown around the house. As we stood in the courtyard, and sipped on the early morning delicacy, the khejur ras, Ram's father told us how every year they lived in the fear of one particular day, on which the Ajay river overflowed and the whole village took shelter on high land. They may or may not come back to their huts and belongings. Some years they are lucky and everything is saved and during others, they have no choice but to rebuild.

While the women of the house got busy in preparing breakfast, we were taken on a tour of the vegetable fields. Cauliflowers, cabbages, peas and carrots planted over acres of land were a sight to behold. As our city-bred feet walked unsurely over the small lanes between the vegetables, the kids of the household gave us a commentary on what was ready to eat now and what we would need to wait for.

We got back to an array of painstakingly made "pithes" or sweets made in Bengali households for Sankranti. I have never had so much sweet early in the morning and almost missed my staple bread and eggs. By the time we were through tasting all the different varieties and the women insisting we have more, it was almost noon and time to leave.

We had not noticed that in the meanwhile, a heap of fresh vegetables and greens had been plucked for us. We were busy protesting, when Ram's eight-year-old daughter who till now had been rather quiet, piped up to say, "Why don't you give them the green cauliflowers? They taste like nothing."

The family, embarrassed at this suggestion, asked us whether indeed we would like sabuj kopi. Excited at the prospect of taking home some fresh broccoli, I agreed. "But why did you plant sabuj kopi if it does not have any takers," I asked, thinking of the prices that people pay in Mumbai or Kolkata. "We got the seeds from somebody but realised that the locals didn't want to eat this. We can get no more than Rs 3 or 4 for a piece," was the dumbfounding reply.