Seeking freedom from the ‘same old’ in the new year was never as heartfelt as now. Our second Bengali new year in a Mumbai under lockdown.

Mangshor jhol bhaat is a Sunday thing but our friend Shaswati sent us some lovely mutton curry yesterday and it made for a great ‘Freelancer Monday’ lunch today

I had to push myself to come here and write today. Not because it is a Monday and because I take Mondays easy. The truth is that my Sundays have become far more busy ever since I turned a freelancer. Hence Mondays are my Sundays now and I call them ‘Freelancer Mondays.’

I’ve been shooting and posting, podcasting on my social media channels a fair bit these days. The blog got neglected though. Writing for me is therapy and that is something that is much needed in the bleak times we are in. There are many who would question about how one can talk about something as trite as food when the country is gripped by the second Covid wave. It is a valid argument. However, we all need to cling on to our sanity. We are staying indoors. K has been busy with work. The cats give us joy. 

I have been keeping myself busy. Posting about food. Trying to focus on the present with a sense of gratitude. One keeps hearing about people we know getting the virus. One is praying for them.

Blogging is a big part of normalcy for me. The blog is where I chronicle our day to day life. Life events such as birthdays, new years, anniversaries, too. I did not write about my birthday this year here till a month later and that too not in detail. I did write about Navroze though. 

I came here today because I did not want to miss writing about the Bengali new year. A landmark in our Covid 19 journal.

The Kitty Karmakars check out our Bengali new year lunch

There were many new years which happened across India during this period. Kerala’s Vishu, Odiya new year, Assamese Bahag Bihu, Baisakhi of Punjab, Poila Boishakh of Bengal, Sindhi Cheti Chand, Maharashtrian Gudi Padwa, Ugadi of Karnataka. I might have missed out on some.

Earlier this year I had done a spate of zoom chats with people belonging to different communities around sankranti. I suddenly decided to do the same this time too. I reached out to friends from the food world and got the opportunity to record and share lovely chats such as that with Sanjukta Das from Guwahati on her Bihu memories from the tea gardens of Dibrugarh, with Shalini Rajani of Gurgaon on her cheti chand memories from Aligarh, with Jayesh Parjanjape on his gudi padwa memories from Pune, with Marina Balakrishnan from Mumbai of her vishu memories from Thalassery, with Gurpreet Singh Tikku of Baisakhi memories of his boarding school days and then from Delhi and with Kaniska Chakraborty on his poila boishakh memories from Dhaka and Kolkata. I have shared the videos at the end of this post.

Marina Balakrishnan’s Opttupoora Vishu Sadya

I got to taste some of the food that we spoke about too. The amazingly light and poetic Vishu Kani Oottupoora meal from Marina Balakrishnan which came with a blue-print on how to serve the sadya on a banana leaf. Then I ordered my first ever Gudi Padwa pangat from Amol Welling’s The Culinary Table. I was aided this time  by a blueprint given by Jayesh on how to navigate the pangat banana leaf. This meal turned out to be quite light on the tummy too and yet enjoyable. More on it in the video posted in the appedix.

Culinary Kitchen gudi padwa pangat

Nope, banana leaf is not just a Kerala thing as some trolls on social media would love to believe!

This was our second Bengali new year spent under lockdown. Last year it was all so new. Suddenly we had no access to house-help, home deliveries, restaurants, home chefs. We cooked like we had not in a while and on nobo borsho last year I got some very expensive mutton delivered home and made kosha mangsho for K and mishti pulao too. Cherishing the meal by ourselves as we counted our blessings. Baby Loaf, our elder cat (only cat then), giving us company. Wryly remembering nobo borsho outings with friends to Oh!Calcutta in the past and dinners at home with friends with food from Bhojo Hori Manna and Peetuk. That seems like another life.

The days that followed merged into each other in a blur. We remained at home. Some changes did happen before things became worse again. 

A typical day for me is cook, shoot, eat, post. Nobo borsho this time was no different.

Deem pauruti

I started the Bengali new year by making savoury French toast. Deem pauruti. The only traditional Bengali breakfast dish that I can make. My mum used to make this for me as a treat when I was a kid. I used sourdough bread this time and matured English cheddar but at heart it was the same.

Hungry Cat Kitchen Bengali new year feast

We had ordered food from a home chef enterprise on poila boishakh this time. From Hungry Cat Kitchen, co-owned by our friend Shubhasree Basu. It is technically a cloud kitchen and she does not cook out of home.

I had not tried her Bengali food before but based on past experience of trying her other food, I knew it would be good and so it was! Each dish, be it the demure moong dal with cucumbers and fried coconut slices, the tart and refreshing prawns steamed with unripe mango, crushed mustard and ridge gourd, the aristocratic prawns and pointed gourd in posto, the garden fresh ghol fish fry with garden herbs, the chirpy chicken cooked in a sublime yogurt based gravy with kaffir lime leaves and the glorious Mezbani mangsho (Chittagong inspired mutton curry), each took one on a different journey. A happy one. This was great stuff.

Mom’s prawn curry recreated

While I had called for the food by lunch time, I took pics and recorded a video in natural light and then kept the food for dinner for I had suddenly decided to cook lunch myself. An act inspired by the kosha mangsho I made last year. Atma nirbhar and all that jazz you know.

There were prawns in the fridge. I thought I will make the Goan prawn chilli fry that K loves and which I have cooked on most special occasions during Covid times ever since Poonam began delivering fish. Then I thought let’s do something different at least, and made the onion and tomato based chingri machher jhol which my mum makes and K loves. She enjoyed what I came up with this time too though I was making it after a while.

Pabda curry with kasundi

I made pabda with kasundi the day before which happened to be the day nobo borsho is celebrated in Dhaka. K loves this. The day after, I made kaatla kaalia to go with the leftover basanti pulao which came with the Hungry Cat Kitchen meal. K loves this too.

kaatla kaalia

The combination of kaalia with pulao reminded me of English new year lunches at my grandparents’ house where didu would cook these dishes, plus chicken curry and bhaajas.

Trying to distract Nimki from my fish by telling him about didu’s cooking

And that’s how I made our Bengali new year in Mumbai a fish and prawn fest for my Parsi ginni (slang for grihini someone told me recently) and me.

Happy new year. Take care. Stay safe. Hope you can snatch moments of happiness when you can.

Offering to our ancestors on the new year. Seeking their blessings.

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