For greater than three many years, my mom ran a main college out of our sprawling residence, getting ready over 150 largely Bengali kids for English-medium colleges in Calcutta. As winter started to ebb, my mom, the one spiritual individual in our household, would organise a phenomenal Saraswati Pujo for the Goddess of Studying, attended by any college students’ mother and father who wished to be current.
It was an open home, with a priest conducting the pujo in entrance of the idol of Saraswati with a veena in a single hand, a guide within the different, and her white swan as her steed. The goddess is all the time draped in a white sari, whereas her devotees all the time put on yellow or basanti garments. The idol can be surrounded by massive platters of lower fruits, apples, candy potato, sugar cane, bananas, date and narkel kul, which have been handed out as prasad.
Youngsters would carry their books and place them beside the idol for the day, as you aren’t supposed to check on Saraswati Pujo. What adopted, one thing I failed to understand on the time, given my aversion to all issues spiritual and vegetarian, was a spectacular vegetarian feast, attended by family and friends who selected to affix the pujo. It’s this feast that makes Saraswati Pujo finest identified.
A feast for the devotees
No celebration is full with out bhog’er khichuri, which is the spotlight of Saraswati Pujo. Khichuri is a rice-and-dal preparation flavoured with turmeric, different spices, and ghee, fairly related in texture to a risotto. The bhog’er khichuri is wealthy, barely spicy, and has greens.
Khichuri is all the time accompanied by paanch bhaja (5 varieties of fried greens), which might embrace beguni or brinjal fry, fried sliced rounds of potato, fried potol or parwal and so forth. Khichuri can be accompanied by labra, my favorite blended vegetable preparation from Bengal, and is frivolously flavoured with panch phoron, or Bengali five-spice. All that is accompanied by scorching ghee, which you drizzle on the khichuri. And completed off with Topa kuler chutney, papad and payesh.
I’ve realised that topa kuler chutney is a very alien idea in North India, however normal fare and an enormous delicacy in Bengal. Topa kul is the ripe jujube, cooked with jaggery, typically with tomato, five-spice, and chilli powder, to kind a chunky chutney. Bengali houses make jars of this over the summer season, and the pickle or chutney is eaten all year long.
A toddler getting her first lesson of alphabet earlier than Goddes Saraswati, the Goddess of studying, at a Saraswati puja pandal in Bidhan Chandra Sishu Udyan in Kolkata (Categorical picture by Partha Paul)
Of ilish maacher jhol and gota sheddho
In fact, it’s not all vegetarian in Bengali houses, particularly if you happen to’re from East Bengal and subsequently a Baangal.
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Baangal households typically mark today by getting ready ilish or hilsa for the primary time after Dashami. Jora ilish or a pair of hilsas are introduced residence, some households even carry out a symbolic marriage of the fish to nora or the grinding stone. The fish is lower to keep away from scattering the fish scales, that are then wrapped in a banana leaf and buried within the soil. A ilish maacher jhol is often ready with turmeric, brinjal, and nigella seeds.
For West Bengal or Ghoti households, although, no fish or meat is added to the feasting for a change, although this is applicable solely to lunch.
Gota sheddho, a stew constructed from winter greens, is cooked complete and with none spices. Sheetal Shasthi, the day following Saraswati Pujo, is noticed as a day when no cooking is completed. On Saraswati Pujo itself, greens reminiscent of brinjal, peas, candy potato, child spinach, hyacinth beans, potatoes, and black urad or inexperienced moong dal are slow-cooked with simply salt over a low flame.
On today, the priest conducts the pujo in entrance of the idol of Saraswati with a veena in a single hand, a guide within the different, and her white swan as her steed. (Picture: Ishika Roy)
This melange of winter greens is saved complete and never lower, which is why it’s known as gota (complete) sheddho (boil or stew). No spices, even turmeric, are added. This stew is saved in a single day and served the following day with paanta bhaat (rice soaked overnight – a real abomination, in accordance with me) and a beneficiant drizzle of mustard oil. Those that make gota sheddho additionally distribute it amongst neighbours and buddies.
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Saraswati Pujo brings collectively three features of Bengal and Bengali tradition, which each Bengali will let you know about. The primary is the deal with training, the second is the worship of goddesses, and the third is the celebration of vegetarian and non-vegetarian meals to mark spiritual events. Right here’s hoping that this training percolates all the way down to the remainder of India, together with our delicacies.
Subsequent week, I’ll write concerning the styles of achaar — candy, bitter, tangy, and fiery pickles constructed from vegatables and fruits, full of spice, that make a winter meal actually full.
