Romancing Posto

After being strictly meatatarian during ‘those five days’ of the recently concluded Durga Puja, it sinks in slowly that we need to get back to the same old grind shortly and thus compelled to reboot the food habits or do a complete detoxification of the ‘ever weak’ digestive tracts following the enormous torture we did to ourselves. So, as we long for that comfort food to cool us down, what do you look for? For major Bengali households, it’s a ‘simple’ meal with the irresistible ‘posto’ (though nobody is unfamiliar with it, but for record sake, it is the residual bye product of the opium poppy plant). Posto in such times, is expected to save as well as score those goals! A saviour.

It’s very archetypal of Bengalis to get into a dual without much provocation. We remain a biased race. So it is rightly said that a lonely Bong is essentially a poet, two together are a political party but three jointly are two political parties! While the cynic in me says(or heard) so, there is no denying the fact that this particular community spread across the globe, (who always addresses themselves to be belonging to ‘some’ Kolkata which otherwise can be faraway Midnapur, Asansol or even Siliguri, but when it comes for a global identity it is consistently an unified Kolkata to the rest of the world), always has a strong feel, sometimes too unwavering towards the liking which may defy all science of reasoning. We are essentially one eyed parochial when it comes to our passion.

So, if it is football, you are essentially a Mohun Bagan or an East Bengal fan(atic). The worst of the debates of childhood would revolve around a menacing Mohun-East verbal blows which will keep meandering till it loses its way and ultimately end at who has a refrigerator at home! A quintessential Bengali is either a Satyajit Roy loyalist or a Mrinal Sen. It’s either Sunil Gangopadhyay or Samaresh Basu, Hemanto Mukherjee or Dwijen Mukhopadhyay, Kabir Suman vs Nachiketa or that eternal Uttam vs Soumitra! It is always either, or or versus! Use of conjunction like ‘and’ is forbidden! There is no option to choose both. Still, if you force your way through, stay prepared to be dubbed as a snob! Your Bengali genes will be doubted which may even embarrass your parents! Another subtle debate that flickers in Bengal is the one that you inherit by birth and have absolutely zero control over it…..the (in)famous Ghoti vs Bangal.(Those families came from East Bengal, now Bangladesh, at the time of Partition are Bangals and the families who were staying in West Bengal at that time are Ghotis.) There is a third variety, Bati (Either parents, Bangal or Ghoti), which keeps running haphazardly in search of identity but has the luxury of changing sides at will. Not all are that blessed! And while most of Bangal flexes muscle over their culinary skills, the Ghotis, in no mood to allow a sweep, will put forward a small grain of poppy seed, posto as it is lovingly called! It remains the King, Queen, Bishop and Rook for the Ghotis! So, in a typical Deewar style, a proud Ghoti while countering the claims (Some naives term it ‘imaginary’!) of acres of land, bighas of garden and gallons of water bodies in possession at East Bengal (now Bangladesh), which remains the nostalgic claim of Bangals, (if all such claims are jotted in an excel and an auto sum is applied, Bangladesh will look like erstwhile USSR!), will say, ‘Mere paas posto hai”! Its Posto Vs Rest of India (or Best Of India!)! However, not for a moment it is being suggested that Ghotis has the perpetual copy rights over posto and that they pioneered it. Just that, over a time, posto has been a synonym to ‘everything ghoti(sh)’!

Poppy seeds are known by different names in India. While you need to type Khas Khas to find it in Amazon, its known as gasagase in Kannada, afu guti in Assameese and kasa kasa in Tamil. However, no where it is the noble prize contender in culinary delights except West Bengal where posto remains a house hold name, just like another Babu, Amol, Mom or Pinki!

What is in these minuscule grains that caught the fancy of a ravenous Bengali is a case study in itself. So be it sojne data posto (drumstick in thick poppy seeds), dim sorse posto bhape (eggs in mustard yogurt poppy paste), peyaz/potol posto (onion) or simply posto bora (poppy seed fritters), people just cannot have enough of it. However, the Maharaja (or Tata Sky!!)of all remains the Alu-Posto which the entire Bengali clan has been very fastidious in passing the baton from one generation to the other! And when posto teams with Urad (or Biuli) Dal, and if you do not have a heavenly post lunch siesta as natural bye product, then something has gone amiss in the making. Then there is kancha posto (raw poppy seed paste) which when forms a nexus with mustard oil and a green chilli, you know you have thousand curses on your way from jilted posto lovers across the globe! While we grumble about rising prices of petrol, diesel, cooking gas among many other things in everyday life, seldom we come across a Bengali household, who ever questioned the poppy prices. A premium quality posto priced over Rs.2000 a kg is an issue we seldom discuss openly in forums as if it tantamount to revealing bed room secrets out in the open!! So we preserve each grain of our posto which otherwise means a fast fading ‘bangaliaana’, given the onslaught of pizzas and pastas. Fortunately, though so much of our eating habits has changed forever, the love story with posto remains eternal. Thus the love for Burger or a heavy biriyani meal the earlier night has a soothing balm in a thickened posto paste for lunch. How many a times, when we return home, after a prolong tour or a vacation, the first choice for a lunch or dinner is generally posto.

So, a high quality lunch, or so to say, an affectionate lunch invitation sans posto in whatsoever form, is like having a football match without goal posts. Your hands will keep running in the plate, will caress the other items being served, but the internal ‘Narayan Seva’ will take a hit in form of reduced burps. So while, rest of India knows Bengal for its Rosogollas, there will be many a times when you see a twinkle in the eyes of your ‘non-Bengali’ guest just at mention of the term posto as part of the lunch/dinner spread.

As I hurriedly race through the last new lines of this piece, as the clock strikes late for a weekend afternoon and I am reminded for lunch for the ‘n’th time, this time with a statutory warning of cleaning the table, if delayed further.

Thus, I sign off. Its ‘posto’ time!

Picture: From internet