Deep Adhya, PhD

Up in the Northern plains of India when the heat gets high, then people living in it get to feel it. They sweat and toil and their brains get fried like poached eggs. Then there are the famous sandy winds of North India also called ‘loo’ and not to be confused with the bathroom synonym. When the sand blows against the walking individual, there is no nook or corner of the body where it will not settle down. It will suck the moisture from the body and parch the throat like a sand paper. Soon they will feel dehydrated. Dehydration has strange effects on people. Some people see darkness in broad daylight, while some people catch a cold, while some people have dysentery. They don’t really link up, but they happen to people. The heat has a way of getting into their skin and making its presence felt. Thus, when God applies Sunblock on the earth, and the clouds quickly cover the parched surface like an emergency blanket of immunity, there is much relief. The color of the sky turns a redd...

The red colour gravy glistening with the oil and fat of red meat immediately sets the salivary glands racing. The phenomenon is called mutton kosha. But Calcutta is not just about paratha and mutton kosha. It is also about three hundred years of British colonial rule, and the British have succeeded in every way to instill their culinary culture into the Bengali DNA. Mocambo is a very famous restaurant of Calcutta (as I would like to call it, in describing what I am going to, to set the mood and keep it that way without Indianizing it). In the olden days, it used to be one of the very few restaurants in the city to serve up an elaborate menu of Continental and British delicacies. The advent of the five-star hotels and a world class exposure has shifted the focus to expensive food made of ‘exquisite’ ingredients. But I think that it is a gimmick meant to draw crowds towards food that, other than immaculate Western presentation, hasn’t much to boast of in terms of taste. Mocambo i...