One hailing from kolkata would know how well does a Bus double as rocking cradle to countless office-goers...even today when my car moves next to a spilling bus, I make an effort to hold my head out to see the stooped heads swaying in rhyme with the notes of a bumpy road. Engine's sonorous rumble adds a lullaby touch, with the seats rocking them to a short-lived yet consummate sleep.

An unusual breakfast...India Restaurant

The wait was mutual.

And the prospect of feasting on the likes of Bhuna Gosht or Mutton Tamatar Stew for breakfast was no doubt an aberration too charming to be turned down. Allies fanned a dying fire and I, sleep-starved, reached India Restaurant on a promising Sunday morning in pursuit of ‘The Mughlai Breakfast’. Abhimanyu, being an unapologetic repeat-offender, graciously took upon himself the duty to order.

Dishes like Keema Muttor, Daal Gosht, Mutton Tamatar Stew or Bhuna Gosht would barely raise eyebrows when ordered for lunch or Dinner. But at breakfast, the first bite into a Naan dripping with the gravy of ‘Gosht Tamatar Stew’ made me trash all that I had learnt about meals. And, much to my delight, this Mughlai stew of temperate taste [and a stark antithesis of the familiar Irish stew] carried a lovable texture and character yet left some deliberate space for individual creativity. I loved it with a dash of lime bringing that unusual tingling on tongue. I crave savouring the stew with Rumali some time as, I hold, Rumali’s thinness meddles the least with the taste of any gravy ‘of substance’.

‘Muttar Keema’ is my old love – thick, meaty, lovable and strictly averse to be swallowed without being teased with a curious tongue. Came close on heels the aromatic Bhuna (‘Fried’ in Urdu) – perfectly balanced in taste, covertly sweet with thick sauce and minced vegetables. A spoonful of its gravy would surprise with the hint of Ghee subtly drizzled from top. I loved it in entirety! I found the ‘Daal Gosht’ eminently forgettable with the unimpressive pulses coming in the way of its savouring.

The collective joy was too telling to be hidden in sobriety and the friendly waiter sensed it. What we got in return was warm and freshly prepared Shahi Tukras – served on table much ahead of its scheduled serving time - an unusual gesture made in appreciation of love for food!

What did this entire experience leave us with? Lingering taste, fun, glimpses of madness, some knowledge, many surprises and a craving for more.

Maharani

Voluptuous Kachoris are haunting me. Blame it on the FB post that, besides making me drool in sleep, set the untiring treasure-hunter on 'The Kachori’ yet again, landing him on the other side of the teeming city seeking immediate consummation. Now I am at ‘Maharani’ on Lansdowne Road mooting on the ways to begin my Kachori-binge. The ones I hold are consistent, freshly fried, tanned, round, indulgent, soft and coming with the quintessential 'Alu'r torkari’ to complement. What the priceless mole on upper lip did to Rekha’s face for years, the Green Chilli Pickle does exactly that to the Kachoris – enhance – turning the experience surreal.

For the uninitiated, Maharani is one of the Kachori Trinity - the rest two being The ‘Maharaja’ on Hungerford Street and ‘Potlada’r Kochuri’ on Bagbazar Street.

lately I discern, being essentially a part of the whole experience, a passivity in cinematic language in India...with contemporary directors using this medium not to pamphleteer, be it for good or bad, or articulate but to share experiences allowing absolute cognitive liberty to viewers. This space was long needed...now the viewers leave the cinema not with a moral but with a thought, a seed, a beginning...

Besides being particularly fond of people who are elegantly clumsy in their bearing while eating, I preserve a perverse habit of associating fine-dining with charlatans. The music in the ‘Talking while eating’ is always more appealing and preferred to the moronic tinkling of cutlery. In many of the new run of fine-dining restaurants of the city, where attitude is preferred to love-for-food, I feel terribly displaced. Surprisingly most of the celebrated eateries of the world I’ve had the opportunity of visiting, particularly in Europe, conspicuously promoted silence. [And definitely as inborn gastronomes Bengalis have always trusted their tongues more than Michelin’s.]

This hidden penchant for disorder has made Bengalis irrevocably vulnerable to dishes as profane yet profound as Phuchka, Tarka or the Roll...