Calcutta Bookfair

Boimela is only after durgapujo in my heart as the biggest bengali celebration. My first calcutta Bookfair memory goes back to 1986 when i was a small school student, it was an afternoon of  saraswati pujo i spent 2-3 hr with my parents,witnessed the love and madness of thousands of people for books, ate a kwality ice creme and baba-ma bought me " Upendrakishor and sukumar roysomogro" from Anando Publishers which i still have in my bookcase in kolkatar bari. Well it was the love at first sight and it was the beginning only. Since then up to 2001 when i left kolkata for USA i went to boimela with my parents and later with my friends every year without missing a single one.It was like an annual ritual which i adhere strictly. In the late 80s and in 90s i remember baba-ma always took me there on saraswati pujo afternoon to avoid huge crowd as lots of people were reluctant to touch books on that day. baba always use to buy Biographies of  great writers, scientists and ma always her favorite cook books of " Bela dey" or novels of Ashapurna devi and Gajendrakumar Mitra. I however stand in the queue of Anando to buy Feluda books , Ghonada series by Premendra Mitra, "Patrabharati" stall  for Narayan Debnath's  "Bantul The Great"," Handa-Vonda" or "Nonte-Fonte" series. Deb Sahitya Kuthir was also in my list for the reprint collection of Pujabarshiki books , Kishor Bharati for " Charmurtir kando karkhana" by Narayan gangopadhyay; but my all time favorite was all the science fiction based books for teen agers by Sirshendu Mukhopadhyay .I remember i read those in Sarodiya anandomela first then i bought the hard cover edition of them to make my personal collection, this way i build up  my classic sirshendu collection with " Potasgorer Jongole", " Pagla saheber kobor", " Manojder odbhut bari", " Bony", " Hirer angti" and lots of others.I also remember buying in the whole 90s every year Moti Nandi sports fiction books like "Striker", "Stopper," Jibon-ananto", " Nonida not out", Kony( which later adapted to an awesome movie) and the kalavati series. Then slowly i started going to boimela more with our group of college late afternoon class bunkers and with my Quiz group buddies.Apart from scanning quickly through our favorite bookstalls like "Ananda" again and again always, "Proma publishers for biography series", "Ekkhon for Kobitar boi,"," Mitra and Ghosh" for their amazing colelction of paper backs of classic bengali novels ,then at The "Anushtup" the famous place for ex-naxalites,aajkaal for their news sports books by debasish dutta, British council Library(BCL) for their collection of  precious books which we never had the money to purchase but can browse all the good ones at least!, USCIS for their catalogues and brochures about US schools and their popular magazine SPAN," "Penguin" for best best collection of english books, maps and dictionaries ,Bhromon stall to get new updates about traveling and other thousands of stalls for taking brief look at the front cover of all good books leisurely, Bookfair has numerous others charms like,hanging out there with friends;spending more time on endless gossiping, arguing on most famous topics like  ganguly or dravid  or over Mohunbagan-east bengal sitting on boimela dirty ground over newspaper sipping famous lebu-cha and munching Benfish er fish fry or fish pokora,budding poets requesting to buy a copy of their new creation in Little magazine section, Pottery arts and terracota arts from bankura, " chou-Nach" mask vendors from Purulia, Portrait painters, section of art college students with their amazing paintings and collages, some genius writing 100 words on a grain of rice, Story tellers mesmerizing tons of people with his short self made stories,ISKCON devotees giving free booklets with their mahaprosad, " Bawul nach" in a little space, workshops on literature and debate sessions at the Gild auditorium on controversial literary issues by famous bengali intellectuals, then ofcourse cruising through various food stalls on our low budget wallet for palatable snacks ,bumping unexpectedly with a known face and having a quick chat for few min was an extra charm always. Like many others i was a big fan of "The Statesman "and "Aaajkaal" stall for their amazing display of Pictures often satiring our funny politics and daily life.In bookfair i was fortunate enought to saw few celebrities like  Pandit ravishankar, French intellectual Jacques Derida,  Painter and writer Late Purnendu Potri, Poritosh sen and our own sunil ganguly, Sumon chattopadhyay, Basanta Chowdhury( my dad's favorite hero after Uttam kumar) and Nabanita Debsen once. I remember it was in 1999 or 1998 when Bangla band " Bhoomi" and Chandrabindu" are trying their best to have ground beneath their feet and we met once Anindya-da, Upal-da and Surojit da here.Our kolkata quiz community was regular here as several publication houses use to organize quick quiz sessions and instant ruffles.The horrible fire incident at the book fair still haunts me and then the resurrection of the next one within few days showed true spirit   of us-calcuttans. Then after 2001 it was  along 10 year absence, then in 2011 when i went there again on 2011 with payel and some of my other old friends it was truly truly a disappointing affair.The charm, glamour, charisma of the bookfair totally ruined as it shifted from it's park st-moidan location to this horrible place of bypass. I 100% support environmentalist mr. Subhas dutta and other well wishers of kolkata moidan saving soldiers, but i can't deny the fact that my bookfair whom i use to know is dead now. Beside this loaction and on top of that today's bookfair is dominated by showbiz, bangla channels promoting their upcoming mega serials, cell phone launching groups, business houses and others, nowadays,it is a place to launch your product, making profits of your business and less about books and love for literature.Due to space limitation many small publishers and little magazine stalls  stopped coming here, due to it's pathetic location  it is a nightmare to commute here and the big sharks are the only one on this ocean now.Hope someday the Booksellers Gild , our state ministry and Green bench can come to a concuring point and take it back to it's birthplace without compromising with the greenery of moidan and pollution issue. anyway took some pics of 2011 boimela and posting them. Unfortunately i didn't took any snaps of my old boimela , but it's in my mind and memory all the time and i can develop, print and enlarge whenever i want closing my eyes.

Kolkata Quiz community

I was introduced with the kolkata quiz circuit pretty late during my college days in 1998,CU organized a quiz where me, tamal(mota) and Pallab(polu) won it. Then i  met Priyangku,kingshuk,christopher amos,formed a team  in DI open, met "The Grandfather of Indian Quiz family" Mr. Neil O'Brien,  he mentioned us The" poisonous people" as our team name was "hemlock. So that's how the journey began.

To mention few big quiz and big guns of kolkata quiz circuit, The "DI Open" by Dalhousie Institute,  "Argus Open",  Francis Groser (from Delhi) ‘s "SUMMER INVITATION QUIZ' at the Saturday club ,"Eddie Hyde memorial" quiz at The Parish house, " The Argus apex" quiz, sunday early morning quiz at " Landmark"and The " Apex Quiz Club" of gariahat comes in mind first. some of them normally goes for 1-2 days, quiz starts with qualifying round aka dry round on saturday evening, then 2 semifinal ,and then next sunday evening the mega final. If you can qualify for the final the clubs use to provide good snacks and drinks for the finalists and doing the quiz in those posh club lawns munching chicken club sandwich or mutton roll and drinking beer was an extra charm.They had sponsors and often lucrative cash and gift hampers for the winners and runner ups.Generally the winners and runner ups name and photo subsequently published in next day leading newspapers like The Statesman and telegraph.Here i saw some genius of not only kolkata but Indian quiz circuit like Doyita Dutta( BBC Mastermind champion) with her overall brilliance and knowledge for the team " Nutcrackers", Goutam Ghosh and Santanu chakrabarti( both BBC mastermind finalist) for the Argus Quiz club, i still remember Goutam da especially for his amazing concentration during the quiz and lust for victory, some people mildly criticize him time to time for this but it was ok to me, Sanjay Mukherjee the handsome IPS officer  a good QM as well-i remember he did a quiz in ekdalia area durgabari which was very close to South Point school and there was almost 10 visiting south point team enrolled for that quiz , Tathagata da of TNT TEARS caught our attention with his trademark beerglass and expensive Marlboro cigarette in hand in DI answering some tough questions, Mrs. Vimala Jagannathan with her profound knowledge in Indian mythology and with a very sober personality,Tintin( JU english dept faculty,everyone calls him tintin though he was way senior than us ) was a charming person with his profound knowledge in english literature from his school days in cambridge,Narsimhachary of IIM a very calm but was sharp like a hawk, IAS officer Atri da who was a very nice person and often helped the young guns like us to give places in a good team,Debangshu Dutta( another BBC Mastermind finalist) use to come from Delhi  sometimes a brilliant quizzard and a gentleman,Aniruddhachary with his clear prominent accent and confidence behind answering everytime,my quiz partner Christopher Amos a perfect gentleman with his casual approach answering tuffest questions, Mrs.Jayashree Mohanka a top executive from exide house , was a big name in our circuit and sometimes show up to the quizes with her adorable kids and finally the best among the pack the great Souvik Guha.IT commissioner Souvik da with his encyclopedic knowledge, guessing power was unique among all, simply he was the best that i've seen. Among few brilliant Quiz master i would like to mention Siddharth basu,Harsh bhogle, Roshan abbas, CP Singh, sanjay mukherjee and the controversial Parnab Mukherjee of Don Bosco school. Though lots of people cracked bad remarks about Parnab da, i found his encyclopedic knowledge behind " Anything Under the sun" quiz quite fascinating( part from some stubborn wrong fundas from time to time) and it takes guts to do an entire quiz all out of your memory without any set questions afterall.Finally, Mr. RM sen a renowned  veteran quizlover and a very good person.He use to mix a wonderful sense of humor during asking every question which i still remember.Here i've seen and talk few times with some celebrity QM like  Derek O'brien, barry O'brien, Francis Groser and Siddharth basu (during the BBC mastermind kolkata chapter). Occassionally in some quizes the organizers invited celebrity guests, this way i met Leander paes,Leslie Claudius, Baichung bhutia in DI and the most memorable one was to meet Adam Gilchrist and Glen Mcgrath at The Park hotel sports quiz organized by ESPNstar.

 second, comes the funny, chaotic college fest and social quizes.  we all bunk classes ,spend entire day in that college campus,do lots of chablami, adda,girl watching then go through the long brainstorming qualifying and final round.  we enjoyed the every moment of it as apart from the quiz the  chances of social interaction with friends and new friends during the fest was incredible. Few college fest quiz which i remember are the " Xavotsav" of St. Xaviers(often hosted by parnab da), "Milieu" of Presidency( by santanu chakrabarti), "Dhoom" of BNC , " Festum" of R Ahmed Dental college( by income tax officer rajib da) and others. I forget the other fest names but quizes in Loreto house -park st( our only chance in the year to get in there to do quiz and watch girls!), Goenka, IIM-Joka, Shibpur BE college( by krishnendu banik), City college, CMC, National medical college, NRS( they had general,sports and business quizzes every year) did some very good quizes. JU- Sanskriti of arts, science and Engineering section organized 3 quizes every year and we use to attend all of them, beside playing cricket and having ruti-tarka and the famous " DHOPER CHOP" at Milanda-boudi's canteen:). These were very good quality quizes as well.Among college quizzards,first of all my  friend Soubhadra of CNMC who later went out to became a very prominent name  in kolkata quiz circuit, Dipyaman sanyal whom i remember for his knowledge in painting,  Riju and kingshuk with their expertise in western music esp rock n roll , my dear friend Priyangku for literature and eastern music, supratik's overall knowledge, aroop's cartoon and comic strips, Sudip, probably the best sports quizzard in kolkata, The great Richard Mistry "the aranyadev of kolkata college quizzes", they had a gola team in the circuit the Richard-samrat-Riju trio, the famous JU team of Dipyaman, amit,samrat and arijit, Amitangshu acharya of Calcutta Boys school to mention. I also met few very nice good people who later bocome my friends from this circuit like Deep( subhodeb, now a doctor for Indian railways), The great Gopal, kingshuk, Mrinmoy da ,kallolda, kuntalda,somnathda and ofcourse Priyangku.Few funny characters whom we always use to tease like Gopal(  his Nero answer to rathin da was amazing), ujjal da( aka Ekmik cooker), sunando, ratan( who always claim that his real name is deepak, but we never beleived him!), The Great "LOGA"( Arnabjyoti paul), Goutam ,Tanushankar,professor calculus and many others. 

Beside the core quiz of kolkata, our Salt Lake CK-CL block use to organizes 2 very good quiz, one during Durgapuja the " chaturanga" by famous " kadu da" and the other " Spectrum" during kalipujo by Rupakda, in our karunamoyee housing Tutul, Indraneel sarkar and Sylva ( K block) did 2-3 times very good ones and Reek of G block did it couple of times as well. people from various parts of kolkata came and appretiated the quality of the quizes.I bacame close friend to deep( subhodev bhattacharya) and we are still part of a quiz club in kolkata having monthly session in someones home. whenever i travel to India i sit with them and simply love going back to my quiz days.

After coming to USA i missed it badly for few years then finally in 2007 we formed a Quiz club with  efforts from Indian students of CMU and U-pitt in Pittsburgh,PA. we had this  every friday night quiz in CMU( after a horrible semester of  classes, coursework and thesis work it was like a gods blessing to reduce our stress) Wean hall and enjoyed it very much for 2 years. Then after coming to atlanta i missed it for 2 years and then very recently in 2011 we formed the " Atlanta Quiz Club" and had 2 session so far.My friends looks passionate and enthusiastic about this and hope we can continue for years to come.

I won many many quizes, loose probably more than that and i consider myself a very average quizzard among the stalwarts i've seen, but that is not my point, frustration or pride. I feel myself lucky once to be a part of this great quiz culture, to meet lots of good people and not so good people but one common thing attached them together that they all loved the quiz from their heart like me. As long i live i will keep my passion and love for this great thing running down my bloodstream for ever.

Mainland China Lunch buffet

On our 2009 tour to kolkata, me and piu one day after meeting piu's old friends in Ballygunge Science College, decided to tuck into some good chinese food, so our destination was, Lunch buffet at Mainland China on Gurusaday road. Since this chinese restaurant opened, me and piu went there twice with our parents, once  i remember for my parents marriage anniverysary on Jan18, 2007. But  those visits were for a-la-carte, never for the buffet. so we thought lets give it a try for the buffet.We started with some prawn crackers,popcorn chicken, chicken dimsum ,chicken basil soup, and sweet n sour corn soup as appetizer.soups were delicious but the dimsums were just okay.The salad bar was good as well. Piu tried 3-4 types of salads with dressings. i skipped to keep space for the main battle :)Then on the main course we had lemon crab,garlic-ginger bhetki, Haka noodles, chicken manchurian,general tso chicken,hunan tofu, mushroom in oyster sauce,garlic lamb meatballs and 2 types of fried rice. I liked 2 dishes most among these,  The lemon crab which was awesome, soft crabmeat with a touch of lemon and honey,juicy and succulent, then the bhetki fish preparation which was very tasty as well.  In dessert they had wide varieties of cakes, fruits( served fresh papaya and mango) and special chinese sweet dish darsan. All over they had 4 appetizers,sald bar, 4 soups, 10-12 maincourse dishes and almost 8-10 types of dessert.With the buffet they also served a complimentary drink. Food was really good but we would still prefer to go there for a-la-carte next time. All you can eat buffet attracts people for loads of food but they lack that special taste and charm of an excuisite a-la-carte menu. It cost us 350rs/person inc tax.Few pics included with this blog.

Bhim Nag r mistir dokan at bowbazar, Kolkata

Bhim Chandra Nag r mistir dokan is a true kolkata treasure. Located in bowbazar on 6 Nirmal chandra street the shop is over 100 years old. This sweet shop is located next block from my sosurbari and since i got married to Piu on 2004 i thank god everyday to give me a sosurbari adjacent to Bhim Nag :) whenever i go to Kolkata and to my sosurbari they pamper me with all the great bhim nag sweet delicacies. on my 2009 trip to India, i got a chance to talk the owner of Bhim Nag and took some pics. I came to know  several trivias from the owner that Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose use to buy Sondesh from this shop before visiting Sir Asutosh Mukherjee, famous sweet ladycainey created on birthday celebration of Mrs. Lord Canning, Paradise sondesh created by them inspired by Satyajit ray and this shop still has a running wall clock made by Cook and Kelvie company( remember feluda classic "Gorosthane sabdhan") which is 100 years old. Well what to sat about their sweets. They simply excel in all kinds of sondesh, doi and mihidana. But some of my favorite sweets are Abar Khabo sandesh, Nolen gurer jolbhora Talsansh sandesh, misti doi, mango sandesh, dilkhush, pantua and Pan sandesh. My sosurmosai samir chatterjee simply loves to buy fresh karapaker sandesh the day before we leave for atlanta and always brings the packet at the dumdum airport to say good bye to us. Bhim Nag also prepares selected nonta items like Luchi-cholar dal , singara and nimki during early morning and bikeler jojkhabar. They runs out like magic mostly by the local foodies. Posting few pics of the sweets, the shop and most importantly that famous Cook and Kelvie wall clock in which probably Netaji and Rabindranath Tagore confirm their time while wiating for their order of mistis.

Golbarir Kasha Mangsho at shyambazar panchmathar mor

During my school days in Baranagore RK Mission this was my favorite place for kasha mangsho, as i use to find any excuse to step down from a crowded  201 bus  from Sinthir more to shyambazar. This place never ever disappointed me and i bet neither does to anyone. On 2001 when i left for USA, this place was closed for workers strike issue for few years and somehow i couldn't manage to go there for many years. so a visit was long long due and during our recent trip on 2011 to Kolkata, me,piu and dujoner ma decided to have our lunch there. we saw the new bengali movie of Goutam Ghose" Moner manush" in STAR theatre and then walk thorough the busy sidewalks of hatibagan towards shymabazar panchmathar more.The place seemed same to me even after 10 yr,  small simple sitting arrangement, decorless interior and always busy serving hungry foodies. we ordered and it came within few min, 2 lightly ghee smaerd roti, that killer tamarind chatni, onion and a bowl of golbarir famous kasha magsho simmered in blackish gravy and golden colored sorsher tel. made a quick bite and simply one word: heaven"..."golbari acche golbaritei". After the meal, took some quick pics of the head cook, the restaurant and ofcourse my order. Hope my readers and all foodies will enjoy it. 

Shiraz r biriyani

Shiraz, the name needs no intro i guess. This is biriyani lovers Holy Grail, the ultimate ' moksha" to all mughlai food lovers. I went there for the first time in 1988 with my parents, since then made numerous visits for their mutton biriyani . This is always in my MUST TO DO list during my trip to india, no matter how short my vacation is.I remember my collge days when we class bunk publics go to St. Xaviers fest " Xavotsav" and participate in the quiz contest and desperately tried to win the cash prize for a fabulous late lunch at Shiraz. Any way during our recent trip to kolkata, the very next day on Jan14,2011we arrived and decided to go there with my parents, in laws and my wife piu. All of us ordered biriyani, only piu's mom ordered chicken kashmiri and tandoori roti. while some people like to try mutton biriyani with gravy of chicken chap, i always try a plate of mutton biriyani with some salad and lime, nothing else.  The juicy flavor of the meat, the awesome texture of the rice,the taste of potato, the khushboo of saffron and attar from the biriyani creates a divine symphony in my mind. The best place for me for mutton biriyani. I like other few items of shiraz like chicken kashmiri, mutton tikia and chicken kasturi kebab but none of them can compete with biriyani. I guess not many of you know that shiraz serves wonderful breakfast items like Mutton stew, Nihari, Liver curry, dal gost from 7am-10am in the morning.  I dislike all the franchise of shiraz gorwn everywhere in kolkata like mushroom, only the Mullickbazar-park st junction original restaurant is the best and authentic.Posting some pics of Shiraz biriyani, hope all my foodie friends will enjoy it!