Excerpt – The Scratch and Sniff Chronicles By Hemangini Majumder
‘This is the end for you. You have hurt my children long enough. Taking what is theirs. Stunting their lives,’ he mumbled as he chopped off the heads of his uninvited and unwanted guests with glistening shears.
Laura was a pretty intense person herself but, even for her, this little bent man tending to the rose bushes on the sides of the driveway at Neelbari seemed to be delighting far too much in the killing of innocent weeds and wildflowers. He was the head gardener at Neelbari, Gopal da.
She saw him look up and compare the two bushes framing the entrance. He ‘tsked’ as it failed to meet his approval. Then, using his shears, he snipped a couple of leaves on the left with flair until the two sides were truly equal.
He noticed a caterpillar infestation on the corner of the marigold patch and gasped softly. A familiar look of vengeance descended upon his face. He started to head towards the shed to get his arsenal ready and prepare for war.
Laura could see that the situation had the potential to become a long-drawn-out blood feud and intercepted him quickly to get a word in.
‘Gopal da!’ she called out as she hurried towards him. ‘How long have you been at Neelbari?’ she added as she caught up with him and took a pail containing spades and other tools from his frail hands.
‘Since I was fourteen. I saw your Fishy as a baby. Why, ma?’ he asked.
‘It’s about the patch of land that Ollie and I found, where the skeleton was discovered. Was it in use at some point? It seemed to me that there were some planned rows, even though everything had grown all over them over the years.
‘Thik dhorecho. Yes, of course. That was the old garden from your boro thakurdada’s (great-grandfather’s) times. They must have worked so hard, building all of it can’t have been easy. The flowers were imported. There’s the Japanese bridge. Those beautiful water lilies were grown in the pond next to it. When it came to my time, I just had to maintain it.
“That must have been the original Neelbari Monet garden from the old photographs, Laura said.
‘Yes, tai to. Monet something. That’s the name everyone used back then, Gopal da said, not very aware of the artist’s particularly interested in gaining more work himself or knowledge on the subject.
“But why did they stop using the garden?” Laura asked.
“We were specifically told not to go anywhere near it. That is all I know.
Gopal da started to look a little uncomfortable as he pulled out the end of a watering hose and washed his hands under the flow of water.
“We were told that the garden is apaya or unlucky. There was a Vaastu problem, he explained, referring to the ancient Indian art of auspicious design of homes based on the direction that various entrances and features are located in. ‘So we stopped working on it. None of the Neelbari gardening staff have been there for decades.
‘Could I ask who ordered you to keep away?’
Gopal da had that same evasive look as he said, ‘At the time I believe Labanga Latika di took most decisions on the advice of Shankar da.
He obviously had more of a view on the matter, but Laura resisted the urge to press further not wanting to put him in an awkward position.
As Laura turned back to enter the house, she glanced over at the garage and noticed that Golfendu, her car, wasn’t parked there.
She had meant to wash him down before lunch, but that would have to wait. She continued back in through the foyer of the house to the dining room.
Turmeric. Crushed cinnamon, cardamom and clove. Mustard oil. Gamey mutton smell. Caramelised onion. Fragrant rice. Gravy soaked potato.
‘Oooh … aaah … aah… Bloody hell!’
Ollie yelped and blew on her fingers. She had burnt her fingers as she eagerly squashed the potato from the rich mutton curry or mangshor jhol on her plate so that she could take a bite with both potato and mutton in it. It was the only way to really enjoy it, to get in a bit of everything. The centre of the potato was still hotter than the exterior and steam emanated from it. This was accompanied by freshly made jhor jhore rice with fragrant long grains, meaning that they were perfectly cooked and wouldn’t stick to each other.
I can tell you that each family does their curry a bit differently with signature tweaks to the dish. Mutton of some sort is a Sunday lunch staple across most Bengali households. There are potato-inclusive camps and others; dhone pata (coriander) or non dhone pata adherents, and others with views on what pressure cooking does or does not achieve versus slow cooking. Biplab and I had a day’s worth of deliberations on this when we got married to arrive at something that worked. I agreed to his coriander (complete sacrilege, I know) but only when he agreed to my desired number of green chillies.
