Moglai Porota (or maybe Mughlai Parantha) is one of the most sublime Bengali comfort foods that I know of. I don’t know if the Mughals ever ate this tasty flaky fried dough interleaved with eggs, onions, green chilli and minced meat (keema). Whatever may be the source of this food, it has become a Bengali favorite of all times. I don’t recall I have seen Moglai Porota in a menu of any restaurant outside Bengal (except the Bengali ones of course). Hence I am going to call it Mogali Porota, just the way Bengali’s love to call it. Several restaurants (and hotels as we prefer to call these eateries in India) have earned their name to fame by serving their world famous Mogali Porotas to their clientèle. Anadi Cabin, Das cabin and many other names come to my mind. But not too many though, since making a good Moglai Porota is no easy task for any chef. Crafting the thin crepe from a heavily leavened flour dough requires a skill that can be mastered by very few. I have heard many tales of tricks and techniques used by the great Moglai chefs – some tossed the dough in air (like they do for pizza or rumali roti) twirling it in the air and allowing the centrifugal force to thin the dough out. Some thrashed the dough against a well oiled flat piece of granite or marble till the dough becomes thin, almost semi transparent. Some have used the simple roller pin with such dexterity that the dough flattened out like a thin paper in no time. Continue reading →

“Satyameva Jayate” – a phrase from the Mundaka Upanishad is the national motto of India and all Indians. Literally it means, “truth alone prevails” – implying that truth is all that we should strive for, since truth only can lead us to success and happiness. But often this hypothesis has been proven wrong. Through bitter life experiences we all discover that “truth” hardly leads us anywhere – it is the “untruth”, the “false” and “deceit” that we need to master in order to attain our goals and objectives. Or is it that our goals and objectives need to be re-examined? Are we chasing the right goals? Goals for which we do not have to rely on the “false” – goals that can truly be achieved by truth alone? Or is it that “truth” is nothing but an illusion, a “fake” notion that we like to believe to be “true”?
“Satyameva”, tries to explore this age old question in a setting in North America where the immigrant Indian population tries to deal with this issue in their everyday lives. Continue reading →

by Sambit Basu
ENAD

I just finished directing a play by Sudipta Bhawmik called Ron. It’s a very relevant story of our time waited to be told. Sudiptada has weaved a magic spell of contemporary tale on an age-old philosophical conflict between the need to fight some wars and the principled position of anti-war. This not only looks at the current time, it does so from the first generation and second generation immigrants’ perspective. Continue reading →

Few years ago, I met Partho Ghosh at a Kallol (of New Jersey) general body meeting. Initially I thought him to be a new member of Kallol. I watched him sitting quietly in one of the back seats and observing the proceedings of the meeting. Later, during a break, someone introduced me to Partho as a journalist from the “Pratidin” news paper house in Kolkata. It was then, when Partho disclosed to me his vision of a news paper that can serve as a bridge between us, the non-resident Bengalees (NRB) and our home land. I was a bit skeptic at first. Continue reading →

I recently had the chance of watching Wes Anderson’s “Darjeeling Limited”. I am not an Anderson fan by any sense, but few things drew me to the theater. First, I heard a lot of hoopla about Wes Anderson; second the crew included some familiar names like Lydia Dean Pilcher (the producer) and Cindy Tolan (casting director). And finally the title of the film – “Darjeeling Limited”. Somehow I had the feeling that the film is going to show some parts of the beautiful hill town Darjeeling and the magical “Darjeeling” toy train. But I was disappointed.
Continue reading →