Jamai Raja

Famous Hindi humourist Kaka Hathrasi once wrote about the son-in-law:

बड़ा भयंकर जीव है, इस जग में दामाद
सास - ससुर को चूस कर, कर देता बरबाद
कर देता बरबाद, आप कुछ पियो न खाओ
मेहनत करो, कमाओ, इसको देते जाओ
कहॅं ‘काका कविराय', सासरे पहुँची लाली
भेजो प्रति त्यौहार, मिठाई भर - भर थाली

But to us Bongs, the SIL is a revered person. We, possibly, are the only people on the planet who celebrate a festival in his honour every year. Sharing a couple of incidents of such a festivity encountered in this lifetime, first as a collegian, then as a father and finally as a father-in-law.

It must be about thirty-five years ago, I was on a train going to Calcutta from Jamshedpur where I had gone to visit an uncle. It was an early morning train and it had started pouring in the Steel City since the previous evening due to a low pressure belt in the eastern part of the country. I put my almost new VIP suitcase beneath the bunk as other passengers trooped in and it was good to see loads of Bengalis. I was surprised to see a majority of them well dressed…the women in bright coloured silks and crisp new tangails with a big red dot on every forehead. Children accompanying seemed to be wearing new clothes but the boring men were in their regular shirts and trouser. One thing was common to all the families, they had a big mithai box and an earthen pot in their hands which I guessed would be either rosogolla or mishit doi.

Despite incessant rains, the train pulled along in good speed. The Indian Railways has a rule, very much like international football, where the referee will not stop the game in the heaviest of downpours until the ball floats on the field. Similarly, the iron wheels also never stop until the tracks are completely submerged. As the train got closer to Calcutta, a couple of men sitting got up and went towards the loo which by now must have been utterly dirty and stinking. They returned in some time but now they were all in crisp white dhotis and nice fancy embroidered kurtas.  The men got a smiling nod from their better halves and some even stooped down to ensure the length of the dhoti was just right.

All this seemed strange to a Dilli-wala like me but it was fun watching the people do the changing act in a moving train oblivious of the falling rain outside. We ran out of luck and the train stopped somewhere at Santragachi. Like the other passengers, I went to the door to see what was going on, only to learn that the tracks near Howrah had been submerged. The railway referee had blown the whistle…Match Abandoned! We waited in the train for some time and then saw people getting off. It seemed the buses on the roads were plying. I took courage and with the other dhoti-saree clan, jumped off the train and headed towards the nearest bus stop. The buses were badly packed but having had my guerilla warfare training in the much dreaded DTC buses, I managed to get onto the foot-board of a packed bus, with my VIP suitcase hanging outside. Some of the dhoti-kurta clan also joined me again on the next leg of my journey. Somehow I reached Howrah in one piece but before de-boarding quickly bought a couple of the tasty jhaal lozenges…tok, jaal, mishti…I never miss these little things in life especially when they come cheap.

From Howrah I boarded a mini-bus which dropped me off near Southern Avenue. The city was in deluge and only hand pulled rickshaws were available but these saw the opportunity and asked for very high charges which I refused to shell out. So I put my suitcase on my head and started walking towards Dhakuria Bridge to reach Jodhpur Park, my final destination. There were many decked up families who were also making their way through the knee-deep water. I decided to take the shortest route available but after a while found myself lonely on the track, the soil getting softer and the water level rising higher with every step I took forward. Suddenly it dawned on me that I was walking straight into Rabindra Sarobar Lake. I retracted my steps slowly and had a narrow escape. On reaching the solid surface of the tar road saw flowers and even a few clothes floating in the lake. I thanked the Lord for saving me from a watery grave and walked ahead.

Finally, I reached my aunt’s place where I was told that it was Jamai Shashti that day, a day celebrated in honour of the sons-in-law who are invited to their homes and treated with best of food and given new clothes and other goodies. This is one day when the son-in-law is treated better than monarchs and the food served will put the best buffets of star hotels to shame. I smiled, as I remembered the men in the train…surely some of them would have reached their in-laws’ homes with or without the dhotis, which might have come off in their long walk in knee-deep water and some of those must be floating in the lakes all over the city.But they would have ensured the safety of the mishti and doi by keeping them atop their heads, after all, it would be a matter of shame for the Bangali Jamai to come to the in-laws’ house without the sweets, especially on such a big day.

The next incident happened ten years later while living in Salt Lake in Calcutta. It was a Saturday morning and,as usual, with a bag in hand I had gone for my weekly bajaar to the CA Block Market. When I went to the regular fish monger, I asked the price of hilsa to which the fellow asked for an exorbitant amount. Startled, I asked the person, why are you charging so much today, and he said in the best Hindi he could manage, “Aaj Jamai Sashthi haai…Bangali logon ka bada parab, iss ka liye daam jaada haai!” (Today is Jamai Shashthi which is a big festival for the Bengalis, that is why the rates are so high).

I frowned at the guy from whom I had been buying fish for the last two years and had always spoken to this person and other vendors in Bengali and here this person thinks I am a non-Bengali and is speaking to me in Hindi. Bengali,despite being my mother tongue, has never been my strong point. Hindi was always for me the language I could speak best. During summer vacations, at my maternal uncle’s home, the house maid would almost daily tease me by calling me mero which is slang for Marwari. She always thought my Bengali sounded like the accent of the Marwaris. I used to fight with her then and today I was terribly upset with my fishmonger for raising doubts on my lineage. From that day onwards I made it a point never to buy fish from that person.  I had learnt my second lesson of Jamai Shashthi  that on festivals, especially Bengali ones, no matter how rich or poor you are, you splurge on food mostly of non-vegetarian kind by paying a bomb and then talk with people, including strangers, about how much you spent and how well you treated the Jamai Raja, as you travel in the bus and local trains, the next seven days.

Life today has come a full circle.  I, too, have a Jamai but unfortunately we could not celebrate this great festival of Jamai Shashthi this year thanks to the lock down and containment regulations. My wife was very sad that she would not get a chance to treat our ‘Malang’ Jamai to the best traditional Bengali dishes. So all she did was to send her blessings through Whatsapp with an assurance that his maha-treat remains intact. The moment the lock down is done away with, I shall rush to Salauddin for the best fish and Rehman for the tender meat and Sweet Bengal for mishti and have the Great Indian Food Fiesta at our Goregaon abode. While we were brooding over the missed opportunity, a friend of mine added salt to our misery, by sending pictures of his Jamai eating so much food that could possibly have fed a football team for a couple of days. Here’s the menu of the fest at Delhi which Sashuri Ma had prepared for her Jamai Babu for his big day:

Lau Chingri (prawns with bottle gourd)

Prawn Curry (no transaltion required)

Bhapa Ilish (Steamed Hilsa)

Katla Maacher kaliya (Carp fish curry)

Potoler dolma  (Parwal with poppy seeds filling)

Dal plus brinjal fry

Green mango chutney

Rosogolla

As if this elaborate menu served on kansha (bell metal) utensils was not enough, in a picture that my old buddy shared, I could see a traditional hand fan (haath paakha)in the hand of a lady which he clarified was his loving wife gently waving it to ensure that the monarch of the day ate in peace with no flies hovering around or the sweltering heat not coming in the way of his relishing the delicacies….by the way, all this was happening in the precincts of an air conditioned room,.

Would you believe that the West Bengal Government, nowadays, also gives Jamais an official half day leave to celebrate this big day!! Being a Bengali Jamai has its own share of perks.

I almost fell off my seat reading this and D was in tears at the missed opportunity. Heartbroken, I asked my friend, “Bhai, how did your Jamai come to your place in this lock down period?” He laughed aloud and said like the Magician PC Sorcar would say, “I conjured the Great Indian Vanishing Trick! I pulled a few strings and was able to get diplomatic passes for my daughter and Jamai to travel and come to our place.” To me, as a student of history, it almost seemed more like Subhas Bose’s great escape from Calcutta to Germany in 1941 dressed as a maulvi. Surprisingly, both, Bose and Jamai Babu had to create diplomatic passes to escape and both got it with a little help from friends at the right places.

Right now, this Gumnami Baba is waiting for the lock down to open up to welcome his Jamai Raja home.

SS