Calcutta, Sept. 5: Becharam Manna missed his daily khichudi lunch from Mamata Banerjee’s Singur kitchen today.

But he didn’t seem to mind. For, Gopalkrishna Gandhi laid out the grand dining table for him with Dehra Dun rice, rohu, mishti doi and rasomalai.

“I never imagined I would have lunch with Latsaheb at Raj Bhavan,” the farmer gushed on return.

But for all that, he could still have done with a helping of the khichudi maybe.

“There was sufficient Dehra Dun rice, chapatis, sukto, dal, potato and cauliflower curry, arum curry, rohu, mishti doi and rasomalai,” Manna said, recounting every item on the menu.

“But I had very little as I was busy looking at the expensive furniture, paintings and crockery in the dining hall.”

Manna, 40, was born and raised in a Singur village and only shot into the spotlight two years ago when he was made the local convener of Mamata’s Save Farmland Committee.

He and the remaining six members of the Trinamul Congress team had reached Raj Bhavan at 10.20am, a little behind schedule for the 10am talks.

Manna and another team member, Singur MLA Rabindranath Bhattacharya, were not to have come at all. Trinamul’s first list had only five names on it, led by Partha Chatterjee, but Mamata later decided to include the two faces from Singur.

As soon as they settled in at the Council Chamber where the meeting was to be held, tea and biscuits arrived. The government representatives hadn’t reached yet. Then message came around 10.40am that the meeting had been put off till 4 in the afternoon.

The seven were in a fix now, whether to wait or go all the way back to Mamata’s manch. “Should we go back to Singur and return to Raj Bhavan at 4pm?” Chatterjee was quoted as asking the other delegates. They chose to stay, and were told a little later that the governor would treat them to lunch.

Around 1.30, the Trinamul team was led into the dining hall where Gandhi was waiting. The lunch was a buffet and liveried Raj Bhavan staff were at hand to serve them.

Manna appeared “awe-struck” by the grandeur and couldn’t stop looking around him, one of the employees said.

But he wasn’t the only one happy. Manik Mukherjee, the SUCI leader, said: “It was a good lunch and I liked every item.”

At the dharna site in Singur, khichudi is the staple for most protesters. Some packets containing slices of bread and a banana are also on offer. Mamata herself has tea and biscuits through the day, then an iftaar menu (see chart) and finally a meal of dal, a vegetable and chapati at night.

Tea and biscuits were served several times at Raj Bhavan, Mukherjee said. “There were two types of Britannia biscuits, cream cracker and Marie.”

The talks will continue, but the Trinamul side came back satisfied at least on one count. “All the items were prepared well and we enjoyed them,” said Purnendu Bose of the CPI(ML).