Gobinda Ghosh is a rice miller from West Bengal's Burdwan district. His family has been in the business for over six decades, trading in the Swarna and Ratna varieties. The medium-sized Swarna of yellowish hue and rich aroma, and the small-grained Ratna are also used to produce chire (flat rice), muri (puffed rice) and khoi (popped rice).

But in the last three years business has been sluggish and Ghosh has had to close down two of his mills. "Demand for these varieties has gone down. Health-conscious people prefer other grains over rice. Moreover, today, people are eating out more or calling in, mostly cuisines of other countries or regions," he adds.

Members of the Bengal Rice Mill Association refuse to quote numbers, but a 2011 study by the Agro-Economic Research Centre of Viswa-Bharati, Santiniketan, states that only 85 per cent of Bengal's rice mills are actually operational. Something to think about.

Ishira Mehta is the director of CropConnect, a start-up that connects farmers with urban businesses looking for traditional and healthy food products. She agrees that rice consumption patterns have changed over the years. One of the key reasons, according to her, is the promotion of limited varieties of rice and wheat by the government during the Green Revolution. "This led to wide-scale cultivation of certain varieties and subsequent reduction in cultivation of local varieties of crop."

The term Green Revolution is used to refer to a period in Indian agriculture, post-1960s, when yields increased due to improved agronomic technology. Prior to it, West Bengal produced a few thousand folk varieties, points out Somnath Bhattacharya, a professor at Nadia's Bidhan Chandra Krishi Viswa Vidyalaya. Today, apparently, that has gone down to below hundred. The thrust is now on volume, not variety. Farmers have started harvesting more than one or two crops a year - something that was unheard of in the golden days.

Says Nitya Saha, who earlier worked in rice mills and has been a rice seller in north Calcutta for the past 20 years, "You won't find Tulaipanji, the soft-kernelled aromatic rice - ideal for festivities - at any of the grocers' here. Same with Kalonunia, the paddy with black strains that produces glistening, small, white rice." Kolma, Jhingasal, Lathisal and Sitasal are some of the land races (as scientists refer to them) that we don't get to see today, except maybe in rice research centres and museums.

So what is it that sells? Why, the Basmati. It seems to be the pan-Indian fixation. Saha too has noticed this preference for the better-looking and aromatic varieties of rice as compared to the indigenous " mota chaal". The lookers, be it the premium long and sleek Minikit or the dainty and aromatic Gobindobhog or the long and thin Banskathi, are the rice of choice. And those who have one eye on the Basmati and the other firmly on the household budget, also tend to opt for the cheaper long-grained rice varieties from north India.

Anupam Paul, a passionate folk seed conservator involved in training programmes on sustainable agriculture, calls it the Bengalis' rice racism. "We have a fascination for white and good-looking rice. Go down South. There most households still use the local rice. They serve the same rice to guests too. I've had biryani cooked with smaller grains and it tasted just as good!"

Professor Bhattacharya tells you how caught up by all this lookism, rice eaters are missing one salient point. "That the indigenous land races are much more nutritious than the polished ones." He also tells you how millers, who have caught on to the public demand - easy on the eye and quick to cook rice - are coming up with, well, "innovations". "They are removing the bran (which has a large market and is another story) of thicker grains and polishing them till they resemble Banskathi," he says.

Turns out, this is not a strictly urban phenomenon either. According to Bhattacharya, households where panta bhaat (cooked rice soaked overnight in water) was a staple are now turning to longer grains, which do not even have the properties needed for panta, only because they are considered to be some kind of a status symbol.

Paul also comments on how women in rural households, who earlier winnowed the rice and worked the dheki (the contraption used to husk paddy), singing along, now prefer to hear the songs others sing on television. Of course, he clarifies that the folk varieties of rice were mostly, typically, grown for personal use. Each farmer would grow a particular variety for his own use and these rarely reached urban markets.

It is interesting how everyone agrees to the larger homogenising trend, only the object of vilification changes. Ashish Chopra, a culinary historian who has recently launched a food magazine, debunks the health-consciousness fad. "How come the people in the Northeast are so healthy, their skins are glowing when rice is their staple diet?" He blames the multinationals. "Quinoa has suddenly come up. It was never related to India," he comments indignantly.

If indeed a high-pitched marketing strategy typifies and drives the Basmati club, the indigenous varieties suffer from just the opposite. Vibha Varshney, associate editor of the science and environment magazine, Down To Earth, from the stable of New Delhi's Centre for Science and Environment, puts things in perspective. She says, "Food habits changed with schemes which provided cheap rice at subsidised rates. Local varieties were not considered for such distribution. At times, some varieties such as Basmati were promoted so extensively that first the urban areas and then the rural areas ended up believing that these are superior varieties and shifted to them. The subtle difference in taste and medicinal values of some of the rice varieties have not been promoted at all."

Varshney hopes renewed interest in local varieties and availability of ready markets might bring the farmers back to cultivating these. She adds, "Other than taste, environmental degradation has also created space for many local varieties. For example, local varieties are suitable for cultivation in saline areas, drought resistant varieties are being taken up in light of shortage of water." Chopra agrees. "Social media, apps and online availability have made them more accessible now. The older traditional varieties could be revived if people begin ordering them."

Will India's rice growers be able to make the most of the Appy Hours? We'll find out.

Grains of Truth

♦ Milling rice beyond five per cent — as is the case in the shiny white varieties — leads to additional carbohydrate content. Vitamins, iron, protein, zinc and fibre get removed during the bran removal process

♦ Punjab — India’s wheat bowl — took to Basmati cultivation some time back. This led to the Basmati surfeit, poor quality wheat as well as rice owing to an exhausted soil

♦ The rice prejudice has not got to Northeast and South India. In these parts the red and black, small and thick local varieties continue to be relished.