USP: A tempting array of hilsa. Picture by Rashbehari Das

A rather fishy character has emerged as the strongest icon of temptation this season. From jewellery stores to food stops, the hilsa has captured the Bengali mindspace hook, line and sinker. And if the way to a Calcuttan’s heart is, indeed, through the stomach, that might be the right route to loosen the iron grip on his wallet as well. So, enter marketers to marry passion with profits.

Every restaurant around — star to standard — is running a hilsa festival of some sort, gold stores are offering scaly add-ons to bejewelled finery, freebies, addas, competitions and promotions are all centring around the treasured monsoon morsel.

“Ilish machh is very much a part of the Bengali psyche. We can’t do without it,” stresses Brinda Ganguly Sarkar of The Gold Factory, which is offering a free hilsa for purchases above Rs 2,000. If giving the customers a value addition is important, so is the “fun of participating”, adds Sarkar, who feels that the thrill results in more impulse buys.

The Alpha Bangla channel held a hilsa recipe competition on Saturday. “In most homes, the fish must come, and if it doesn’t, it is the source of family tiffs. We wanted to tap into this emotional connection,” explains Shubhojit Ganguly, assistant vice-president, marketing and programming. Hilsa and Durga Puja are the only two seasonal icons that can be used well for such promotions, feels Ganguly. Jewellers Chandra & Sons, a sponsor of the show, has also been giving away hilsa — the smaller, silver variety — to clients.

Local marketing initiatives are finally seeing the light of day, and it is about time, feels marketing man Shiloo Chattopadhyay. “Local sub-culture has traditionally had to bow to the mainstream culture, which in the Indian context means the Hindi belt,” he complains. When multinationals wake up to the need to reach out to Bengali clients as being intellectually distinctive, the temptation to consume may also increase.

Hilsa has truly been a part of Bengali cuisine for centuries, but there might be a more basic reason for this year’s added splash. “The prices are becoming quite prohibitive,” offers gourmet Rakhi Purnima Dasgupta. “Many people don’t want to buy a whole fish and prefer coming to a restaurant and having just a piece or two.” Of course, its enduring emotional appeal cannot be disputed. “A bad monsoon and bad ilish mean a bad year for Bengal,” laughs the lady at Kewpies.

The hail hilsa cry is not confined to local boundaries. “My American jamai, Mike Ahearn, is arriving in Delhi in a fortnight and has asked to be met at the airport with ilish machh bhaja. And in Indiana, he has tracked down a Chinese fishmonger importing hilsa from Myanmar,” says actor Victor Banerjee.