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| A rainwashed SFI rally at Wellington Square on Friday and (right) two girls make a splash at the Hazra crossing. Pictures by Sanjoy Ghosh and Rashbehari Das |
If Thursday afternoon’s shower had many yearning for a plate of steaming hot khichudi, then the mandatory ilish maachh bhaja is likely to rule the menu this monsoon. For, the heaviest downpour of the season has brought with it hopes of a hilsa bounty.
The bursts of heavy rain, interspersed with drizzle, the easterly breeze and the consequent cool are just perfect for hilsa to flourish at the river mouths, experts said.
The rain, more the blessing of a low-pressure area in Odisha than monsoon winds, lasted for around 40 minutes. The downpour in the southern parts of the city was heavier with the Alipore Met office recording 54mm of rainfall, more than double the 25.3mm recorded on Monday. The Dum Dum weather office, on the other hand, recorded just 6mm of rainfall in the last 24 hours till 5.30pm.
The dress rehearsal was similar to that of the last two days with clouds filling the sky a little after noon. But then it became ominously dark and started to pour around 2pm, reducing visibility and slowing down traffic to a crawl.
An easterly wind blowing steadily over the city at 3.7kmph promises to fetch a hilsa shower.
A low-pressure zone over the north Bay of Bengal that had moved to Odisha, instead of coming to Bengal, robbing the city and its surroundings of heavy showers till Wednesday, had ended up creating the right environment for the hilsa to travel to the Bengal coast from sea.
“An easterly wind has been blowing for the last 48 hours because of the position of the low-pressure area. This kind of wind generally leads to a good catch of hilsa at this time of the year,” said a senior official of the India Meteorological Department, Calcutta.
Hilsa expert Utpal Bhowmick said three factors generally led to a good catch of hilsa. “The easterly wind is a major factor when it comes to fishing hilsa. Also, important are “flood pulse” or flow of the water, which because of the wind is just right at the moment. The depth of the water and the temperature are also key,” he said.
The annual haul of hilsa in the state had been 60,000 tonnes in 2010-11 but fell to 20,000 tonnes the next year and 9,000 tonnes this year.
But experts expect a turnaround. “The early signs are good. We should see a haul of 20,000 tonnes this time,” Bhowmick said.
Both the maximum and minimum temperature have been below normal for the last couple of days and the depth of water was good because of the recent rain in South 24-Parganas and Midnapore.