Masters of spices

The men of DL Block sniffed their way into a “Gondho bichar” competition on Navami. They were blindfolded and made to identify spices by their aroma.

“We ensured that this contest was open only for men, who are notorious for never entering the kitchen,” smiled Suchana Ray, who along with Bedabati Ray and Sahela Panja, was organising the game. The nine spices in the fray were clove, cinnamon, cardamom, cumin, kalo jeere, nutmeg, mace, fennel seed and fenugreek.

Blindfolded men of DL Block identify spices. (Mayukh Sengupta)

The contestants were clueless. “All the samples smelt the same,” said a forlorn Jayabrata Kar after his turn. “I randomly named as many spices as I knew, included panch phoron hoping they would give me a point if the correct spices was one of five in panch phoron.” Kar said that his tastebuds were more powerful than his olfactory senses. “Had this been a tasting contest instead of a smelling one, I would’ve passed with flying colours.”

Sujit Datta said he might not be acquainted with the aromas but he knows them all by sight. “After all, I buy them from the market,” he smiled. Sabyasachi Basu blamed the common cold for his poor performance. “My wife made me sign up but I can’t smell anything through my blocked nostrils,” he said. Subir Chatterjee quipped that they should have got along a box of snuff. “We could have sniffed it, sneezed and cleared our nose before the event,” he said.

But some like Tapas Sarkar refused to take part in the game at all. “I’m better safe than sorry. Gondho shnuke morte hobey?” he laughed, recalling Sukumar Roy’s poem Gondho Bichar, after which the game had been named.

The wives laughed heartily as the husbands stuttered over the spices. “I don’t know how my husband will do today as he doesn’t cook anymore but long back he would give me a break every Sunday and cook for me. So he knows his spices,” smiled Rina Kayal, as husband Saroj took stage. He finished second in the game.

“Many tried to describe the spice saying it looked like black dots or the like but they couldn’t guess the name,” smiled Ray. The winners, Pintu Pal and P. Basu, managed to name five out of nine spices correctly. “So poor were the men’s performances that we’ve decided to hold this game again next year.”

Brinda Sarkar

Eye on the idol’s picture

CD Block usually holds a vegetable-chopping contest for its women but this puja they organised two new games: one involving segregating prasad items like nakul dana and batasha and another where blindfolded contestants had to paste the third eye on a painting of Durga.

“The problem with vegetable-chopping was that it would be impossible to offer participants vegetables of the same size, thereby leading to discrepancies,” said Shukla Bakshi, president of Central Durgotsav Committee CD Block Citizens’ Council. So this year, it was the “trinayani” game. Sutapa Saha and Sanhita Bakshi were in charge of the games.

The paste-the-third-eye contest in CD Block. (Mayukh Sengupta)

Bakshi had painted a large picture of Durga with space left for the third eye. Participants’ eyes were covered by a dupatta and they were given a cut-out of the third eye — with a double-sided adhesive tape behind it, to stick it at the right spot.

The results were hilarious. Most people pasted the eye on Durga’s crown and the audience was frequently chided for shouting out clues like: “daan dikey” or “aro nichey” for the participants. And when a participant performed well, they broke into “dekha jachchhe” in jest. Someone in the crowd even asked if, being a senior citizen, she would get to keep one eye open as a concession.

“Had this contest been on an idol I would have easily felt the eyes and pasted the third eye in between. But that’s not possible on a two dimensional picture,” said Sujata Nandi, a Class XII student of Salt Lake School.

Finally Sampa Biswas and Prithwish Ghosh nailed it. Biswas said she won by fluke. “But I love joining such games. I’ve even won the blindfolded handi-breaking contest once in the past,” smiled the lady proudly.

Ghosh, who was also the only man in the fray, passed on the credit of his victory to his painting skills. “Being a painter I had a good estimate of where the third eye should be,” smiled the BBA student.

Most of the participants stayed back for the next game. Here they were given a bowl of batasha, nakul dana and kodma, and were asked to segregate them into three bowls as fast as they could. The kodma was unfamiliar to many. “My strategy is to fish out the golgappas first,” said Shreyasi Chatterjee, a Class XI student of Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, referring thus to the kodmas while awaiting her turn.

Most of the 24 participants completed this task in less than a minute. Winner Mampi Bairag clocked 32.7 seconds and Hena Sarkar came second at 41.8 seconds. Sampa Biswas, also the winner of the trinayani contest, came third at 44 seconds.

Brinda Sarkar

Minute to gulp it

On Saptami, CA Block busted the myth that women love phuchkas more than men. For at their phuchka-eating competition, not only were the women outnumbered but the top three prizes were also all clinched by men.

The game required contestants to gulp down as many phuchkas as they could within a minute. Out of the 28 participants only four were women. One of them was a child. Sonali Sarkar, who at the age of eight years, was the youngest participant and impressed by gulping down four phuchkas.

A participant gorges on phuchkas as organisers keep time. (Saradindu Chaudhury)

Antarik Dhar finished third by downing 20 phuchkas in a minute. There was a tie for the second position between Amrit Sinha and Pralay Banerjee, both eating 22. The winner was Mridul Murarka who gobbled 25 phuchkas before time ran out. “I was forcing in more than three phuchkas in my mouth at a time and was tilting the bowl so the tamarind water flowed out. That way I was able to save time,” said the commerce student.

There was also a conchshell-blowing contest, hosted by resident Gopa Goswami. In this game, almost all the 19 participants were ladies. Ruby Dutta and Kaberi Dhar came third and second respectively but the top prize was clinched by Pralay Banerjee who blew the conchshell for 25.19 seconds and who was a runner-up in the phuchka contest held a while back. “I used to have a lot of phuchkas as a child but now because of health restrictions, I refrain from indulging myself. As for conchshell-blowing, I just did my best without being competitive,” said the upcoming actor.

“What is most important is the spirit in which everyone participated in our games. This brought the residents together,” smiled Rahul Dutta, a resident of CA-Block. The games were the brainchild of the puja secretary, Utpal Mitra.

Aniket Sil

Conchshell queens

The sound of conchshells reverberated across AL Block as 15 ladies took a deep breath and blew into the conchshells at a competition held in the block on Dashami.

“We believe in giving a fitting adieu to Durga as she leaves us. Hence we decided to hold this competition on the last day of the Puja,” said Asis Kumar Hazra, president of the puja committee.

A participant blows the conchshell in AL Block. (Saradindu Chaudhury)

To make the competition even more alluring, there were prizes for all participants. And the women did not disappoint. Armed with a variety of conchshells, they took trial attempts, poured water in the nozzles and shook them vigorously to get the perfect tone out of them.

“Blowing conchshells is an art that is fast fading. Earlier, as evening would set in, ladies of every household would blow conchshells as a ritual. Nowadays hardly anyone does this,” said Shyamali Dutta Mandal who admitted to have had four heart surgeries but still participated in this physically demanding contest.

As each participant stepped forward her time was recorded on a stopwatch. Finally, it was down to Pomy Batra and Satabdi Ghosh. Both amazed the audience as they blew on their conch shells for what seemed like eternity but in the end, Batra won. “As this was a competition for ladies we had a lot of fun. More so as it was held during the last day of the Pujas when celebrations are muted,” she said. Aparna Datta came third.

Snehal Sengupta