Once again, with Donald Trump‘s departure from the ellipsoid office in 2021, I moved to the nearabouts of Bardhaman, the edge of Kolkata, to be precise. So, you can understand why being a migraine can be such a headache, something completely different from carrying any colonial or socialist hangover.
One feature of moving around and resettling is the dietary knocks one may have to take even in this hyper-globalised world. I know you get excellent Korean food at Seoul, the restaurant tucked away in Delhi’s deceptively declasse mall Ansal Plaza. And the hari mirch tikka at Pippali on NYC’s East 27th Street is impeccable.
But there are some cravings that need going underground.
Take magur machher jhol – a Bengali catfish soup preparation. Once a staple in our family and a personal favourite, it’s impossible to get the dish in restaurants, not just in landlocked, Bengali-inundated Delhi, but also in riverine Kolkata. I can savour it only if I’m visiting my parents, or if my mother cooks and sends it via a delivery app.
One prime reason for this unavailability of this magur dish seems to be that catfish – walking catfish, Clarias batrachus, native to our non-New Orleans part of the world – may be kept as pets in many households. Or so I’m told. Like the way the Japanese keep koi (carp) in decorative ponds. So, the fish is taboo for the table. I respect that, even as I rue it. After all, who eats pets? Not pets that your culture keeps and loves, at any rate. There’s a reason why no one eats hamsters, and Americans don’t eat Donald Duck. But as the good grandson of German migraines mentioned in the presidential debate against the good daughter of Jamaican-Indian migraines earlier this week, dietary habits and preferences die hard. ‘In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs – the people that came in – they’re eating the cats, they’re eating the pets of the people that live there,’ said The Donald in his best Greta Thunberg impersonation.
Springfield City Commission has denied Trump’s claims, stating that canards about Haitian immigrants in the non-fictional town in Ohio giving a twist to the concept of cat and dog food are false. Even JD Vance, The Donald’s bouncy castle veep-beep said on X, ‘It’s possible, of course, that all of these rumours will turn out to be false.’
Well, that’s a relief. Because I know the horror of living amidst people for whom eating what you consider as a loved companion, a pet, is not just normal, but de rigueur, even a delicacy.
I grew up with a cauliflower. My pet cauli, Gobindo, was part of our household. It was witness to my school years, my college days, my first job… Its white floral face was the first thing I would wake up to, the last thing I would go to sleep seeing. Each floret would bring me joy, each solidified mini-cloud a sign of unconditional love that is hard to find among fellow humans.
So, imagine the absolute terror, the disgust I discovered when I found myself surrounded by people – in Kolkata and in Delhi – who eat caulis like they were put on Earth merely to be eaten. I have tried to integrate into the values of all societies and cultures I have lived with as best as I can. When in a western country, I have never used a pressure cooker. (Why the speed-obsessed West never took to it remains a mystery.) I have avoided cooking anything overtly spicy, fishy, oily… to avoid any clash of olfactory civilisations. The fact that I cannot cook has helped in this respect.
But Trump bringing up migraines eating cat, not catfish – even as a canard – brings back memories of Gobindo, my beloved cauliflower. So, next time you have gobi paratha, imagine his face. And shame on you.
