A wooden hollow base ( similar to a sand clock, but hollow only in the upper serface), around 50 cm in height, and 30 cm in breadth. The crusher was a solid wodden cylidrical stand of around 10cm diameter and 100cm length with iron base. both this togethr is called guyl chaka. And sadar gura or dukhtar gura is nothing else but tobacco powdered with different other ingredients like ajwain, snoff and etc to give a strong flavour which is taken along with Paan.
I can never imagine thakurma without her Paner bata. That was a copper container . In that in small small steel containers she used to store chun, supari and shadar gura. The paan used to be in other packets. Initially it was washed packet of milk which later got replaced with yellow chocolate packets of m&m, that Anka used to get from USA. And there was a shorta made of iron with which she used to slide the supari or beetle nuts. Baba every day used to get Paan from the market along with vegetables. Thakurma used to wash them and keep them inside the packet. Infact there used to be a creeper of paan in the backyard of gopinath baari near the Chalta tree. I used to believe when a person reaches a good position, he or she have to eat paan. And for all the paan lovers, that shadar gura prepared by thakurma used to be not less then any delicacy. The day she used to make that powder, she used to start collecting the ingredient from three four days ahead. My aunties used to asisst her in doing so as well.
I started believeing that after growing up even I will have to eat paan to get respected by people. And still the smell of that shadar gura is fresh in my mind. The sound of the guyl chaka where the roasted tobacco leaves and oter ingredients used to get crushed and mixed in right proportion was something really watchable. Though I have left those moments, smell far away they are still fresh in my memory.
Slowly with time those sadar gura got replaced with Zarda ( readymade tobacco leaves) and e.t.c. But still I can hear the khut-khut sound of the sarta with which thakurma used to slice beetle nuts in almost every ideal afternoon and keep them ready for my dad and other relatives and guests.
I can never imagine thakurma without her Paner bata. That was a copper container . In that in small small steel containers she used to store chun, supari and shadar gura. The paan used to be in other packets. Initially it was washed packet of milk which later got replaced with yellow chocolate packets of m&m, that Anka used to get from USA. And there was a shorta made of iron with which she used to slide the supari or beetle nuts. Baba every day used to get Paan from the market along with vegetables. Thakurma used to wash them and keep them inside the packet. Infact there used to be a creeper of paan in the backyard of gopinath baari near the Chalta tree. I used to believe when a person reaches a good position, he or she have to eat paan. And for all the paan lovers, that shadar gura prepared by thakurma used to be not less then any delicacy. The day she used to make that powder, she used to start collecting the ingredient from three four days ahead. My aunties used to asisst her in doing so as well.
I started believeing that after growing up even I will have to eat paan to get respected by people. And still the smell of that shadar gura is fresh in my mind. The sound of the guyl chaka where the roasted tobacco leaves and oter ingredients used to get crushed and mixed in right proportion was something really watchable. Though I have left those moments, smell far away they are still fresh in my memory.
Slowly with time those sadar gura got replaced with Zarda ( readymade tobacco leaves) and e.t.c. But still I can hear the khut-khut sound of the sarta with which thakurma used to slice beetle nuts in almost every ideal afternoon and keep them ready for my dad and other relatives and guests.
Dona, you must have put a lot of hours into this already, it is so well done. I especially loved the selection of all the pictures, I grew up in Gopinath Bari, I never remember it as so beautiful. Do you know when that snapshot was taken?
ReplyDeleteMost of them were taken by you only during your visits and soome of them, the one of gopinath ghor and the gopinath was taken by me this december (2008) when I went to Agartala.
ReplyDeleteBeautiful!
ReplyDeleteSylethi ashol porichoy...