KOLKATA: Schoolteacher Somenath Mitra and his wife Suparna had planned to have at least four different
dishes of fish apart from their sonin-law’s favourite chicken mughlai curry and dhokar dalna as Tuesday night’s menu for
Jamai Shasthi. However, a round at two local markets on Monday morning made them immediately
strike a few dishes off the menu.
“The prices are exorbitantly high. A decent size hilsa is being sold at over Rs 1,800 and beckti is going at Rs 800 per kg. Earlier, I would have gone for mutton. But owing to the carcass meat scare, we have stopped eating mutton. Even the price of chicken has risen by more than 50% compared to last week. With prices so high, it is impossible to manage too many dishes at one go this year for any average Bengali middle-class household,” said Mitra, a resident of Chetla who teaches at a Behala school.
The annual ritual of treating sons-in-law on the occasion of Jamai Shasthi with a plethora dishes is set to burn a hole in the pockets of many middle-class households this Tuesday. Owing to the ongoing truck strike, rising fuel prices and the demand-andsupply dynamics, fish prices are soaring in Kolkata, a day before Jamai Sasthi, forcing many Kolkatans to make lastminute adjustments to their menus.
As has been the tradition, hilsa remains the most popular fish for the occasion with delicacies such as ilish bhapa, ilish paturi, pabda sorshe and chingri malaikari being some of the must have elements of the Jamai Shasthi platter. And the sudden surge in demand for the fish (with many Kolkatans still refusing to eat meat) has forced a sudden rise in prices in the fish market.
While hilsa is being sold at Rs 1,000-1,800 per kg, pabda and katla are available for anything between Rs 800 and Rs 1,000. Beckti is being sold at Rs 800 per kg and bagda chingriis priced as high as Rs 1,000-1,200. Regular fishes like rohu has also soared up to Rs 450 per kg and fishes like tangraand parsheare being sold at Rs 500 per kg at markets like Gariahat, Lake Market and Manicktala bazaars.
“I had come to buy at least three different fishes — hilsa, pabda and chingri. But the prices are so high that I had to drop Pabda from the list,” said Amlan Banerjee, a resident of Sarat Banerjee Road.
“The price of fish is so high that we have decided to skip cooking at home for Tuesday night. I would rather spend the amount at a restaurant while dining out with family that takes the load of cooking the dishes after buying the raw materials at such a high price, especially on a day when even my maid is on leave for the same occasion,” said Sanchita Sengupta, who plans to take out her son-inlaw, daughter and six-monthold granddaughter for dineout at a restaurant in Acropolis Mall.
Price of chicken, which had hit a record low after the sick chicken and carcass meat fiasco in the last two months, has also found steam on the occasion. It is being sold for anything between Rs 170 and Rs 190 per kg.
The same goes for the price of vegetables that has witnessed a 10%-20% rise. Vegetables like green jackfruit (enchor) are being sold at anything between Rs 40 and Rs 50. Vegetables like pointed gourd (potol), okra (bhindi) and ridged gourd (jhinge) are priced at Rs 40, a Rs 5-Rs 10 increase from last week’s price.
A man buys fish at Lake Market