Chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday helped cook a vegetable curry at a roadside kiosk in Santiniketan’s Sonajhuri, much to the delight of onlookers, a day after her successful roadshow in Bolpur.
“What are you cooking? Do you know I can cook too?” she asked the woman at the kiosk, advising her to add a dash of sliced green chillies.
Chief minister Mamata Banerjee at the roadside food stall in Santiniketan on Wednesday where she took up the ladle with gusto and set to work on a mixed vegetable curry, advising the cook at the kiosk to add sliced chillies for more flavour. Amarnath Dutta
Menoka Bagdi, wife of kiosk owner Babu Bagdi, was cooking a mixed vegetable dish of chopped beans, brinjal, potatoes and pumpkin when Mamata arrived at the stall.
As Mamata set to work vigorously turning the vegetables in the wok with the ladle, she asked Menoka to “lower the flame” and “pour water” at apt moments.
After Mamata left, Babu hit upon a canny idea to boost his sales. “Please come…I will serve you a curry cooked by our chief minister Mamata di,” he shouted, trying to draw more customers.
Mamata was in her element a day after her mega roadshow in Bolpur as she embarked on an unplanned outreach trip to Santiniketan’s Ballabhpur Danga village near Sonajhuri to listen to the rural people before boarding the chopper back to Calcutta.
Chief minister Mamata Banerjee at the roadside food stall in Santiniketan on Wednesday where she took up the ladle with gusto and set to work on a mixed vegetable curry, advising the cook at the kiosk to add sliced chillies for more flavour. Amarnath Dutta
Sources close to her said she wanted to send out a message that unlike the curated “lunch visits” of Union home minister Amit Shah to tribal and farmer homes, Mamata could enter any home.
“It was a completely unplanned visit by the chief minister, we were not informed earlier. She suddenly asked her convoy to take a concrete road leading to a tribal village while she was on her way to the helipad from where she was to fly back to Calcutta. She got down from the car and spent 30 minutes with the villagers,” said a police officer.
On reaching Ballabhpur Danga village, a tribal hamlet that houses around 130 families in Sonajhuri forest, Mamata entered a thatched home of 40-year-old carpenter Sanjoy Das and started enquiring about his family.
Das said: “I couldn’t imagine Didi was standing at my door. This will remain etched in my memory. She asked my name, my profession…I am overwhelmed.”
Chief minister Mamata Banerjee at the roadside food stall in Santiniketan on Wednesday where she took up the ladle with gusto and set to work on a mixed vegetable curry, advising the cook at the kiosk to add sliced chillies for more flavour. Amarnath Dutta
Mamata went to Manjhir Thhan, a place for worship of tribal people, and paid her respect. She also walked through narrow roads of Ballabhpur Danga village, meeting and talking to villagers.
Tulsi Soren, a final-year Bengali honours student of Bolpur Purnidevi College, and her mother Sanmani, a 42-year-old widow, spoke to Mamata. Mamata praised Tulsi for studying and told her about the Kanyashree scheme.
Mamata assured villagers of a school for learning the tribal Ol-Chiki script in the area and did not forget to mention the government’s free Swasthya Sathi and rations.
“This is why she is Didi. She is not like (Amit) Shah who sends party leaders to decorate the home of a Baul singer before having lunch there,” said Anubrata Mondal, Birbhum Trinamul president.
