The Mansion in Bangladesh

Before I came to the West in the 1960s, home to me was Bangladesh. Bangladesh is a beautiful country with fantastic friendly people and wonderful food. I lived in Bangladesh before the partition and independence wars many years ago. Our house was a huge mansion in the state of Pabna. Huge amounts of food was consumed there. In the 1940s and 50s, English businessmen used to visit us. They were all trading in jute at the time. My mother who is now 98 made numerous sweets for them all. During the New Year, hundreds of clay pots filled with delicious sweets were taken to the visitors and given as gifts. Our mansion was filled with laughter, fun and always wonderful food. Bengalis know how to eat and how to have fun. We were all so happy there.

The mansion was a beautiful place designed much like the Mughal palaces. There was one problem with eating too much at this mansion - the toilets were quite a way down the dark path, well away from the main house. Everyone had to light their lanterns and if it went out, not only were you desperate but there were rumours of various ghosts who frequented the path to the toilets. You would never have known they were indeed the toilets because the entire place had Mughal designed doors. One advantage was the moonlight - if you went there during the fortunate time of the moonlight then the china embedded in the walls glistened for you - if the wind blew the lantern out.

In those days, my mother grew her own vegetables in the garden next to the house. We were relatively self sufficient. We had lots of cooks to create these lavish banquets. As I was from a very rich family, we were not allowed to cook ourselves so I would learn by watching my relatives. The advice in our family was that young girls were not to cook in order to protect their skin. Soft hands were important when a potential grooms mother came to observe you. I wasn't interested in marriage at the time but I loved living in our mansion. Fresh fish would be caught from our local pond. Actually, it was quite a large pond. We had numerous cows who would provide us with large quantities of creamy milk. This is what the sweets were made out of. Cows are sacred animals for Hindus so they were well looked after by us.

Anyhow, my recipes originate from this background. Most people say that Bengali good tastes the best - there is a reason for that, we all know how to create simple delicious dishes. It is certainly true that each year the demands from the British traders would increase to the extent that our sweets were imported to England.

Times were to change after partition and the conflict between Muslims and Hindus. This was sad because we all lived in harmony in the old days. Slowly, the good times were over and our family transferred to West Bengal in Calcutta. A few years ago, our mansion sank due to the heavy floods. I have one picture left of the mansion and hope to put this up online soon. Despite the damage done to it during the riots many years ago, the house still glistened in the dark to show the sparkle of life that once filled it.

My sisters and I still hold fond memories of Bangladesh. A beautiful country with the most generous people. If any of you get the chance, visit the country - you will keep wanting to go back again and again.