The potato Saga: aloo story

“Aloo” means “potato,” and “Aloo Katha” is a tale about potatoes.

A few days ago, an Odia TV channel informed its viewers that the children of a certain school in Balasore district of Odisha refused to have their lunch of rice, dal, curry, and egg because there was no potato in the curry. You cannot blame the little ones; they cannot be blamed for having a good sense of taste and for not compromising on the dish they are fond of. One might think the price of potatoes had gone up. It indeed had. Potato cost fifty-five or sixty rupees a kilo then. But for the school, that was not the problem. The problem was that potatoes had vanished from the market.

Odisha gets most of its potatoes from West Bengal to meet its requirements. There were trucks loaded with potatoes from West Bengal waiting at the West Bengal-Odisha border to enter Odisha, but they were not entering, and that was not for reasons of traffic. The former Chief Minister of Odisha, and presently the Leader of the Opposition in the House, reportedly telephoned the Chief Minister of West Bengal, requesting her intervention in the matter. The new Chief Minister of Odisha was also trying to solve the problem and was in talks with the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh. It was indeed heartening to note that the CM and the LoP were both trying, separately though, to resolve the crisis. How often does this happen in our country! But soon the matter got politicized. It resulted in some noisy television talk but did not bring enough potatoes to the market. The talk continues, and so does the potato crisis, as of today, the twentieth of August.

Well, the result was reportedly this: for a couple of days, the potato trucks from West Bengal rolled into Odisha, and then the truck movement stopped. The trucks from U.P. took time to reach Odisha, and the potatoes were not in great condition when they were unloaded. To improve matters in this regard, the government is said to have decided that the potatoes from the non-border States would be transported by train. Arrangements, it seems, are being made to buy potatoes from Punjab. Going by the news in the electronic media, in the meantime, the CM of Odisha had phoned the CM of West Bengal on the subject of the potato and had received a positive response.

Now, there arose a problem – entirely unexpected – that could not be dealt with by the measures mentioned above. The consumers did not like the U.P. potatoes. They wanted the Bengal potatoes. Such is the potato taste in Odisha. As far as I know, it is not part of the government’s objectives to modify the food tastes of the people. So the potatoes from U.P. are not likely to solve the problem.

I asked my good friend Ashok Mohanty, an academic and scholar who lives in Bhubaneswar, whether “Nainital potatoes” are available there. “These indeed are,” he said, and the professor added that from his pension money, he could afford to buy half a kilo of it, and that too, once in a while. “It’s a delicacy, and it costs almost twice as much as the Bengal potatoes cost. It’s for the VIPs,” he said. “What about the local potatoes?” I asked. “They are available, but in small quantity and in only a few shops. They are not popular. They are small, and cleaning them is time-consuming. Besides, they are not tasty,” he said. “Even in these potato scarcity days, not many are buying them,” he added.

The potato crisis, I am sure, will end soon. The farmers and those in the potato business in West Bengal have started complaining. The crop will rot. Odisha is their largest market, and if the sealing of the border for potato purposes continues, they would suffer. Potatoes from U.P. and Punjab will also come to the market. Maybe from Madhya Pradesh too. Happy times will arrive soon. In all likelihood, they will be sold at an affordable price. Isn’t it then likely that the demand for Bengal potatoes may decrease? So who will suffer? The good news for all concerned is that the restriction on truck movement into Odisha has been relaxed for a week, and trucks loaded with potatoes have already crossed the border today.

It may be a lazy thought, but it is not unlikely that a potato hierarchy will eventually emerge here. The rich and the powerful will have Nainital potatoes and good-quality Bengal potatoes too. The former may be a delicacy, but it has limited use in Odisha cuisine. It is not used in non-vegetarian dishes, for instance. Its best use is in its mashed form. The not-so-rich and the middle-income people will go for Bengal potatoes and those from Punjab, U.P., etc. The rest will have the U.P. and the local potatoes. This is just an idea of the hierarchy; details need to be spelled out after careful fieldwork.

Many Odias consider potato an indispensable food item. For them, there is no good substitute for it. Elephant foot yam (khamba aloo) and colocasia (saru) are at best poor substitutes. Potato can be used in the preparation of almost all vegetarian dishes and of non-vegetarian dishes, but its so-called substitutes cannot be. Certainly not in the case of the latter. This is the best thing about the potato; it goes with a very wide variety of dishes. One can, of course, make a curry of just potatoes – aloo dum. Finely cut fried potatoes, and mashed potatoes, with a dash of pepper and one or two other simple spices, can be a delicacy. As for the mashed potatoes, some prefer it slightly fried, some deep fried.

For some reason, no vegetable is as lowly valued in Odia language as potato – an irony of sorts, I suppose! Aloo means “zero” in “patha bhalakari na padhile paiksare alooo miliba” (If you don’t study well, you will get a zero in the examination). “Se aloo ta janichi” (He knows aloo) means “he knows nothing.” “Ta mundare aloo achi” (There is aloo in his head) means he is dull-witted. The less charitable would use “gobara” (cow dung) in place of aloo. “Se aloo bujhiba” means he would not give justice; so one should not go to him. Some use “khamba aloo” in place of “aloo” in this sentence. By the way, apart from this, “khamba aloo” is not used in the language in a metaphorical sense.

Debasish Mohapatra, a linguist and author, told me that in Khurda near Bhubaneswar, some use the expression “aloo manisha” (aloo person). Like potato, which can go into many dishes, an aloo manisha has wide social access. He can be with individuals and groups irrespective of their personality traits or political affiliations. Now, whether it is a positive comment or a negative comment on the “aloo manisha” depends on the context, mainly who one is talking about. In one sense, it means that the referent has no personality and is a total non-entity; so individuals or groups would not find him uncomfortable in their company. In another sense, the referent is a pleasant person and is uncontroversial; so he is acceptable in any company. The same holds for the expression “aloo dosa,” which refers to a small flaw in one’s character. Some use it for a flirt, but for many, it could be used for an arrogant person, one with a short temper, or one who is boastful or a backbiter, etc. There are other words too used for flirtatious women, but those are plainly abusive. There is then some gender bias about “aloo dosa” in this sense. When used for men, it is a term of mild disapproval, but when used for women, it is more like a term of censure. The other day, I came across a benign use of this term. Speaking to a television channel in the vegetable market in Bhubaneswar, a potato buyer said, “ethi lokankara tike aloo dosa acchi” (People have a little potato flaw). Here it means “potato dependence.” He was responding to the question as to why he was buying potatoes at all when he found it was unreasonably expensive.

Incidentally, potato, which is so very welcome in the kitchen of every house in Odisha, has no entry into the sacred kitchen of Sree Mandira, the Temple of Lord Jagannath in Puri.

(The views expressed are the writer’s own)

Prof. B.N.Patnaik

Retd. Professor of Linguistics and English, IIT Kanpur

Email: [email protected]

(Images from the net)