The Body Cutters

The Dom community in Bakshiganj follows Hinduism, the eternal religion. Believing in the Krishna adoring prophet Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, some of whose ancestors lived in Sylhet, it is natural that Radha and Krishna feature at their home shrine.

Abinash Dom believes the soul remains

The corpse has found the cold metal of the dissection table. It’s the time to place the brick-like body block under the small of the back. The arms and neck will fall behind; the chest will stretch and rise. It’s easier for the cutting.

“The body is impermanent,” says fifty-year-old Abinash Dom. He’s not speaking from the morgue but from his home in Jamalpur’s Bakshiganj. The morgue is where he’d rather be – the work he’d choose. “Cutting bodies is our ancestral occupation,” he says, “I’d not be scared.”

“We live in the Kali Yuga,” says Abinash rather cheerfully, referring to the last of the world’s four cycles according to scripture. Thought by many to have started in 3102 BCE the Kali Yuga, named after an apocalyptic demon not the goddess, is the age of vice. People shall be consumed with avarice, wrath, lust and addiction. Vows shall be routinely broken; unjustified murder common.

It’s the routine question: which concoction of Kali Yuga sins brought the body to the morgue this time? It’s the question for the scalpel and the saw in a Dom’s hands to investigate.

From each body bag the autopsy cycle starts. Weight and measurement, age, sex, hair colour, eye colour... a life becomes a series of observations duly jotted in a pathologist’s notes. Each birthmark, scar tissue anomaly and prominent mole is recorded: there are many means to categorise a corpse. Maybe there’ll be hair and nail samples. It depends on death’s known circumstance – but in every case when death reaches the morgue it brings life to the tradition of the Doms. It’s good work if you can get it.

Abinash Dom. The Dom community is scattered across South Asia and beyond

“The Dom community follows the eternal religion,” Abinash continues. “Only the soul remains. Death is inevitable and final but the good soul will rest with Bhagawan. If not, then rebirth continues... the deceased returns in the shape of their last thoughts. If they thought of a deer, they shall come as a deer.”

As he explains the five great elements – earth, fire, water, wind and ether – from which all creation is made, as he tries to recall whether ‘water’ in Sanskrit is correctly ap or op, his relatives busily direct the fan towards the newcomers. It’s hot in the crowded living room. They’ve sent for bottles of Sprite which must be a modern incarnation of that ancient guest cycle.

Chaitanya Mahaprabhu was their last prophet, Abinash says, though he calls him Gauranga – which comes from the Sanskrit word for golden and refers to his legendary fair complexion. The messenger’s paternal grandmother was from Shrihatta, now Sylhet, and he promoted Krishna worship until his death in 1534. “Salvation is through worship,” says Abinash, “Mantras bring us close to Bhagawan.”

There are various cutting systems. It can be a Y-shaped or T-shaped incision – or a single vertical cut from the middle of the neck, near the adam’s apple on a male body, down to the pubic bone, making a deviation to the left side of the navel. The ribs are sawn to reach the chest cavity and the sternum with attached ribs is then lifted from the body. After that, the heart and lungs are examined. The pathologist provides the exact instructions.

The Doms of Bakshiganj. Body cutting has been a traditional occupation of the Dom community for many generations.

There are ten Dom families in Bakshiganj and one more in Madarganj. According to Abinash their ancestors were brought there to do body cutting by the local zamindar more than a century ago. Legend says Raja Hari Chandra Dom, the ‘king’ of the Dom community, led them. “My grandfather Mokhlal Dom came here,” Abinash mentions – what he knows for sure.

Indeed the Dom as an ethnic or social group are scattered across South Asia. In India they sometimes maintain a nomadic lifestyle. In Pakistan’s Shina Valley 500 speakers of Domaki were counted in 1989. It’s believed the Domi people of the Middle East are related, having been taken there as musicians and servants during the Sassanid Persian era. It’s also considered the word ‘Rom’ – meaning the Romani people of Europe who in Bangladesh are still more often called by the less savoury name of gypsies – may originate from Dom.

The term Dom itself may come from ‘drum’ in Sanskrit and relate to their advanced musical skills – some still follow such traditions, which may have declined after Islam’s arrival. Abinash is not sure where his ancestors came from. He recalls they used to speak Nagri – which is actually the traditional Sylheti script.

Abinash Dom at the household shrine in Bakshiganj. He was not expecting visitors and asked not to be photographed in his wonderful Goni Miah gumchha from Jhalakathi. Unfortunately the camera slipped.

About Goni Miah Gumchha.

“My father Kuala Dom was also a lash kata – a body cutter,” Abinash recalls, “He worked at DMCH morgue, including during 1971. He used to stay for several weeks and then come home. He didn’t talk about it much.” Abinash’s younger brother and one cousin, Rathan Dom, are the lucky ones of his generation. They work as body cutters elsewhere.

Belonging to the scheduled castes, some government jobs – not only for body cutters but also cleaners and sweepers are reserved for the Dom community. “But even where it is gazetted the rules are often violated,” says Abinash. “Both Jamalpur and Sherpur morgues employ Muslims.” As a result, many Doms are unemployed. Moreover, not every Dom is duly registered on the list of vulnerable groups entitled to social safety net assistance. “About 80% of us should be listed,” says Abinash, “for food supplements. But we don’t all get it.”

Life is not always straightforward in other ways. “In my father’s time there was a large gap between us and mainstream society. They did not mix, socialise inside a room or share food and drink. The situation is better now. My two girls attend school with no problems and their friends visit our home. But there are still two hotels in Bakshiganj that won’t give a seat to a Dom.”

Jamalpur's Bakshiganj. Unfortunately due to prejudice there are still two hotels (local restaurants) where the Dom are not permitted to eat.

With a corpse’s only blood pressure produced by gravity, bleeding during autopsies is usually minimal, except perhaps in drowning cases. When it’s the brain to be examined the incision starts from behind one ear, moves over the crown of the head to a point behind the other. The scalp is pulled away from the skull.

While Abinash can only dream of their profession, Rathan Dom knows. For the past twenty of his twenty six years as a body cutter he’s worked at Narsingdi District Hospital. “I think everything finishes after death,” he says. “I’m not very religious. Body cutting is good work and what you really appreciate is how precious life is. When a dead body comes, his everything in this world is finished.”

“When people are born of course, they know they will die,” Rathan contemplates, “but they don’t think much about it. Suicide cases are so tragic! Life means more than that! And when relatives arrive to identify a body in a murder case, when they’re crying I am also crying inside. Those who kill humans, what horrific creatures they are! If we have a dead body – many lives can depend on one – what will his family, his children do?”

Rathan also feels pain, he says, when he sees youngsters – five or seven year old children whose bodies were thrown in a rice field. And it’s not pleasant to work on a ten to twenty day old corpse, when he has to take out worms and insects. “It is human,” he says, “but it does not look human. That is hard.”

Yet it is his profession. With the corpse sewn back together to be presented for burial, the body cutter’s work is complete. But ultimately an autopsy is surely about details. The cause of death is always life – the sweet, precious gift of life – knowledge which might be best understood by the Doms.

Afternoon reaches Bakshiganj. The Dom community was likely brought there a century ago by the zamindar (local landlord) to pursue body cutting

This article is published in Star Magazine, here: The Body Cutters

The Feeling of Beginning

The road to Balujhuri.

There are things to say and not to say. There are times to let the whole world in; bursting to share what’s interesting. But with precious things there’s also that little niggling wish to keep it close to chest. Everybody should share in it; nobody should know of it. Balujhuri of Bakshiganj in Jamalpur: it’s just a village. It’s best to get that sorted from the start.

There was the moon and me and the unnamed dog. The yard was shining white in the moonlight. The cottage flowerbeds were silvery; the pile of charcoal outside the cow shed door was the only patch falling short of immaculate.

Fate Moni Sangma surveys her yard.

It’s a luxurious kind of cow shed I suppose, like the main house with a tin roof and traditional mud brick walls. I’d watched the few cows being returned there from grazing that evening. Once inside a fire was lit on the steps to send smoke through in order to drive away mosquitoes. The cows were used to a few smoky minutes when the doors got closed – before clarity.

There was no hope of sleep. There was heat. There was the regional correspondent snoring. Sometimes in the silence of nights like that ideas find their freedom.

From the afternoon of our arrival I’d noticed how pretty Balujhuri is. The houses are well-spaced along either side of a small valley, where runs the stream. The bazaar over the small concrete bridge is intimate, and there are a couple of tea shops beside the schoolhouse with impressive large sitting areas that could feature in a tea shop design magazine. Beyond are roads over hills through woodland. It’s an enviable location.

Closer to the house the rows of shupari palms guide the village pathway as it runs further in, through the lush oddly-shaped paddy fields sculpted by the rise of the hills. Green is really green in Balujhuri. A small valley at the start of the Meghalayan hills by the Indian border – surely that’s as good a place as any to encounter new ideas.

The village track, Balujhuri.

Of course there was foreknowledge. I’d seen a documentary piece on the BBC about the Mandi – actually the Garos of India they called them, how it was one of the world’s rare matrilineal societies. Mandi property traditionally passes to the youngest daughter. Husbands move into the wife’s house upon marriage. But on the BBC they’d made it look as though the wives rule over powerless husbands. Maybe that is Meghalaya or maybe it was an “enhanced” TV version. But it’s not what I saw.

Admittedly I’ve been in Bangladesh long enough for it to have been a shock, when I first met Fate Moni Sangma and her husband Bishwanath Marak – when he went off to arrange the tea and biscuits while she sat and chatted. Men give their whole salaries to their wives, she explained, but wives keep theirs. If there’s an argument, it’s the husband who risks being thrown out of the house.

“Women buy whatever they want!” said the husband. “Women are free,” said the wife.

Paddy fields of Balujhuri.

The paddy fields are shaped by the hills.

That night I’d brought a plastic chair from the guest room while the others slept. I moved it periodically about the yard trying to find a breeze – at what seemed to be the northern side where the hill scuttled off upwards; or yard centre; or near the top of the path that ran from the house down beside the pond to the village track. The exercise was mostly psychological.

Shupari palms add geometry to the landscape.

Equality: under the moon I wondered. Norwegian career women: I’d seen them keeping the home maintained after work – they even baked bread but drew the line at ironing. At least one did. In Viking society, contrary to common perception, women were relatively empowered. They had a head start.

Australian middle class women did an even larger housework share I would estimate, though home baked bread is less common. They had often seemed unsure of themselves somehow, inside, beneath that capable exterior. There was still this antagonistic masculine world to struggle against and fit into. History and culture have never been on their side.

I thought about Bengali village women – in those premium full-of-love households, not just any sort of household. Their roles were set and accepted and at its best, it would appear to bring about a degree of contentment in stable self-identity. Where there was cooperation, they were never trying to be. They just were.

The nakshi kantha entrepreneurs I’d just met in Jamalpur had blended their hard won confidence with a certain shy etiquette, you know, for dignity. And then there was this Mandi couple inside the main house. Somehow they managed to sleep without a fan.

Equality: there were so many variables, so many versions.

Bringing home wood.

Wherever I moved the chair the unnamed dog followed, curling up beside my feet. On night duty more than resting, he seemed to like having company. I guess he’s done a good number of shifts on his own. That afternoon he’d chased a troop of brazen roaming pigs from the garden and now there were shadows and unheard sounds to be barked away. Only morning would bring the relative surety of light.

It was first impressions, but the teamwork, the hard work – it seemed so balanced. I’m not sure. He’d gone off to harvest rice in the middle of the day and she’d threshed it – roles familiar to Bengali households. She cooked the evening meal on that day but he helped arrange everything in a way, it must be said, most Bengali village men would not do.

Getting to the core: it’s not possible in a few days. In Balujhuri was rather a sense of a beginning – an alien country, a new culture – the learning from scratch. It’s fascinating. It’s been a long time since I felt that in Bangladesh.

Under the moon I wondered. In that rights-based way in which the westerners think, were Mandi women actually more empowered than their western counterparts? Could the global centre of their feminist achievement actually be Balujhuri?

Bishwanath makes tea.

As the night wore on towards dawn I largely gave up chair moving. There really was no breeze. I tried to sleep once or twice but ended up back in the yard. I realised that intellectually I was like the cows when they’d just entered the barn. It was a smoky vision of Mandi culture I had and only one example.

But I could imagine how popular an experience in Balujhuri would be for tourists, especially western tourists: how appealing a home stay would be. It hardly seemed the Mandi would ever be overwhelmed, either, as ethnic minorities can be when too many strangers arrive. Mandis are flexible, adaptable and in their identities, strong. So it seemed. Westerners would want to know more like I wanted to know more.

I’m not sure who was more pleased with the first morning light when it came, me or the unnamed dog. But as I marvelled – with a sneaky Bengali smile inside – at watching Biswanath sweep every inch of that yard, brush away the charcoal and clean out the cow shed, there was something else I knew. We still have a lot to learn from each other. Yes, we do.

Bishwanath Marak and Fate Moni Sangma: their lives just seemed so balanced.

We still have a lot to learn from each other. Yes, we do.

This article is published in Star Magazine, here: The Feeling of Beginning

An Afternoon with Father Alex

Father Alex.

We meet him at the St. Andrew’s Parish Mission in Diglakona village of Jamalpur’s Bakshiganj. It’s occasional-wild-elephant country up that way, in the dreamy lower hills adjacent to the Meghalayan border. The villagers are harvesting cassava. It’s a sunny afternoon.

There’s a shady sitting place in the grounds and we wait. After a few minutes Alejandro Rabanal, better known as Father Alex, wanders down. He’s sporting a bright orange t-shirt and casual trousers – formal attire is hardly a daily affair in Diglakona. His hair is grey yet his face looks surprisingly fresh and untroubled by time. It’s only as he starts to speak of his experiences that it truly becomes apparent that his age – well, it’s not nice to ask – is a fair bit closer to requiring three digits than it is to needing only one.

Getting there along the narrow country roads in from Bakshiganj town has been a pleasant journey, but not altogether short. Still, Father Alex’s Bangladeshi journey was a great deal longer: from his home in Pangasinan of north Luzon in the Philippines he first arrived in Barisal in the then East Pakistan, in 1959.

“I was surprised,” he says of his first impression, “by how much water there was. There were rivers, water... everywhere.”

Mandi students at the Diglakona mission school.

The church and school at Diglakona cater to the scattered twelve villages of the ethnic minority Mandi, who are commonly called Garos by outsiders. Communications between the villages isn’t easy so there’s a girls’ hostel and a boys’ hostel where the 49 young students board while completing their primary years under the guidance of three teachers. The school is called Sal Gital, meaning “New Light” in Mandi.

“We have two of our former students in Dhaka University,” Father Alex says proudly, “but it’s only a small percentage of students who can pursue higher education, mostly due to money problems.” He is passionate about education.

Father Alex conducts morning and evening prayers in the chapel, and confession. The students and local community have taken to calling him Acchu, which means grandfather.

Of course the Mandi community is itself no stranger to long journeys. According to oral tradition it was around 400 BCE when their ancestors under the leadership of Jappa Jalimpa, having left Tibet first crossed the Brahmaputra River to settle in Meghalaya’s Garo Hills. From there the civilisation spread to include villages in the lower hills and southern plains, in areas that are now Bangladesh.

The rivers and hills of both history and geography conspired to bring divergence to that civilisation. For one thing, several dialects developed in the common language. The term Mandi comes from the southern A’beng form of the language found in the plains and means ‘human being.’ Nowadays it describes the ethnic group throughout Bangladesh, be it in Tangail’s Modhupur, Netrakona, Mymensingh or Jamalpur. The northerners in Meghalaya are meanwhile described as A’chik mande, literally ‘hill people’ in the A’chik dialect, by Bangladeshi Mandi.

A local Mandi villager taking a break outside the mission gate.

Father Alex’s journey didn’t start with the Mandi – he first met them in 1972 when he accepted a position in Galchatra village of Tangail’s Modhupur, where he would stay for the following twenty-two years. Yet the Mandi have been a great influence. It is due to them he decided to join the priesthood in 1988.

Speaking of his arrival in this part of the world, Father Alex recalls, “I came to serve. It was my main aim. I came to help the poor, which I could not do as a university professor in the Philippines.”

The opportunity arose from a Canadian Catholic Brother who had been a prisoner of war in the Philippines in World War Two. From that time he had established connections with the president of the university where Father Alex had commenced his career. The Canadian Brother was supposed to take a position in Barisal to teach improved agricultural methods to primary and high school students, with the view that many would later run their family farms. However, the Canadian Brother found he couldn’t adjust to Barisal’s climate and he approached his friend, the university president, to find a volunteer to take his salary and go in his place. Father Alex raised his hand.

“The students were very receptive,” he says of his initial three years in Barisal. “We were able to help them improve their farming methods.” At the end of his term and the project’s funding, Father Alex returned to the Philippines. But he must have been popular because just three months later he was asked to return.

“Bangladesh has changed a lot since those days,” Father Alex says, “For one thing, the population has doubled.” Asked why he committed to stay in Barisal into the 1970s he says, “They wanted me to stay. They loved me. We succeeded in that way. In any case what I liked and didn’t like was never the focus. I came to serve.”

To this day Father Alex admires the devoutness of Bengali Muslims. “I appreciate how regular they are in their prayers.” Likewise he thinks highly of the Muslim attributes of politeness and respect. “Even the children always greet you with an assalamu alaikum.”

Yet in 1972 providence led him to accept a position in Modhupur. “I felt at home soon after I arrived,” he recalls, “I found that Mandi culture is not far from Filipino culture. Men and women mix freely. There is no malice. They joke with each other. I like how they work together including in the field when sowing or harvesting rice. Segregation is not there.”

Mandi villagers outside the mission gate.

He was impressed by Mandi hospitality. “No matter how poor a family is, they will treat guests with a big reception. They can borrow at least two days’ labour wages to buy chicken and other food.” 

“And especially if they offer rice wine,” he adds with a laugh, “Then the hospitality is even better!” What he’s not so keen on, however, is the pungent shutki-like dried fish dish called nakam.

Father Alex also points to the Mandis’ strong sense of community. “One family I know,” he narrates, “Has eight children and they took in one more because that child’s family was struggling. It’s the maternal uncle’s duty to help out if the family is poor.”

Father Alex’s description is a far cry from how the Mandi have been described in the past. Both invading Mughal armies and the British were fearful. From around 1800 accounts describe them as ‘bloodthirsty savages’ and they had a reputation as headhunters, with a Mandi man’s status determined by the number of heads he owned. But of course the narratives of conquerors often serve their own purpose. It is likely much of the Mandis’ reputation arose as a result of their willingness to vigorously defend their lands from the invaders.

Indeed the Mandi have inherited a sophisticated matrilineal culture and had a well-developed religion which is sometimes underestimated as a form of animism, called Songsarek. Unlike many of the minority religious beliefs of India, Songsarek developed separately from Hinduism. Traditionally the Mandi believed in reincarnation but not caste.

From the 1860s however, the Mandis’ journey brought to them Christianity. “The Baptists were the pioneers,” says Father Alex. By the 1970s belief in Songsarek in Bangladesh had begun to dramatically decline. Nowadays nearly all Mandis profess Christianity, with Catholics comprising the largest denomination.

Father Alex believes the biggest contribution the Catholic Church has been able to make, for the Mandi and in Bangladesh, is in the provision of education. “It’s the best thing we have done,” he says. Another milestone in the Mandis’ journey was the Vatican II changes approved in Rome in 1965. These changes allowed for mass to be given in local languages rather than Latin, and led to a new approach to local cultures which had previously been discouraged.

“The people were very receptive,” Father Alex says of the implementation, “When we started to use local language in songs, when they understood what they were saying...” In Diglakona he gives the mass in Mandi.

Another change he has witnessed has been a decline in the Mandis’ penchant for a semi-nomadic lifestyle. “Since the forests became occupied and available land was less they stopped moving so often. Still they will move within the community, but not to new areas like before.”

By the late 1980s the funding for his position in Madhopur had dried up. “But I could see that they still needed me,” he said. “I decided to do more.” With this in mind, to facilitate his continued goal of service, he joined the priesthood. It was the decision that would bring him, ultimately, to Diglakona.

Asked what has been most difficult about living in Bangladesh he says, “The languages are very hard – Bengali more so than Mandi. It’s so difficult to find a proper teacher. I was always asking children and studying myself. And don’t ask me to write Bangla!”

Asked what he misses about the Philippines his answer is simple: the beer! And with a good Spanish name like Alejandro he certainly shares something in common with the delicious and world renowned Filipino national brew, San Miguel.

Mandi villagers making bamboo fence for the mission.

The author with Father Alex and mission staff members.

This article is published in Star Magazine, here: An Afternoon with Father Alex

The Value of Ghee

Renu Bala Chandra Ghosh, 80.

Mother and son, Kalpana and Topon Chandra Ghosh, churn milk into butter in their yard.

Swoosh-swoosh-swoosh. Swoosh-swoosh-swoosh. It’s the sound of that ever busy household yard in Ghoshpara, Balijuri, in Jamalpur’s Madarganj. It’s off the road and down an alleyway to the right, unless you care to tread the straw between the weighty “Australian” and half-weighty “half-Australian” cows. Swoosh-swoosh-swoosh. There’s a thin rope being pulled, indeed there are two. First one side then the other, backwards and forwards in unison. The energy of teamwork is turning a claw-footed stick called a gholat or a kata – churning milk in a bucket into butter. Swoosh-swoosh-swoosh. It’s the sound of a thousand years. It’s hypnotic.

Swoosh-swoosh-swoosh.

Dulal, Ananda, Shopon, Paresh... There’s a row of rooms, a long row along one side of the narrow yard. Morali, Dhiren, Mitu, Panesh... And more rooms, on the other side and somewhere down the back. It can’t be easy for Renu Bala Chandra Ghosh, 80, to get about like she does. But she’s too busy to think about it, hauling baskets of leaf litter in from the roadside. Chanmahan, Dilip. Noresh and Niresh... It can’t be easy to count the cousin-brothers, without even considering the wives and grandchildren. There are many members of the Ghosh household. She is of course the mother of Paresh. Anyway, she’s too busy to think of it. The sun is setting. She’s collecting handful-gloops of butter from the bucket and slopping them into a metal pot. She knows the family’s life-recipe that’s descended through the ages. Hers must be a longer life of simple steps.

The cows have also been involved in ghee-making for many generations.

Swoosh-swoosh-swoosh. Swoosh-swoosh-swoosh. There’s a woman, indeed there are two, walking up and down the yard nursing babies in their arms. A couple of children are amused, busily, with a drumming toy on the dirt. Chickens are moving about with their broods while warily two kittens watch the butter making from the side of the house, half-concealed by its tin wall. The cats are waiting for their chance to stealthily sample a little of that Ghosh dairy hospitality. Swoosh-swoosh-swoosh. Every day. What a torment! It must be cat hell to have that sound, those enticing smells; except of course when the luck runs and it suddenly, briefly becomes cat heaven.

Churning takes about thirty minutes per bucket.

Ghee is a South Asian type of clarified butter. Its colour, texture and taste depend on the quality of the butter and the technicalities of the boiling process. Ghee has been used in homa, fire sacrifices, for over 5,000 years; and of course in food.

Nilma Chandra Ghosh, 25, has discovered guests in the yard, or maybe customers. There is no official market for Ghosh ghee. The customers are drawn in by the family name – like the kittens they find the source. She is of course the wife of Liton, son of Paresh; and she’s soon thinking about tea. She calls to Narayan, 18, to find biscuits. He is of course the son of Noresh.

Narayan is finishing his HSC this year, he says, and hopes to study political science. “Let’s see how my study goes.” He will not continue the Ghosh tradition as his mainstay like his elder brother does – on the other hand, it hardly seems likely he could live a life that is entirely ghee-free. Swoosh-swoosh-swoosh – it’s teamwork. It’s the family. It’s the sound of Ghosh. Of a morning before class Narayan pulls the bovine udders; to the sound of squelching spurts he aims fresh Australian-cow and half-Australian-cow milk into a bucket. “Australian cows give twenty plus litres of milk per day,” he says, “An ordinary cow gives ten. Our family has been making ghee forever.”

The cows are the stars at the Ghosh's house.

Each brother produces a minimum of 2 kilograms per day but they make more when the prices rise, at the time of Eid and in winter. Each kilogram will sell for about 1,000 taka while the by-product, 35 kilograms of liquid doi, or curd, will fetch another 1,000 taka.

“We have around two hundred cows in total,” Narayan says, “Some brothers have more, others less. Those with fewer cows buy milk from outside. It takes forty kilograms of milk to make one kilogram of ghee.” Ah, but if the milk is bought from elsewhere an average day’s profits are reduced to 500 taka, so for a Ghosh those Australian and half-Australian cows surely come in handy.

Swoosh-swoosh-swoosh. Swoosh-swoosh-swoosh. Kalpana and Topon Chandra Ghosh, mother and son, are the ones pulling the ropes, churning butter in the yard. They are of course the wife and son of Paresh. And it seems to be enough exercise – a half an hour upper-body workout per bucket. The trade must keep the whole family fit and healthy. And over and above the “together” in it, the teamwork quality, it looks meditative – that sort of repetition that’s all together good for the mind. Ghee has many advantages. A Ghosh life is a well-paced together-life.

From milk to butter.

First the milk is boiled before being dipped into the pond for half an hour to cool, Topon says. It’s then that the churning starts. When the transformation to soft butter is complete, the solids are collected and water drained. Then it’s boiled and sent to the pond again.

A thousand-year tradition.

“Madarganj ghee is tasty,” says Topon. “Its quality is high because of the fresh milk and our process. While others use machines we churn by hand.” And they know how to boil it – a secret, that final phase – medium heat, not too hot or too slow. About thirty minutes of flame from butter to ghee, so it goes.

Kalpana Chandra Ghosh knows the family secret of how to boil the butter in the final stage of making ghee.

And finally he’s arrived – he’s late but he’s here. Of course I’m talking about Paresh. “Many people come here and buy the butter instead,” he says, “It makes no difference to us because the profit is the same. But they make their own ghee from that, to sell, with added impurities. Our ghee you can only buy here.”

Paresh helps his wife strain the ghee.

As he helps his wife strain the newly boiled ghee in the kitchen house, he’s unmistakably cheerful. One could be forgiven for thinking he’s always so – that kind of life pleasure cannot easily hide like kittens beyond a tin wall. “Ghee can last for six months out of the fridge.” He’s proud of his product.

“Even if there was one taka profit in it,” says Paresh with a grin, “I would still make ghee.” Swoosh-swoosh-swoosh. The sound of a large, contented family. The sound of a thousand years. The sound of ghee-makers making ghee.

Ghee-straining

Cooling the ghee in a bucket of cold water. For demonstration purposes only. Usually it goes in the pond.

Oh, and, there’s one other little thing worth mentioning – those Australian cows and the half-Australian cows... There’s no such thing as an Australian cow, not really. Perhaps they came to Bangladesh from Australia, where there are of course many cows. But the black and white ones – in Australia they’re commonly called Holstein Friesians, from the north of Holland and Friesland in Germany, originally. That would make them a little more German-Dutch, technically. But of course it’s hardly something for Renu Bala Chandra Ghosh to worry about.

The Australian cows and half-Australian cows.

Ghee equipment.

Another afternoon at the Ghosh household.

Soft butter, with liquid.

This article published in Star Magazine, here: The Value of Ghee