From Fire's Heat

The workshop of Sushil and Ranjeet Karmakar. Nandina, Jamalpur.

Bring a heart free of preconception and your best listening ears. Go to the karmakars, the blacksmiths, for blacksmith knowledge. Everybody has something to tell and blacksmiths can be no exception. At least, that was the plan.

Loki Karmakar.

It’s a time worn trade, blacksmithing, one that those of us with a western childhood got used to reading about in history books. There were primary school excursions to colonial-themed parks where, beside the candlemaker, apothecary and saddler displays would be a faux blacksmith’s workshop – a replica replete with hanging horseshoes. I’ve been meaning to talk to the blacksmiths for a while now.

I found them perched on piri micro-stools in stalls opposite the bamboo market and in a row around the corner from there, alongside the dusty road adjacent to the pond. To the sound of metal obediently chiming they were working. Loki Karmakar, 51, was scraping sharpness into the blade of a kachi paddy cutter. Brothers Sushil and Ranjeet Karmakar, 40 and 45, were alternating, pounding an end of molten metal rhythmically with weighty iron mallets. Indrajeet, 40, who belongs to the last stall in the row, was gripping iron with a kind of pliers, tapping with a smaller hammer. They were making things.

Sushil and Ranjeet Karmakar at work.

There are six blacksmith families in Nandina Bazar West, a decent half hour by road, following the Old Brahmaputra out of Jamalpur town. Another three have workshops in Nandina Bazar East. As they pulled the cord that brought the bellows to life – inhaling, exhaling, stoking the coals first to glow and then to flame, there was heat in it, unbearable heat.

In May, the month when any average Joe is hankering to hunt down the slightest breeze a blacksmith’s stall is a cauldron within an oven. They must be most pleased at this time of the year that their shanty workshops have no walls.

“When I’m busy with orders I like it,” says Indrajeet, who is shedding a river of perspiration and barely wishes to down tools to share a few words or even to catch breath. I pull up a piri next to him and it’s only a few short minutes before I feel light-headed, as if on the verge of passing out. “The worst is to be idle,” he says.

Indrajeet in his workshop.

He explains the sources of metal to be smelted: old machinery, building construction supplies, used vehicle parts. The purchase price is from 40 to 100 taka per kilogram depending on quality, while the finished tools he makes retail for up to 500 taka per kilogram. There’s a margin to be had in his ancestral profession, pursued by his father, both grandfathers and ancestors long before them. “It’s very laborious work,” he says, “I got used to doing it.”

Similarly, the Karmakar brothers nearby have little interest in talking. It looks as if there’s the anger of fire in their faces; but it’s more about the strain of effort and the pain of heat. “This work is a bitter experience,” says Sushil, who recounts how, 22 years earlier, some influential people took the ancestral land and houses of five of the families. “The court did not help,” he says despondently.

Then surprisingly he reconsiders, changes tack – things are what they are depending on which aspect one focuses on. “This life is quite okay,” he says, also the blacksmith’s view. Due to the trade he has no trouble maintaining his family. They don’t suffer from a lack of money. Blacksmithing forged indeed the education of his two sons: the elder has become a craftsman at a local jewellery shop while the younger completed his SSC this year. “My sons had the chance to study,” Sushil says, “They can do better.”

Locals gathered at the blacksmiths. Nandina, Jamalpur.

As he talks I realise that despite wanting not to, I have unwittingly brought along a few preconceptions. For one thing I’d expected to hear of financial hardship but it seems that most of the time blacksmiths are in demand and have little trouble making ends meet. People need kitchen bati floor-knives and pasun weeding tools and kural axes, khanti shovels and kudal hoes. The trade’s future is not defined by a lack of customer interest but by a desire for coming generations to pursue less arduous careers. “It’s not a good job,” says Loki Karmakar, “That’s why my son does not do it.” Like Sushil’s elder son, Loki’s earns a better income making gold ornaments at somebody else’s shop.

The row of blacksmith workshops beside the pond.

Loki speaks of burns to his hands, the little accidents that are an occupational hazard. But he’s his own boss with the flexibility to work or not work as he wishes; and he takes pleasure from that. It was love that started Loki out on his career a little early – for more than two years he loved a girl who he secretly married at age 16. It was then that all too suddenly he discovered marriage’s usual consort – responsibility.

He did not know how to do blacksmith work. He had to pick it up quickly from his father and struggled to cope. I ask him to tell more about his love story – hoping for a charming saga, and almost as a teenager still he shies with embarrassment. He says no more of it except that his marriage is still a happy one – it stood the test of time. If I didn’t know better I’d say there was a hint of love in his face as he says that.

I wonder if it was his wife who gave him the tulsi necklace he wears, if it isn’t a successful lifelong partnership, aside from hair dye of course, that has kept him looking younger than his 51 years, despite the hard work and burns to his hands of the blacksmith trade.

The blacksmith's view: Loki Karmakar can watch the bamboo market from his workshop.

Indrajeet also focuses on family. When he has a good income and the family is running well he is happiest. The most exciting days are during the time of Durga Puja when he presents his family members with new clothes. “We follow the Sanatan religion,” he says, the ‘eternal’ religion that is most often labelled by its Persian-origin name of Hinduism.

Sushil Karmakar meanwhile contemplates his younger son, “I will help him to be educated to the highest possible level.”

Afternoon at the blacksmith workshops.

Another preconception – that everybody has something to tell. Perhaps it’s because of the blacksmiths Belal and Sahed in the village I know best, in Hatiya, Noakhali... Speak to them and you’re certain to find yourself laughing... There are bound to be stories with some kind of interesting life philosophy and witty turn of phrase...

I was waiting for interesting words of the type that stand out... but I should have been focused on what was there – the lesson in struggling hard for one’s family, from taking pleasure in step by step achievements like children’s education and a family’s progress through the years.

The bellows.

It remains true of course that everybody has something to tell. It’s just that sometimes it’s not so much in what is actually said but in the example shown – a way to live a life. The blacksmiths of Nandina Bazar West in Jamalpur are too busy making things, agricultural implements and family futures. The blacksmith’s knowledge they need not articulate in colourful phrases: because it’s right there – strong – in the heat of the fire.

But Sushil lastly reconsiders, changes tack – things are what they are depending on which aspect one focuses on. “The best part of this work,” he says, “is the heat of the fire in winter,” also the blacksmith’s view. And it’s certainly easy to think of the heat of the fire on an afternoon in May.

The blacksmith.

This article published in Star Magazine, here: From Fire's Heat

Starting with Dessert

A dish of kheer mahan at Pabna Sweets, Ulipur, Kurigram.

The bell at Ulipur fire station.

Fire. In the long struggle for advancement, since the dawning of the first fireball sun, it is difficult to overestimate its value. For warmth, protection, cooking and light – fire has proved humankind’s ally.

The ability to harness fire is one of those attributes which seperate us from the rest of the animal kingdom. By way of comparison – and a word of warning from Ulipur, Kurigram – cows don’t understand fire much.

Kheer at the Kumar house takes a minimum of six hours of simmering.

But I’m telling it wrong. Let’s start again. You’ll know the bus journey from Dhaka to Kurigram is a long one; you’ll understand if I say those city passengers of haste, hassle, scrambling for attention at the bus counter and trying to squeeze through a traffic jam got down somewhere long before the destination. These are not the sort of passengers to reach Kurigram.

Kheer mahan destined for Pabna Sweets

As you know, in Kurigram you’ll find that old Bengal: life runs slower and there’s not only time to stop to chat to friends met on the street but also an expectation. Kurigram is the quiet courtyard of a mossy, high-ceiling government building. It’s winter badminton, impromptu, time-passing. In Kurigram traditional Bangladeshi hospitality reigns undisputed king – kindling homemade philosophy about fire and words of warning concerning cows are not the way Kurigram begins. Certainly not on an empty stomach...

In small-town Ulipur, for her part – and there’s fame in it – when it comes to stomach filling it’s as well to start with dessert. The best dessert, my friend, starts in the area behind the bazaar that’s dedicated to laneway and pond. Please bear with me – we’ll get there soon.

The area isn’t large, but to take the correct turns and find the exact gate of the Kumar residence isn’t easy. One would just about need assistance from a search and rescue expert to find it – so it was a good thing I had one with me.

Md. Makbul Hossein is my friend Mostafiz’s younger brother. He’s been working as a fire fighter for the Fire Service and Civil Defence for six years, stationed in Ulipur. We met in that most Bangladeshi way – randomly. I’d forgotten, let’s be honest, that Mostafiz was a Kurigramer, and it just so happened he called me at the very moment I sat in an electric JSA auto on the final leg from Kurigram town to Ulipur. “Where are you?” Mostafiz asked.

Md. Makbul Hossein at the Ulipur fire station.

Of course it had to be that before the remaining kilometres were covered everything was organised – one of the officers was on leave so it wouldn’t be a problem to stay at the fire station! The choice of hotels in Ulipur is limited but to stay at a fire station was a first for me.

Unlike at a hotel, just outside the room was a large rusty bell which tolls for shift changes – there’s always someone on duty. It tolls for morning roll call, but I’d let you know visitors don’t need to attend. It can toll at any moment, repeatedly, in case of emergency.

There’s a fire emergency almost every day and the officers are trained to ready themselves and be on the fire truck within approximately thirty seconds. I bravely suggested I could be at the fire truck first: brave only in words – they would’ve been returning home again before I got my act together. My claim was never tested – fortunately those days were quiet.

And one afternoon, I confess, on returning to the fire station to find nobody in the yard for adda, I was tempted to ring the bell – a chatting emergency, conversation within thirty seconds! But of course considerate guests don’t do such things.

Anyway, with his fire fighting training and rescue knowledge locating the Kumar residence wasn’t challenging for Makbul.

The kheer mahan kitchen at the Kumars'.

Makbul makes his living from fire; so do the Kumars. Inside their yard an enormous pot of milk slowly boiled over a pit flame – into it are added bay leaves and cardamom, and other ingredients which Sunil Kumar, head-of-household and the other side of 50, ‘doesn’t want to say just now.’ You’ll understand it’s hardly likely this culinary inventor was going to divulge the entirety of his secret recipe for kheer, that sweetened, thickened milk used in several Bangladeshi dishes.

He did say however – a little tip – that there’s no sugar in it and the slower the milk cooks the greater the sweetness retained. Kumar-kheer requires six hours of boiling and stirring.

The humble but famous Pabna Sweets, Ulipur main road.

There’s history in that fire – in Kurigram town it’s universally acknowledged the finest kheer mahan, that type of sweetmeat, comes from Ulipur. And in Ulipur the recommended shop name is likely to be Pabna Sweets. Sunil, originally from Belkuchi Upazila in Pabna, has passed on business and culinary secret to his thirty year old son Sanjid. They’ve been making kheer mahan for twenty-five years – indeed, Sunil says he invented it.

Kheer mahan, the finished product, is an elongated ball of that fresh, unripened curd cheese called chhana, made in a process similar to ricotta. The milk is boiled, curdled with a small amount of whey, and the resulting coagulated curd is collected, wrapped in cloth, strained, beaten and kneaded until it becomes firm and smooth. The lengthened ball of chhanna, when draped in the attire of the Kumars’ kheer, takes on an altogether new dimension of delicious.

It won’t surprise you that kheer mahan, both the Kumars’ and the many versions from other kitchens, are sold all across Ulipur. You’ll see in the main street an oversupply of kheer mahan vendors.

Three generations of the Kumars, Sanjid with his son on the left, Sunil on the right at home amidst the day's kheer mahan production.

Sunil Kumar first learnt the sweetmeat trade at a shop in Dinajpur where he refined his skills on all manner of sweets – cham cham, rasgulla, rajbogh, chhena jalebi – before he got creative. His innovation starts with an idea that slowly cooks and curdles in his mind – then there are experiments before the new variety emerges. These days his imagination has grown big – you’ll understand as he explains his ‘atomic bomb’ project. A single piece of this industrial-sized sweetmeat, perhaps in the shape of a fish or a boat, can weigh several kilograms. His first atomic bomb involved a 2.5 kilogram chhanna armament sent to Dhaka for somebody’s birthday.

Sanjid Kumar has taken charge of Pabna Sweets.

His son Sanjid meanwhile dreams to expand the business that currently sells 15-20 kilograms of kheer mahan per day. The problem is finance – and Sunil’s atomic programme suffers similarly from a lack of capital.

Yet according to Sunil the most important factor in running a successful sweetmeat business is cleanliness – high hygiene standards bring customers back.

Back at the fire station you’ll be hearing of the rough driveway and the five turns down narrow laneways that the truck has to negotiate before reaching the main road. Vital seconds are lost and it’s disheartening for the fire fighters, well-equipped and ready to be on-truck within thirty seconds. They’ve written letters but it came to nothing.

And the leading cause of Ulipur fires? It’s cows kicking over the mosquito coils their owners thoughtfully placed in the barn of an evening to keep livestock well-rested and comfortable. Cows don’t understand much about fire.

Morning roll call at Ulipur fire station.

Meanwhile Sohel – another fire fighter – is on his way back to the station from a home visit in Rangpur. He’s excited, his head is buzzing because his colleagues have told him to expect a new ‘team member’ on his arrival. Who could it be?

The fire station at Ulipur.

Now that you’re satisfied with a good helping of kheer mahan, a final word of warning: it might be best not to mention Ulipur’s atomic bomb programme – it’s not a good world we live in – weapons of mass destruction – there are those who wouldn’t hesitate to launch a military strike before discovering that Ulipur’s atomic programme is milk-based.

Measuring ingredients in the Kumar household.

This article is published in Star Magazine, here: Starting With Dessert