Chandreyee, Parambrata, Lily, Maitreyee and Sanjoy Bhattacharya

You got to hand out the plate to Sanjoy Bhattacharya. Or, at least, to his brother, Subrata Bhattacharya, who cooked up this unique story for a telefilm titled, Pishir Recipe (script by Sugata Sinha). “There comes a time in a nation’s history,” says Sanjoy, sounding more like a statesman addressing a freedom-seeking nation in 1947 rather than a chef or a director/cameraman, “when simple acts of survival are assertions of national identity.” He elaborates on the significance of food for people, for instance, displaced by Partition from their homes in erstwhile East Pakistan. “Any connoisseur will tell you that home cooking that crossed the border from eastern Bengal created the whole myth (sic) of Bangla cuisine.”

Widowed by Partition, the foodie story revolves around ‘Pishi’ Lily Chakraborty, and when we visited the Peerless Inn the adorable Lilydi was in the midst of a restaurant scene crowd of the ever-amiable Biswajit Chakraborty, Chaitali Dasgupta and Maitreyee Mitra, not to speak of the elegantly turned out Sabyasachi Chakraborty, the natty Parambrata Chatterjee and Chandreyee Ghosh, who could only be called dishy. In a separate scene, the last two went into a ‘hi-there’ clinch before boss Sabyasachi strode in. No, he didn’t have to call the waiter and ask for some water, please.

Scheduled telecast:

Tara Muzik; July 16; 7:30pm