In Bengal, ilish is often called the ‘silver crop”, but to those who have grown up with its stories, it is far more than that. It is a thread that connects rivers, seasons and generations – carrying within its memories of places once lived in and rituals still quietly observed.

As with any nostalgic thoughts, childhood memories play a major role.  Stories of moonlight fishing of hilsa during monsoons shared by my father with us and our cousins take us back instantly to the small village hamlet of Talberia in the Khulna subdivision of today’s Bangladesh. His vivid tales enabled us to clearly visualize the dark silhouettes of my Baba (father) and Jetha (father’s elder brother) and our Dada Moshai (paternal grandfather) climbing into the dark country boats lit by a solitary lantern as they rode the waves along with the fishermen in the turbulent Garai River which flowed alongside their village. The fishermen were assigned the task of selling their entire catch for the night to “Daktar Babu” our grandpa. In an era when refrigeration was absent it is interesting to study the fate of this huge catch.  Dada Moshai was not interested in the fish. His attention was on the Hilsa roe that used to be extricated with practised precision from each fish and the carcass sold off to the village peasants by early dawn @ 25 paise per kilo. Needless to say, the latter kept a vigilant track of the dates of this mega sale. The roe was preserved and was cooked throughout the year elevating the meals whenever served.

Years later I learnt how this roe was preserved. As a small infant I still remember Ma marinating this roe with salt, mustard oil and a pinch of turmeric and drying them in the sun by gently placing the roe in a bird cage which used to hang from a wire rope in our roof. Air used to circulate on all sides of the cage and it was hung high enough to be beyond reach for the cats. Fortunately for greedy children this was never a deterrent. Ironically, sun dried roe though delicious, eating it raw did not agree with our digestion.

This recollection connects to a larger tradition of this roe when sufficiently dried was carefully packed and parcelled to distant uncles and aunts who alas were too far off to partake this fish in its season.

Perhaps this is why Hilsa occupies a place no other fish does in the Bengali imagination- appearing not only on the plate, but in ritual, literature and even in the rhythm of seasons. A pair of Ilish is a part of the East Bengal Saraswati Puja households as an auspicious symbol and honoured with vermillion and turmeric on the puja day. The season of consumption used to stop with Durga puja with the underlying ecological need of conserving the fish during its breeding cycle. 

Likewise, “Ilsheguri Brishti” is not just a weather condition– it is pure nostalgia. It refers to very fine drizzling rain almost like a mist. It is believed that it occurs during the time hilsa swims upstream from the sea into the rivers. It is a calendar of emotion and ecology.

Bengali literature abounds with instances when boatmen in Bangladesh, tired after the whole day used to cook light ilish jhol (light broth) and rice both for themselves and their equally famished passengers. These repeated references reiterate how it became an integral element of our culture. 

Till recent past, a football match between the illustrious East Bengal and Mohan Bagan teams which ended in a win for the former would find proud supporters swinging a whole ilish and marching way home much to the chagrin of the followers of Mohan Bagan. 

All these practices form part of Bengal’s intangible cultural heritage. From the turbulent rivers of Khulna to the quiet drizzle of ilsheguri Brishti, these traditions sojourned through memory and ritual rather than written record forming an essential part of our cultural ethos. To conclude, ilish is not merely tasted but inherited- through customs, seasons and tales whispered across generations. It is a living fragment of our intangible heritage- quietly carried across the eras.

• The writer is a Kolkata-based former banker who explores memory, food and everyday heritage in Bengal.