WHEN WOOD SWEETENS…

Serving dough of sweetened chhana [cottage cheese] to any diehard Bengali is as upsetting as wooing beloved with a diamond in the rough. 

‘Chaanch’, as wooden moulds etched with traditional motifs, breathe life into shapeless dough by fashioning unspoilt sweetmeats of Bengal. Notun Bazaar neighbourhood on Chitpur Road of Calcutta hosts a handful of those dwindling craftsmen making moulds out of wood day in, day out. Here I come to talk about that unsung lot that never gave a fig about eternity, and the art they live off. 

Some conversance with varieties of sweets, or Mishti, I deem would lift the relish of this text. Sweets of Bengal are broadly sorted into ‘Rosher Mishti’ or soaked sweets, ‘Shukno’ or dry sweets and ‘Bhaja’ or fried sweets. ‘Kheerer Mishti’, or the moist kind made of kheer, packs the best of all without being saccharine. Shondesh is dry and can either be Kora-paak (hard) or Norom-paak (soft). And, Chaanch is used mostly in adorning Shondesh across kinds. 

Curious and having always found the world of confectionery much more than that meets the eye, I set out on Chitpur Road, a timeless stretch in North Calcutta, ransacking dingy outlets stacked with wares, and probing people to discover how this art of mould-making is pulling through. A baffled but empathetic Kartik Mondal led me to Narayan Das - owner of the oldest of the outlets pursuing mould-making, who in turn agreed to give away at his best. It emerged that most of them deal in range of tools used largely in confectionery, like giant platters called ‘Barkosh’, huge flat bowls to knead dough in, different wooden bowls and rolling pins, a cornucopia of moulds, and huge wooden paddles used to stir milk, and when the oars are missing, to row too! Swelling popularity of native sweets somehow seems to have come in handy in securing an agreeable demand for various wooden wares. 

Sondesh dough is prepared by tossing cottage cheese briskly with sugar over low heat. Designs are carved into blocks of Mahogany or Teak deep enough to leave defined imprints when pressed against such dough of desired consistency. Textual designs celebrating ‘Bhai-phonta’, ‘Rakhi’ and ‘Shubho-Bijoya’ attract occasional demand. Bulbous cast of popular Jalbhora comes from a designated mould. Alongside the classic and the generic ones, contemporary and bespoke shapes and motifs endow the sweets with character, relevance and often humour. Regular moulds range from two inches to ten in size depending on the dimension of patterns etched in. Though artists seem to treat all designs with creative equity and even-handedness, what immemorially remain the most popular in Bengal’s households are butterfly, fish and conch-shell. 

Future of mould-making existentially hinges on flourish of confectioneries. With many of them now turning to technologies to fast scale up, fear of losing out sooner or later to moulding machine is what haunts this age-old handicraft the worst today. I trust due aid and patronage through state-owned initiatives would as much save both the craft and its practitioners from avoidable oblivion as would please countless souls of Bengal who can never get enough of sweets. And, that lot shows no sign to stop swelling.