Addiction, Science, Fish and the Quintessential Bengali Babu – Is the relation measurement NP Complete?
Men, and definitely, women as well, of science are absolutely obsessed with numbers and measurement. They believe that if a thing cannot be measured through numbers, it does not as well exist. I wonder what they have to say about love. In fact many scientists are excellent lovers and numbers say so. But then love is different, because it cannot be defined. As the definition of definition says, ‘to define is to limit’ and Cupid’s maya is limitless.
But this piece is not about love but addictions. Sure it’s also about love, if you take a dig at it from a different perspective. The FOSLA (Frustrated One Sided Lover’s Association) perspective. Love is indeed an addiction. We shall come to it later. But in spite of all their efforts’ scientists have not been able to find out a suitable measure of addiction. To find out how much addicted a person is? Worse still, no scientific measures exist about anything on addictions. Literary measures do however exist. Words like ‘beora’, ‘talli’ etc lighten up our conversations. As far back in the 1960’s Bengali literary stalwart Shibram Chakraborty used the finger scale to grade how elite an addiction is. According to him, fingering (don’t take the sexist angle), the fine art of taking a dig at people is not an elite addiction for it uses just one finger. Snuff and Cigarette are next up the precedence ladder by virtue of needing two fingers. Pan, Tambul, Gua comes next; 3 fingers. Smokers may contest as it needs whole 10 fingers (both hands) to light up your butt. Some smokers do however seek redemption by using the whole five fingered grip, but that doesn’t help. Alcohol is actually the original 5 finger addiction and ranks third in the list which is topped by our own Babaji wala GANJA. A firm 10 fingered grip is essential. In between we have another desi, our sada or khaini. 1 palm and 1 thumb making it a close second.
But then the flip point of this scale and system of measurement is that it does not cover the psychological aspect and delves only with the physical, which is not why people take to addiction. This article contests on the ground that addictions should ideally be measured on the psychological aspects than the physical and we should be talking about stages of fulfillment that a particular type provides. While we go on to present the StagO-PEMA Scale (Stage Oriented- Psychological Effect Measurement Scale), there’s no harm in staying true to our Finger Scale and downing a peg or two. Cheers!
All addiction actually happens in stages and the pinnacle achieved is through scaling every stage through the individual crests. The beginning is in the urge. To start. The longer you keep it, the stronger it should get. The stronger longer parameter, we call it. Cigarette scores low here as the urge to smoke gradually dies if suppressed longer. Then comes the preparatory stage. You get ready for the process. Four play is a good analogy. Most addicts, and the best, I mean would vouch that the journey is as important as the destination, or else why would certain bars’ have more clients than others. It’s the ambience. Regulars spend lot of time is creating the right environment; wait for the right light, much like the expert photographer waiting for the correct lumen. The third parameter must be company. Not brand, but the people. You enjoy only in the right company and sometimes its serves only when in a circle. Counter smoking is more fulfilling than sole smoking and any smoker who has ever been unemployed and anybody who has been smoking since student life will stand witness. The right brand is what comes next. But that is usually supplemented by quantity. So Banarasi Zarda is enough in small quantity but the Baba 60 has to be pinched up. And in all these lies the determinants of the class of an addiction.
On this scale even love is an addiction. Ask FOSLA! The beginning is in the urge to be in love. It comes every spring, starting about Saraswati Puja and peaking around Holi. The longer you wait, the stronger it gets and if not fulfilled tends to turn to frustration resulting in the addicted locking himself/herself up or cutting a few veins here and there.
Part II, is identifying the prey. This is most hallucinating with every action of the prey being interpreted as aimed at the preyer (I invoke my poetic license here---one who prey’s is a preyer). This is followed by the intense prayers. Both the prey and the preyer start praying to various authorities starting from GOD ALMIGHTY to the LOCAL THALLAIVA to save him/her of the ordeal. The unique feature of this addictive engagement is that it kicks at both the crest as well as the trough. If you are in love, you get a kick. If you are not in love, you still get the kick, of irritation off course, but kick nevertheless. The icing may occur if the LOCAL THALLAIVA has his interests involved, whence the prey’s prayers are answered before the preyer’s prayers’ and the preyer gets a KICK..albeit at the wrong place.
This will be followed by the final showdown. If the preyer’s prayers are answered then the prey and the preyer together reach, what they feel the seventh heaven. They live life in a haze, coming in and out of the real and the surreal. The world turns enemy and the duo, with the companionship parameter of our StagO-PEMA Scale held high and justified promise to live and die together not realizing that the one is no different than the other and everything around you is just a trap.
Like all great work, this too ends in melancholy. Success and failure being so closely knit together, the practitioner gets the kick either way. In success lies failure and in failure lies failure definitely. In success lies success, as one would like to think and in failure lays reason to live all over again. And once a lover, always a lover, the love bug keeps biting; preying on teenagers, models, film star’s, kaam wali bai, neighbor’s spouse, friends spouse, colleague. Some reach higher stages, some find means of staying satisfied within closed confines and dreams. But it is fulfilling. Practitioners and non-practitioners alike would say so for the addiction has been catching up on all since time immemorial.
The StagO-PEMA Scale performs particularly well with Obsesso-Addictive disorders. These community based genetic disorders symptomize the back and forth journey of the desire or the urge to perform a particular deed between obsession and addiction. A perfect example would be the quintessential Bengali Babu and Bibi and their obsesso-addiction or addicto-obsession (the terms can be used interchangeably) with fish. Though the quintessential Bengali Bibi is currently short in supply thanks to the Two-State Theory proposed by none other than the quintessential Bengali Babu Narendranath Dutta a.k.a. Swami Vivekananda, which yours truly so faithfully propagates and Chetan Bhagat so chauvinistically promulgates, all Bengali Babus claim to be quintessential in person and when in right company which is leftist in belief. This disorder is a community wide phenomenon of order high enough to be called communal and it is known that the Bengali behavior of the Babu is nothing short of being communal.
The disorder has the highest number of stages among all reported addictions, obsessions and addict-obsession or obsess-addictions till date. It starts with planning which may actually initiate anytime by mid-evening when the Babu is returning from the day’s work to night when the Babu goes to bed. The highest form of virtual reality show, this planning phase actually takes the doer through all the stages in exact order of happening through all possible combination of events that may occur. Augmented by clear vision, audio and olfactory senses, the doer (always the Quintessential Bengali Babu) weighs his options through his taste buds and decides on at least three species of fish that he may buy the next morning. He goes through the visualization of these fishes in the market, the seller is identified to the details of his lungi (which the Babu too will be clad in) and the cost bracketed. He then decides the quantity and the pieces to be made, the bag he will carry it in and even tries in vain (always in vain) to gauge the expression on the face of his Bibi.
The next step starts the next morning, the Babu eager to execute after the night long piscidream that he has, with preparation to go to the local bajaar. The Babu has to be wearing the National Bengali dress (???) of lungi or its sleeker version the pajama or the updated Bermuda. All Bengalis are good footballers and take pride in showing off their calf muscles. The long and dwindling bajaar alleys crossed, he enters the fish market looking for maach. His OA (obsesso-addiction) gradually peaks as he smells the delicacy. An expert in this area, he can tell by the smell the exact location of a breed, the freshness, whether it is local or chalani (meaning supplied from Andhra Pradesh) and even the size. Once located, the stage III begins through bargain. No woman in this world can beat a Bengali Babu in bargaining for fish, for nowhere else is so much at stake. This goes on for quite some time, the time taken being directly proportional to the depth of his pocket and the Babu usually wins (or so he thinks) and bags his prize. From here on, the taste buds take over. This species of humans have perfected the art of cooking fish and can eat it fried, curried, boiled, steamed, roasted and even burnt. The preparation varies depending upon the breed, time of the year and number of members. The Quintessential Bibi can actually cook up a Kings’ Dinner through just one type of fish having separate items made out of gada (the backbone), peti (the stomach), the matha (the head), the kanta (the bones) and probably even the aansh (the scales).
The Babu comes home, deftly defies the scorn of the Bibi (not quintessential but Two State) and rushes to the bathroom. The cooking starts, which is not the Babus concern anymore save the sound of the fish taking to Shorsher Tell (Mustard Oil) and the smell of frying which only increases his urge to fulfill his desire which has been around him since last evening. The crescendo is short lived though because by then the intoxication has reached such a stage that it remains just a mere formality for the genetically dyspeptic Babu to gulp at it and rush out to work.
No science has been able to measure this phenomenon until this path breaking research undertaken by a Babu himself to unravel the mysteries of a Bengali’s love for fish.
Application of Greedy Strategy in Optimization - A Case Study of 20th Century Bengal Biye Bari.
Bengali’s are known for their culinary habbits. Probably no where else in the world has almost six generations of ladies spent their entire lives in the kitchen, cooking delicacies for the family. This developed a treasure trove of recipies so rich that you can probably spend an entire lifetime eating a new dish every single day of your life. This has been a cause of great tongue (sharp) and some say even intellect on one side but also of great worry on the other. Any householder having to organize a function at home would know, as the expenses would shoot though the roof.
However, the story is not about economics! Here I try to introduce a more mundane topic. Lets try to understand Greedy Strategy of solving optimization problems. Unlike present times, days about 30-35 years back were hugely different. Unlike outsourced marriages and catering service and menu cards, we are witness to a time when hired cooks, called HALUIKARS would cook under a makeshift cover called SHAMIANA and the serving would be done by local youths, mostly boys from the local club, who would galdly serve once promised a full meal PET CHUKTA. These guys would be given a towel, a traditional Bengali GAMCHA each to tie around their waist so that the clothes would not be stained and went around the dining arar carrying trays, buckets, bowls or jugs serving food. There would be a specifi order in which items would appear and certain items would do more rounds than others, to kill consumption of more costlier dishes. All this would be orchetsrated under the watchful eyes of a senior pro who reported to some uncle or MESHOMOSHAI/PISHEMOSHAI/KAKABABU/MAMABABU of the household.
The problem however originated else where. The problem was that there were no menu cards. The problem was further augmented by the fact that I, personally was very fond of LUCHI and CHOLAR DAL. This luchi is what north Indians call puri but Bengalis disagree. For us a PURI has to have PUR inside and may be made of ATTA. But a LUCHI has to be made of MAIDA and dip fried in GAWA GHEE (so we thought) or DALDA. The CHOLAR DAL (Chana Dal) would be cooked thick with pieces of coconut and raisins and would taste a little sweet. For me, this used to be the best food man had invented and with clever manuevering of the serving guys and not having access to menu cards I would easily gulp down 12-15 luchis and sufficient dal, to not be in position for the main (so called) course.
My father, as all Bengali fathers thought I was a fool and would be unhappy with my choice. So one day he decided to sit with me at one such BIYE BARI (marriage ceremony). Normally he would not eat outside, being a diabetic, but took the task of training me. We have all heard stories of how much he could eat when he wasn’t a diabetic and how he had a fondness for mutton and fish and kathal (jack fruit) like all BANGALS (people from erst while EAST BENGAL and present Bangladesh). So on that fateful day, everytime the repeat serve of LUCHI and DAL came over to me, my father would give a scornful look to the guy serving and with a firm “NO”, put his hand across covering my KOLA PATA (Banana leaves where used as plates). So I had to wait and wait for the KOSHA MANGSHO (Mutton Curry) to arrive. However, as luck would have it, on that particular occassion, the mutton went undercooked and poor little me did not have enough jaw power to tear through the fibre. Result-now me scorning dad and waiting for the ROSOGOLLA.
There after I never waited for the so called high value dishes and would always emply my GREEDY STRATEGY of filling myself up with the LUCHI – CHOLAR DAL lest the MANGSHO fails. Well on some occassions the MANGSHO would be really great and there would be other stuff as well. But thats what happens when you apply GREEDY..you don’t always get OPTIMAL SOLUTION.