You folks may not be aware of it but 1992 was a life-changing, monumental year for all of us Bengalis living abroad. Before 1992, we were merely another group of NRI’s - trudging along, making money, raising kids, disagreeing with spouses and such.
Then came 1992, and a golden opportunity opened up to transform ourselves from a group of mere generic NRI’s to a cackle of the happiest people in the entire universe!
Now that you are totally clueless about this, let’s give you a little background.
The Japanese, who eat tons of sushi, were always obsessed about freshness of their fish. They are the ones that developed the technique of flash-freezing fish right on the fishing boats. Frozen instantly, the fish retain their original taste.
Our friends in Bangladesh adopted this technology and decided to start selling flash-frozen Illish and other delicious fish. The premiere was in 1992, in a handful of selected big cities in America.
We lived in a little town about five hundred miles south of Chicago.
As the Bangladeshis embarked on this monumental fishy endeavor, the local press, the national press, and world press totally ignored them.
Fortunately for us, a little blurb appeared in India abroad, read by a few, and resulted in an avalanche of excitement throughout North America. Saliva drooled from our lips as we picked up the phone.
“Boleesh ki? Paddar illish? Sottee? Tatka? Yaarki koreesh na!
Liberally translated, this was one Bengali exclaiming to another “ Really, fresh illish from Padma (Ganga becomes Padma in Bangladesh), are you serious?”
We had a great plan. Four of us left at 6 am on a Saturday morning, intending to drive continuously by taking turns. We will arrive at Chicago at around 6 pm or so, pack our cooler with a ton of frozen illish and drive back continuously, getting back sometime Sunday morning. The cooler was packed with high-tech “lab ice” –it would keep the fish frozen for many hours.
Like any sound plan, things went wrong. The van broke down in the middle of nowhere. By the time it was fixed, it was around 8 pm Saturday evening. We figured we would continue driving to Chicago, getting there around 8:30 or so in the morning.
We got to the Devon Street area in Chicago around 5 am in the morning, much earlier, partly because of our miscalculation and partly because there was very little traffic on Chicago highways during early morning. It was still pitch dark.
The store opened at 9 am.
There was no point going to a motel for four hours. Some restaurants appeared to be open for breakfast. But we could not possibly spend four hours in a restaurant.
Binoy suggested that we go to three separate restaurants, and spend about an hour at each of them, and then wait in front of the store until it opens. His suggestion was summarily dismissed as childish and needlessly expensive.
At Chinmoy’s suggestion, we found a half-empty parking lot right next to a gas station close to Devon street, parked our van and promptly fell asleep.
This was a very bad idea..
I woke up, startled at a clicking noise. As I opened my eyes, there was this barrel of a gun pointed at my face. Just like in the movies! Except this was a real gun and I was not watching TV!
A harsh voice announced crisply
“Put your hands up and slowly walk out of the vehicle , now, please”.
There were six cops with their guns pointed at our heads, and a snarling German Shepherd dog. I have never been so scared in my life. They immediately separated us and started asking questions.
Of course, we perfectly fit the profile of drug dealers, making deliveries in the early morning hours.
I was the lucky one. I got to sit in the passenger seat of the police car with the dog. The bitch (excuse my profanity, she was one) was fortunately separated from us, behind heavy steel mesh in the back seat. The cop politely questioned me for about twenty minutes. Every five minutes, he will leave the vehicle to confer with his colleagues. At that point, the b**ch would start howling at the top her voice, her paws on the mesh, her saliva hitting my body. I could see her fangs and smell canine morning breath. Only the very durable steel mesh saved my life that day!.
Then the cop would return, politely tell the dog, “Shut up, Susan”, and Susan would immediately pretend to fall asleep. Questioning by the cop will resume again, followed by another round of vicious barking. The cycle repeated itself three or four times. Susan was the wrong name for her, of course. Cujo (or Saalee) fit her a lot better.
The cops absolutely refused to believe that we came from five hundred miles away to buy fish (and I kind of don’t blame them).
They questioned us about our past and present, , searched our van from top to bottom, patted us down, searched our personal items, checked our ID’s, crosschecked our ID”S with their office computers, and finally, disdainfully, let us go.
One of them contemptuously told us at the end “Sir, this was not a very smart thing to do. You could have been robbed by local criminals, or assaulted or even killed by real drug dealers. You are lucky that we spotted you first. Next time you come to buy fish here, please arrive during normal business hours.”
No kidding!
There were still two hours left before the store opened. We went to a breakfast place, and crashed with our shaken bodies and souls. Fortunately none of us needed to change our underpants, although I came pretty close owing to my encounter with lovely Susan .
The drive back was routine. I did my three hours of driving first and then went to the back seat, fell asleep soundly, hugging the cooler full of fish.
No, we were not selfish. Everyone was invited to the ensuing illish-fest, where Jhal, jhol, mustard-illish, sour-illish, steamed illish and even fried illish roe flowed freely. (If are not a Bengali, wondering what these are, you could probably find pics on the internet!) And we had a story to tell as well.
In a couple of years, almost all Indian stores started carrying illish and other fish in their freezer. Today, no matter where you are in America, you can get this stuff pretty easy.
But we were the pioneers! We beat everyone else by two years!
I still wake up at night dreaming about Susan, though. Can’t get her out of my mind!
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