‘Maachey, bhaatey Bangali’: A timeless rendezvous between the Bengali and their beloved fish

This deep-rooted affinity flows from the land itself. The great rivers (the Ganga, Padma, Meghna, Brahmaputra, Damodar, Ajoy, Tista and Karnaphuli) have long teemed with life.

As culinary historian Pritha Sen notes in her interview with The Indian Express, “The term ‘maachey bhaatey Bangali’ (one who is replete with fish and rice) answers the question ‘Who is a Bengali?’ at once establishing identity.”

“The region that was undivided Bengal…is shaped by the Ganga (Hooghly), Padma, Meghna, and Brahmaputra rivers…These waters, rich in biodiversity, support over 500 fish species, making fish an abundant and widely accessible food source across social groups.”

From everyday rui, prized for its delicate sweetness, to favourites like katla, mrigel, aar, boal, chital, bhola bhekti, and shol, and smaller varieties such as koi, pabda, topshe and tilapia, fish defines the Bengali plate.

Today, however, the humble rui has leapt from kitchen to campaign trail.

Fish in texts, art and memory 

Fishing in India dates back to antiquity. Fish hooks rank among the earliest prehistoric artefacts found in the subcontinent; fish appear on Harappan pottery and in early texts. The Rig Veda refers to nets and those who use them, while the Arthashastra shows a well-developed fishery economy — fishermen and their catch were taxed, and fish even served as agricultural manure. The Vajasaneyi Samhita and the Tattiriya Brahmana list communities dependent on fishing.

Yet, as anthropologist Tarak Chandra Das observes, cited by Peter Reeves in his article The Cultural Significance of Fish in India (2003), while fish, fishing methods, and fishermen appear in both early and later Vedic literature, it is striking that fish is not mentioned even once as an article of food.

Bengal, however, charts a different course. Das notes that Bengalis “utilise fish to a greater extent than the inhabitants of any other part of India.”

Historian Nihar Ranjan Ray, in Bangalir Itihash (1949), points to terracotta panels from Buddhist viharas in Paharpur and Moinamoti (in present-day Bangladesh), dating to the Pala and Sena periods (8th–11th centuries), which depict fish being cut, cleaned, and carried in woven baskets.

A Jamini Roy painting depicting two cats holding a prawn (Wikimedia Commons)

Highlighting the continuity, Sen says: “As early as the 8th century, Apabhramsha texts (a precursor to Bengali) describe an ideal meal of cow milk ghee, small-grain rice, jute leaf mash, and fried small fish, underscoring fish as central to everyday sustenance.”

“Nothing can be a greater testimonial to the continuity of food preference than to see the subsequent depiction of fish in folk art down the years,” writes Chitrita Banerji in Life & Food in Bengal (2005). Nineteenth-century Kalighat pats teem with fishy scenes—fisherwomen in markets, babus carrying their purchases.

“The fish motif also permeates artistic expression,” notes Sen, “appearing in alpana floor art, kantha embroidery, handwoven textiles, terracotta temple reliefs, traditional jewellery, and culinary forms such as goyna bori and sweets like sandesh. Folk songs and literary traditions similarly celebrate regional fish varieties, reinforcing their emotional and cultural resonance.”

A fish trait-complex

“In Hindu tradition,” says Sen, “Vishnu’s Matsya avatar associates fish with creation and fertility, elevating it to an auspicious symbol in ritual life. Accordingly, fish features across the life cycle—from shaad (prenatal rites, where a fish head symbolises fertility), to annaprashan (first solid food), marriage exchanges (decorated fish symbolising union and prosperity), and shraddha or funerary rites. After death, a period of 11–13 days of simple sattvic food is observed; after which matsyamukhi (imbibing fish) marks reintegration into normal life through the reintroduction of fish.”

Das described this as a “fish trait-complex,” capturing the pervasive role of fish in domestic and ritual life in Bengal. In weddings, fish is central: it is exchanged between the bride’s and groom’s families, sent as part of pre-wedding gifts, and often presented whole on the day itself. In some traditions, the bride enters her new home carrying a fish tied to her left hand, symbolising her arrival as a harbinger of prosperity.

Rituals around birth echo this symbolism. During shaadh, the Bengali baby shower, the expectant mother is served her desired foods, with rice and fish considered essential. At annaprashan, or mukhe bhaat, a child’s first intake of solid food, rice and fish again marks the occasion. Fish also features in offerings during adya shraddha for the recently deceased and abhyudhayika shraddha for ancestors, signifying continuity and safe passage.

Beyond the household, fish extend into the sacred sphere. It is offered to deities across festivals, particularly in goddess worship; in some regions, hilsa is placed before the goddess. Even during Durga Puja in Ashwin (September–October), fish is woven into ritual practice.

Fish and sweets at a Bengali wedding (Wikipedia)

“Fishing practices are also shaped by ecological rhythms embedded in ritual calendars. During Durga Puja and Lakshmi Puja, many families, especially those with East Bengali roots, offer a pair of hilsa (male and female), marking the close of the hilsa fishing season. This reflects an ecological logic that allows the fish to migrate, spawn, and replenish stocks before fishing resumes from Basant Panchami, when a pair of hilsa are again offered to Goddess Saraswati,” Sen explains.

Some practices reveal deeply personal beliefs. In parts of the Dhaka district of Bangladesh, women who suffered repeated infant loss performed a ritual of catching a small fish, daubing its forehead with vermilion, and setting it free, believing this would ensure the survival of future children.

Across these varied contexts — birth, marriage, worship, and death — fish signifies fertility, prosperity, resilience, and continuity, even guiding the departed toward a safe passage. It is this layered symbolic life that led Das to coin the term “fish trait-complex.”

Brahmins and the fish question

Perhaps it is these many-layered roles that explain why many Bengali Brahmins also consume fish.

“Brahmin communities, who settled in Bengal relatively later under dynasties such as the Senas, adapted to local foodways but often restricted consumption to fish with scales in line with notions of ritual purity,” As Sen notes.

In Bengali Culture: Over a Thousand Years (2018), Ghulam Murshid traces this accommodation further back. He notes that in the 10th or 11th century, the scholar Bhabadeb Bhatta argued in favour of fish consumption, assembling scriptural support. “Fish has also been praised in the Brihadhdharmapuran. This text said that Brahmins could eat the rohu (rui in Bengali), the swamp barb (punti), the snakehead murrel (shoul), and other white and scaly fish.”

The fish-loving British

As Kanjilal notes in her work, years of living in Bengal made even the British deeply fond of fish. The topshe maachh was dubbed “mango fish” because it bred in rivers during the mango season. British Major Harry Hobbs described it as “a fish of great delicacy of flavour, slightly larger than a sardine, but smaller than a herring.”

Kanjilal also cites R G Wallace, who eulogised it: “Perhaps there is not in the world a greater delicacy than the mango fish of the Hooghly, which is as beautiful to the eye as it is delightful to the taste.”

In the weekly newspaper Hicky’s Bengal Gazette, Kanjilal notes, “The authors mention that at meetings held in the late eighteenth century in Calcutta, the eating of mango fish was a priority on the agenda.”

A fish market in Bengal (Wikimedia Commons)

Fish also featured prominently in colonial diets. In a 2009 article Nation on a Platter, Jayanta Sengupta cites John Beames’ account of an Anglo-Indian official’s meals in the late 19th and early 20th centuries: “Our chota haziri, or little breakfast, was at five-thirty to six, and consisted of tea, eggs boiled or poached, toast and fruit… Breakfast at eleven consisted of fried or broiled fish, a dish or two of meat—generally fowl cutlets, hashes and stews, or cold meat and salad, followed by curry and rice and dessert.”

So pervasive was this culinary preference that reports from just before and after the First World War suggest that more than 80 per cent of the population were fish eaters.

A fishy rivalry

The partition of Bengal created two cultural strands: those from West Bengal came to be known as Ghotis, while migrants from East Bengal were called Bangals.

As Chitrita Banerji notes in The Hour of the Goddess (2006), this divide has long played out in a spirited culinary rivalry, especially over hilsa. Bengalis revere ilish, or hilsa, as the “queen of fish,” yet debates persist over whether the Padma’s hilsa (in present-day Bangladesh) surpasses that of the Ganga in West Bengal.

The argument, she suggests, is almost eternal. “Cooking styles have also been the source of friendly rivalry.”

Rice and hilsa fish fry (Wikipedia)

Kanjilal adds in her book, “Unlike the Bangals, the Ghotis fry the fish pieces that have been coated with salt and turmeric before adding them to the curry. Traditional Bangals frown upon this practice because they feel it ruins the flavour of the fish…”

What remains beyond dispute is the Bengali devotion to fish.

Citing an undated folk poem, Sen concludes her interview: “The village celebrates the return of the estuarine topshe machh as it swims upstream into fresh water, heralded by conch shells and bells, and the poet pledges to offer it to the gods, even at the cost of his home.”