Golden pumpkin flowers, red roselles, magenta eggplants, and various shades of green everywhere you look. At Kolkata’s Gariahat Bajaar, shaak maashis bring a variety of winter greens foraged from the outskirts of the city.
Some of my fondest childhood memories are anchored around the dining table on sunny winter afternoons. A heap of steaming hot rice with a dollop of Jharna ghee, fighting over the last kumro phool bhaja (pumpkin flower fritter), and my absolute favourite, simply prepared shaak (leafy greens), were all too frequent. Growing up in New Delhi in the 2000s, Chittaranjan Park—where a significant population of prabasi (diaspora) from Bengal live—sported a limited yet decent range of leafy green vegetables commonly found in West Bengal. I was familiar and smitten by a few: pui shaak, laal shaak, dheki shaak—Malabar spinach, red amaranth, fiddlehead fern.
During the years I lived in New Delhi—from the ages of two to 22—I’d hear my parents talk about the abundance of lush edible leaves and vegetables found in their hometown, Agartala. Upon visiting in the summers, I encountered the richness they spoke about; the variety found in New Delhi’s markets, however, paled in comparison.
My mother was raised near College Tila Lake, among Agartala’s immense flora. Identifying greens by both their scientific and Bengali names, and foraging for them, came naturally to her. A good cook, she made sure I had a diverse palate as she fed me the many greens we plucked—bileti dhonepata (culantro), khundrupui (chervil), demi shaak (Indian chickweed), the juiciest jackfruit—ranging from bitter, astringent, sour, and deeply savoury in flavour.
Upon moving to New York City to pursue my masters in 2021, my palate suffered with a deep craving for these flavours; American supermarkets only seemed to sell Malabar spinach that had lost all flavour, as if to compensate for the lack of diversity in their vegetables. Two years later, when I eventually settled in Kolkata, where my parents had moved, I pursued the greens I missed with an urgency.
Working at Sienna, a Kolkata-based restaurant showcasing traditional Bengali cuisine in creative ways, and attending their bajaar walks, allowed me to learn about the greens available in the city, how they changed as the seasons turned, and how I could bring them into my own kitchen. It is through these walks that I started visiting my local market, Gariahat Bajaar.
Situated in south Kolkata, the name is derived from the sum of ‘Garia’ (a nearby locality) and ‘Hat’ (a regular/weekly open-air market). The land was first acquired as a part of the Dihi Panchannagram, a cluster of villages bought by the East India Company in 1758. By the late 19th century, a small marketplace was established at the intersection of Gariahat Road and Rashbehari Avenue for the residents of Ballygunge, one of Kolkata’s most affluent neighbourhoods.
Gariahat Bajaar has grown organically, surrounded by trams, the introduction of the suburban railway in 1862, and the real-estate development of neighbourhoods into which the wealthy and educated Bengali class later moved. These areas included Hindustan Park, Southern Avenue and Dover Lane, creating a consumer base for the market that continues till date.
Towards the end of October and start of November, when there is a gentle nip in the autumn air and the skies are clearing up, winter produce starts appearing sporadically in the market. Last year, in 2025, when Kali Pujo had just taken place, all signs were beckoning towards the highly anticipated winter produce.
At 11 am on a weekday, one of the market’s many gates leads me straight to the first line of women selling these leafy greens—the shaak maashis. On tarps or a blanket of banana leaves, the shaak maashis have organised their produce in small piles. They are surrounded by a temple on one side, and more shops, the fish market, the butchers, and other parts of this ecosystem. The bajaar is at its best during the winters: it has a distinct smell of earth, and is lush with the most vibrant colours—golden pumpkin flowers, heaps of red roselles, magenta eggplants, various shades of green everywhere you look.
Shaak mashis are custodians of knowledge, not just of the produce they sell but also how to cook them, when they’re best eaten, and their benefits. In fact, they are often able to predict your dinner menu based on what you purchase.
Kajol maashi, one of the women regularly selling vegetables at Gariahat Bajaar, once advised me to buy red amaranth along with the eggplant I had already purchased. “Their tastes will complement each other,” she said. On her insistence I bought two bundles, since the red leaves shrink to give way to a small, slightly sweet portion when cooked.
I usually frequent Rekha di’s spread, whom I met when she was visiting her husband, Mrinal, who happened to be one of my colleagues when I worked at Sienna. At my weekly trip to the bajaar a few days later, Rekha di immediately recognised me; since then, I’ve often approached her with my shaak-related queries. “If you struggle with low blood pressure or need strength, buy some sojne pata (moringa leaves).” The more I went to her, the more I learnt about the various shaak, and the more curious I became about them.
On one winter morning in December 2025, my curiosity led me to Gariahat Bajaar at 3.30 am to meet Rekha di, who, to avoid the long travel home by train and subsequent journey back to the market, was staying the night at the bajaar.
During Kali Pujo, which usually takes place between October and November every year, Rekha di recommended consuming 14 types of shaak to strengthen your body post monsoon and cast away the spirits of choddo bhut (14 ghosts). While the 14 may vary from one household to another, they usually consist of palong (spinach), laal shaak (red amaranth), pui (Malabar spinach), kolmi (water spinach), methi (fenugreek) notey (green amaranth), shorshe pata (mustard leaves), thankuni pata (Indian pennywort), helencha (buffalo spinach), kulekhara, neem, pat shaak (jute leaf), and kochu shaak (colocasia leaves). Rekha di shares that such a wide variety of nutritious greens clears the blood and boosts immunity at the cusp of seasons when the body is most vulnerable.
The conversation about shaak and the essential nutrition they offer is not without context; these leaves can be traced to a history of immense scarcity. “These shaak are not meant to be cultivated and sold in the markets like they are now; for the longest time they had to be foraged,” Rekha di tells me.
The practice of foraging plays a key role in the history of Bengal, specifically the pre-Independence period, where foraging helped sustain families in an otherwise dearth of cultivated foods. During the Bengal Famine of 1943, the British empire’s Denial Policy snatched away more than 40,000 tons of rice from Bengali villages. That, coupled with seizure of boats, which were then burned, led to a devastating death toll of approximately three million people. Foraging has acted as supplemental nutrition, easing poverty and helping attain food security in dire times.
For the women foraging shaak and selling them for revenue, a part of this history continues. Rekha di and Kajol maashi, for example, live near the Sundarbans. The terrain, in the heart of the Ganga-Brahmaputra delta, consists mostly of low-lying wetlands with alluvial soil where wild edible plants grow aboundingly. In the absence of sufficient cultivated foods, foraging permitted one to put something nutritious on their plates. In that way, they tell me, the rich knowledge of foraging and wild food is relegated to those who have little land and income.
Today, even this access is restricted, and the landless in the surrounding regions are compelled to tend fields owned by zamindars in exchange for permission to forage for wild foods in the same land. Some of the greens are eaten, while many other bundles travel over a 100 kilometres by trains and trucks to reach wholesale markets in Kolkata.
On one winter morning in December 2025, my curiosity led me to Gariahat Bajaar at 3.30 am to meet Rekha di, who, to avoid the long travel home by train and subsequent journey back to the market, was staying the night at the bajaar. Rekha di had decided to take me to Kasba—a walkable distance from Gariahat—the wholesale market (or ‘haat’) she and many other Gariahat vendors source from. We crossed the railway tracks of the Ballygunge Junction to the platform where we sat down for a cup of tea, discussing our childhoods and the women we became because of it, before continuing on our journey.
In the absence of sufficient cultivated foods, foraging permitted one to put something nutritious on their plates. In that way, they tell me, the rich knowledge of foraging and wild food is relegated to those who have little land and income.
The haat, which sits from 2 am and wraps up by 6 am, is made by the sellers sitting in front of hills of produce, unlike the smaller piles in Gariahat Bajaar. Each one is only offering a few varieties of vegetables and greens in massive quantities that they too buy from larger haats, closer to their homes in different districts on the outskirts of Kolkata. From there, the seller may hire a van for ₹2,000-3,000 a trip and transport their purchases to the Kasba haat. After 6 am, when their workday ends, they will take the train back home.
Around this time of day, shaak maashis begin to make their way to wholesale markets to purchase produce for their stalls. Kaajol maashi visits a wholesale market in Baruipur at 4 am. She goes from stall to stall, picking what’s in demand—staples such as eggplants and cauliflowers, or seasonal produce like gourds and fruits in summers, greens in winters. At 6 am, she has already begun selling this procured produce at Gariahat Bajaar, making an average profit of ₹50 per kilogram of vegetables she sells. The operations behind these haats and bajaars make clear that it takes round-the-clock work to bring food to our markets and plates; vegetables prepared during the day in Kolkata journey trucks and hands all night to reach us.
After almost 60 years of selling at Gariahat Bajaar, Kajol maashi tells me that the most glaring change has been only recent: a drop in footfall due to the rise of online marketspaces. “The market is in a bad shape, there are no customers. Most of the people I see are those who have been buying their groceries from here everyday for the past 20-30 years—this is a part of their routine. However, there has been a fall in younger families buying their groceries,” she shares.
Rekha di, now 45 years old, has been working at Gariahat Bajaar since the age of nine, helping her mother set up the stall. She notices a similar trend. After our visit, she told me, “Let me know if there is a certain shaak you’d like. I can look for them back home and bring some for you.”
Rekha di doesn’t own any land herself, as is the case for many other vendors in the market. Her offer to go out in search of the greens I inquired about proves testament to how the shaak mashis, and the bajaar at large, treat you. While it is a place of business first, it’s also where you learn who makes up your neighbourhood, and the broader food system. At the Gariahat Bajaar, vendors will often offer to cut a particularly temperamental vegetable or fruit for me for no extra cost, recognising that I would likely struggle to cut it, and in their actions there is care. The more we choose to step out instead of opting for doorstep delivery, the bigger and more reliable our village becomes. Each time we choose to diversify our plates with local produce, our food system becomes all the more resilient for it.
Srishti Dasgupta Sensarma is a writer based out of Kolkata. Born in Agartala and raised in New Delhi, she has always been inquisitive about the power of food and its role in sociopolitical systems. A student of Philosophy and Economics from Miranda House, and Food Studies from New York University, she examines culture, economics, and policy through the lens of food systems.
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