Rice has been more than just a staple in West Bengal. If there is one characteristic that defines — and unifies — the people of of the state, it has to be their love for rice. Nowhere is rice more an inspiration than here. The grain has inspired Bengali folklores, poetry, art, songs and literature; the region’s culture, idioms and common phrases. Bengali poets have, since ages, romanticized paddy fields, the wind that flows in waves over the golden ripe crop; its painters have painted it. Rice has been adopted in religious practices, the Goddess Lakshmi’s granary is full of the grain, and quasi-religious ornamental hanging are devised from grain-laden paddy twigs to celebrate the beginning of the harvesting season.

Great care has been taken to produce this volume

Each page has exquisite photographs from around West Bengal, as well as illustrated infographics representing the processes of rice cultivation. A similar book, probably, has never been produced. Excerpts from each chapter of the book are given below.

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