Chapter 1

Introduction

Rice, the seeds of a common wild grass growing in the humid Yangtze river basin in China many thousand years ago, now feeds an astonishing 3.5 billion human beings worldwide. A major part of Asia depends on rice as staple, while other parts of the world are quickly picking up the grain as a delicacy. Demand for rice is growing at the fastest pace in continents like Africa and South America, like it is growing in Asia, where its consumption has always been the heaviest. But rice is more than just a staple: it has ignited the imagination of humans in many more ways than that. Like 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.

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