The Potol War of Ballygunge

It was a lazy Saturday afternoon in Ballygunge, Kolkata. The ceiling fan whirred in slow, resigned circles. The aroma of macher jhol (fish curry) drifted lazily from the kitchen. The world was at peace, or as peaceful as it could be in the Chatterjee household, home to two of the most unpredictable elements of nature:

Arjun (aged 11, elder brother, professional drama king) and Tuli (aged 8, younger sister, part-time troublemaker, full-time chaos engineer).

Their parents, Mr. and Mrs. Chatterjee, had mastered the art of ignoring small explosions between their children. After all, if one didn’t learn to ignore mild shrieks, accusations, and door-slamming, one couldn’t survive parenthood in Kolkata.

But that afternoon was destined to be different.

 

Mr. Chatterjee sat on the couch, spectacles sliding down his nose, eyes fixed on his office laptop. He was a man of gentle temperament, the sort who took five minutes to process a question and another five to give a diplomatic answer. Mrs. Chatterjee was folding clothes beside him, humming a Rabindra Sangeet under her breath. All was calm.

Then came The Cry.

A piercing wail from the corridor, followed by the thunder of small feet.

“Maaaaa!”

Tuli burst into the living room, eyes glistening, face scrunched up, one sock missing, a sure sign of a domestic disaster.

“What happened, shona?” Mrs. Chatterjee asked, alarmed.

“Bhaaiiiii hit me!” she declared, pointing toward the corridor with the accusing authority of a High Court judge.

Mr. Chatterjee didn’t look up. “Hmm,” he said, typing something. “Maybe he was just expressing love in a… kinetic way?”

“Arre!” Mrs. Chatterjee swatted him with a towel. “You and your jokes! Arjun!”

No answer.

“ARJUN CHATTERJEE!” she thundered, her volume now capable of shaking the glass windows.

From the bedroom, came a slow shuffle of feet. Arjun appeared, shoulders slouched, eyes rolling like a prisoner on trial.

“What did you do to your sister?”

He stared at the floor. Silence.

“Bolo!”

After ten seconds, he muttered, “She said a bad word.”

Mrs. Chatterjee froze mid-fold. Mr. Chatterjee looked up at that.

“A bad word?” she asked carefully.

Arjun nodded, eyes wide with injury.

“Which word?”

Tuli sniffed dramatically. “I didn’t say anything bad!”

“Then what did you say?” Mrs. Chatterjee asked, trying to sound stern.

“I just said… bhaai is a potol (Pointed Gourd).”

 

There was a moment of stunned silence.

“A potol?” Mrs. Chatterjee repeated.

“Yes,” Tuli said, arms crossed. “A potol.”

Mr. Chatterjee blinked twice. He wasn’t sure if he had heard right.

“You mean… potol?”

“Yes! Potol!”

Now both parents were struggling. The edges of Mr. Chatterjee’s lips were twitching. Mrs. Chatterjee looked like she might explode into giggles.

Mr. Chatterjee, now sitting straight with the laptop beside him, cleared his throat. “Arjun… that’s it? That’s the bad word?”

Arjun glared. “You don’t understand, Baba. She knows I HATE potol! I told her never to say that word near me!”

Mrs. Chatterjee couldn’t hold it anymore. She burst out laughing. “Oh, Arjun! That’s not a bad word, shona! It’s just a vegetable!”

“No, it’s not just a vegetable,” he said with tragic seriousness. “It’s slimy. It’s green. It’s… evil.”

Tuli, sensing parental support, puffed up like a victorious rooster. “See! I didn’t say anything bad!”

Arjun’s eyes narrowed. “You did it intentionally! You provoked me!”

“How?” she said innocently. “I was just comparing!”

“Comparing WHAT?”

“Well,” she said, eyes twinkling with mischief, “potol is thin, long, and useless. Like you.”

Mr. Chatterjee choked on his tea.

 

For the next few minutes, the living room was a battleground.

Arjun insisted that the insult was psychological warfare.
Tuli claimed creative freedom.
Mrs. Chatterjee was trying to mediate while wiping tears of laughter.
Mr. Chatterjee was pretending to be serious but failing miserably.

Finally, Mrs. Chatterjee declared, “Enough! Arjun, apologize for hitting. Tuli, apologize for… vegetable abuse.”

“Vegetable abuse?” Arjun gasped. “That’s not even a thing!”

“It is now,” his mother said.

Tuli giggled. “Sorry, bhaai. You’re not a parwal. You’re a... lau maybe.”

“Lau!” Arjun shouted. “That’s WORSE!”

Mr. Chatterjee gave up all pretense of maturity and began laughing so hard his laptop nearly fell off the couch. “Lau! My son the lau rajkumar!”

Arjun groaned. “You people don’t understand trauma.”

 

That night, Arjun plotted revenge. No physical violence, he was above that now. He would strike with intelligence.

The next morning, as Tuli got ready for school, she opened her tiffin box. Inside, neatly packed, were two pieces of potol bhaja and a note that said:

“For the Potol Rani.
From: The Lauer Raja.”

Her scream could be heard across Ballygunge.

Mrs. Chatterjee nearly dropped her cup of tea. “Arjun!”

He appeared in the doorway, eating a banana, wearing the calm smile of a man who’d achieved justice. “Yes, Ma?”

Tuli stomped her foot. “He put potol in my tiffin!”

Mrs. Chatterjee folded her arms. “Arjun, why?”

“She called me potol. I call her Potol Rani. It’s poetic symmetry.”

Mr. Chatterjee, from behind the newspaper, murmured, “Very Rabindrik.”

 

The Chatterjees’ maid, Bimala, arrived just in time to hear Tuli’s complaints.

“What happened, boudi?” she asked Mrs. Chatterjee.

Before Ma could answer, Tuli declared dramatically, “Bimala, my brother is evil! He made me eat potol!”

Bimala gasped. “Ayy baba! Potol? That’s good vegetable, baba! Very healthy for stomach!”

Arjun folded his arms smugly. “See, even Bimala supports me.”

Tuli turned to her mother. “Ma! See how everyone is against me!”

Bimala added helpfully, “When I was small, my brother also hit me. But I gave him one tight slap!”

Mrs. Chatterjee quickly intervened. “No slapping in this house, Bimala!”

Bimala sighed dramatically. “Then what to do? These brothers, I tell you…”

By evening, half the neighborhood knew about “the potol fight of the Chatterjees.”
Mrs. Ghosh from next door even came by with a plate of mishti, saying, “I heard your son doesn’t like potol! You must try my potol dolma recipe, guaranteed to convert anyone!”

Arjun hid behind the sofa.

 

Two days later, the tension had cooled down. Arjun and Tuli weren’t talking, an unspoken Cold War. But that evening, something changed.

Mrs. Chatterjee was out shopping, and Mr. Chatterjee was napping with his laptop open on his stomach.

Tuli sat in the balcony, sulking. A sudden gust of wind blew one of her drawings off the table, straight into the courtyard below. She groaned.

Arjun, watching from the window, sighed. He’d promised Ma not to fight anymore. So, like a reluctant hero, he went downstairs, retrieved the paper, and handed it back to her.

“Here,” he said.

She blinked. “You got it back?”

“Yeah. Don’t mention it.”

There was a pause. Then, a small smile. “Thanks, bhaai.”

He smiled back. “Just don’t call me potol again.”

She grinned wickedly. “Fine. You’re begun (brinjal).”

He raised an eyebrow. “Begun?”

“Because you turn purple when you’re angry.”

He groaned, but this time, he laughed too. “Okay, fine. Then you’re lonka (chilli), small, sharp, and always causing pain.”

They both burst out laughing.

 

That night, Mrs. Chatterjee overheard them giggling from their room. She smiled, relieved that peace had returned.

But peace is temporary in any Bengali household.

The next morning, when she went to make breakfast, she found the refrigerator door covered with sticky notes.

On each note, a vegetable name was written with dramatic flair:

“Brinjal King sleeps here.”

“Beware of the Parwal Princess.”

“Vegetable War Zone – Enter at Your Own Risk.”

 

She sighed and looked up at the ceiling. “Bhogoban, shokti dao” (“Bhagwan, give me strength.”)

Mr. Chatterjee, coming in with his tea, read the notes and burst out laughing. “Ah, creativity runs in the family.”

“Creativity will run out when I make lau chingri tonight,” she muttered.

At that exact moment, both kids screamed from their room, “NOOOOOOO!”

 

That evening, at dinner, the Chatterjees declared a Vegetable Peace Treaty.

Arjun promised to eat one potol without complaint every Sunday.
Tuli promised to never use vegetable insults again (except on alternate Fridays).

Mr. Chatterjee promised to record all future family disputes for “research.”
Mrs. Chatterjee promised to never laugh too loudly when her children behaved like cartoon characters.

As the family ate dinner, laughter echoed through the flat.

Tuli looked up at her brother and said, “You know, bhaai, maybe potol isn’t that bad.”

He gave her a mock suspicious look. “You’re trying to trick me again.”

She smirked. “Maybe.”

He grinned. “Then it’s war again.”

And just like that, the Parwal War of Ballygunge resumed, with laughter, mischief, and a little bit of love that only siblings can understand.