Madanmohan's dairy: Eight decades on, the taste never gets old

Boiled milk is kept inside a jug-shaped earthen pot. Then it is twisted with a rope with a bamboo head inserted inside. The bamboo is tied to a strong pole so that it does not fall. 

Dugdhamanhar, the traditional way of making butter from milk, is still practised in a small shop in Enayet Bazar area of Chittagong city.

This method of butter making is nearly extinct in the country nowadays even though it was  common in rural Bangladesh a few decades ago. However, the shabby shop in Chittagong has maintained the Dugdhamanhar method for more than eight decades.

Local businessman Madanmohan Das's shop still sells the traditionally made butter, matha (buttermilk) and yogurt. Even after Madanmohan died, his successors have held fast to the business and successfully maintained the same old taste and tradition in the bustling city.

The 200-square feet shop is crowded throughout the day because of that old taste. The store's reputation for curd-beaten rice, butter-bread, matha and sour curds still lives on. Every day, people come from far and wide to eat or buy these ingredients.

Abdur Rahim, a CNG auto-rickshaw driver in the city while sitting at a shop, recently told The Business Standard, "I have been eating beaten rice, curd and matha from here since 1994 after I came to Chattogram city from my village home in Barishal in 1991. The taste is still intact."

Employees of the shop said 60-70kg of milk is brought every morning to extract butter from it. The rest of the milk is turned into matha.

They said 50 grams of matha is obtained from 1kg of milk. The process of curd-making starts the previous night.

Three to three and a half kg of butter is extracted per day. Sometimes it comes down to two kg or even one and a half kg. The butter, which costs Tk1,800 per kg, is sold out by 4:30pm.

Bread layered with butter also sells at the shop starting from Tk90 to Tk400 depending on the size of the bread. Matha and sour curd also sell at Tk100 per kg. And each glass sells at Tk25. And curd-beaten rice sells at Tk35 per bowl. Jaggery is added instead of sugar in curd and curd, which adds to the shop's reputation.

An unknown beginning

It is not known exactly when Madanmohan Das' shop was opened. It is said the journey of the shop started more than eight decades ago. Madan Mohan Das said in an interview with Chattogram regional newspaper Dainik Azadi in 2006 that he did not know when the shop started.

In that interview, he said his house is in Kachua village of Patiya upazila of Chattogram. He came to Chattogram after completing matriculation from the local Nalinikant Memorial Institute in 1956.

He used to come to the city by early morning train to run the shop and return home to Patia by late night train. The intersection of Enayet Bazar on Jubilee Road was called Badam Tal. The area was an open field then. 

Mostly Biharis and Pakistanis had lived there. Madan's matha and butter were very popular among them. Madan Mohan died on 30 July 2014, leaving behind three daughters and a son.

Before his death, his son Sanjay Das took over the business from 1994.

"I have taken the helm of the shop out of deep respect for my father. It will depend on their decision whether the next generation will catch up," Sanjay, a graduate in chemistry, told TBS.

Clay pots and ancient cash box

The shop still preserves the decades-old wooden cash box and the clay pots used for butter making.   

Asked about the briefcase-shaped carved cash box, Sanjay Das could not remember when the box came to their shop.

"It was probably brought from Myanmar during the British period. Such carved boxes used to come from Rakhine, Burma at that time. I have been seeing this cash box since my childhood." Sanjay said.

The earthen pot used to make butter is locally called Siu, which also used to come from the then Burma. Once upon a time, people used to walk around the village with such a pot on their shoulders to sell matha.

Currently there is only one such pot in the store, which is also 30-40 years old.

Sale in earthen pot, Palash leaves lost

Another specialty of Madanmohan's shop was the sale of curd and matha in clay pots, and butter in wrapped Palash leaves. Those have also been lost in the passage of time.

As a result of the abolition of Kumar Para, the price of earthen pots increased and the business resorted to polythene after 2000. The availability of Palash leaves stopped during the corona epidemic.

The shop does not take orders beyond its capacity. Its daily sale stands at Tk8,000 to Tk10,000.