• Enterprenure

Pabna Chatmohar's pumpkin pills are going outside the country

  • Enterprenure
  • 21 October, 2022 19:10:22

Photo: CNI

Tofajjal Hossain Babu, Pabna: Kheshari, anchor, chickpea, maskalai pulses are soaked for a few hours and after breaking them together, they are mixed with ripe rice pumpkin and made into a delicious winter food. Although winter has not yet come, many people in Chatmohar have already started making and marketing pumpkin pills. As it is delicious, foodies cook and eat various fish including shail, taki, fatasi, tengra and pumpkin pills. About hundred families from different areas of Chatmohar in Pabna are making and selling pumpkin pills for their livelihood. However, more pumpkin pills are made in Dolong Mohalla of Chatmohar town headquarters. Ferozur Rahman Fatik, a pumpkin pill maker of Dolong Mohalla, said, "We make and sell pumpkin pills for about six months of the year. Keshari, chickpea, anchor dal are soaked, washed, cleaned and broken together. After that, after waking up early in the morning, I knead them well with ripe pumpkin, fill them in a polythene packet, cut the bottom corner of the polythene to a size, and put the pills in an oily tin. When the pumpkin seeds harden in the sun, turn them over. After that shake every two or three hours so that all parts get the sun equally. If the sun is good, the pumpkin seeds will dry in two days. After drying, the male members of the house sell them in the neighboring Chatmohar Thana Bazar, Relbazar, Haripur, Katakhali, Khairash, Jonail and other local haat markets. They are buying anchor dal at Tk 65, Kheshari dal at Tk 70 and chick dal at Tk 85 per kg in the current market. Niranjan Bhowmik, another pumpkin pill trader, said that the prices of all types of pulses have increased compared to last year. Now they are selling khesari dal pills at 140 taka per kg, anchor dal pills at 120 taka and gram dal pills at 160 taka per kg. No one has yet started making mashkalai dal pills. As the price of ingredients increases, the buyer has to buy pumpkin pills at a higher price. Usha Rani Bhowmik, the wife of deceased Biru Bhowmik, said that there are many expenses in the family. So I make pumpkin pills without sitting. The boy sells them in the market. It brings some extra income. This extra income plays a helpful role in managing the family. When it rains in a village, the pills rot. Then we suffer a lot. Firozur Rahman Fatik's wife Jharna Begum said that besides local buyers, people from different parts of the country including Dhaka buy pumpkin pills. Even expatriates buy pumpkin pills when they come back to the country and go abroad. Chatmohar's pumpkin pills are now going beyond the borders of the country and abroad.

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