What Gohona Bori is, why it is only made in winter, how the residency works, and how to order.
What Gohona Bori is, where it comes from, and why it is only made in winter.
Gohona Bori — also called Naksha Bori — is a Bengali food art: lentil paste shaped by hand into jewellery. Lentils are soaked overnight, ground into a paste and seasoned. The paste is then piped by hand into patterns so fine they look like alpana drawn in relief. The shaped bori are set out in the winter sun to dry, then fried and eaten.
‘Gohona’ means jewellery. The name is literal. The patterns pressed into each piece are the same motifs a Bengali household would recognise from ornaments and from the alpana painted on a courtyard floor.
Nandalal Bose called them jewels found in the frangible box of Mother Bengal. Rabindranath Tagore was struck enough by the designs to have them preserved on the walls of Visva-Bharati.
In Purba Medinipur, Gohona Bori was once a status symbol. When a daughter married, her parents gave her Gohona Bori to carry with her to her new home.
In Purba Medinipur, West Bengal. The lentil it is made from, biuli’r dal, is grown in the fields here. The residency teaches it at Chauddhachuli, a village in the Khejuri II block of the district.
The batter needs cold air to rise properly while it is being whisked. The shaped bori need clear, mellow winter sun to dry to the right crispness and the right white. If the sky clouds over halfway through a day’s work, the batch is lost — soaked lentil paste cannot be stored and used later.
So it is made only between November and February, when the mornings here sit around 10–15°C.
No. It is made entirely by hand. The lentils are ground on sheel-nora, the traditional grinding stone. Purists say a blender changes the texture, and here we agree with the purists.
Not quite. Biuli’r dal is a local variant grown in Purba Medinipur fields. It is from the same family as urad dal, but prized here for its texture and finish.
Gohona Bori keeps for a year. Store it in a cool place, in sealed bottles or any closed container, and pack it loosely: the pieces are fragile.
There is one way: fry it lightly, just before serving.
How the two nights work, when they run, and what you take home.
Yes. That is the point. Over two nights you are guided by hand through soaking, grinding, shaping and drying, by curator Shimul Sarkar, his mother Shilpa Sarkar Maiti, who is the trainer, and a handful of local women. There is no syllabus and no certificate. There is a batch of lentils, a season, and people who know what they are doing.
Two nights. You arrive between 12 noon and 4 pm, and meet by 5 pm to settle in and put the dal in water to soak. The next day starts early: the dal is ground on sheel-nora, the batter is built in two stages, and the paste is shaped into patterns in the sun and left to dry. In the evening there is the village, and dinner at the Bastu. On the third day, after breakfast, the dried bori are packed and you leave between 10 am and 2 pm.
Arrive between 12 noon and 4 pm on the first day, and be at the meeting point by 5 pm to settle in and soak the dal. On the last day you leave between 10 am and 2 pm, after breakfast.
Everything they make, and more. Every bori you make over the two days goes back with you, packed for travel, and every guest also gets a complimentary set of Gohona Bori on top of it. You can buy more, subject to availability.
Only in winter. This season runs December 2026 to February 2027. The first session is 5–7 December 2026, then 19–21 December 2026, and every alternate weekend in January and February 2027 (check the dates page for the exact weekends).
3–4 families at most per session. Sessions are kept deliberately small — it is the only way everyone gets real hands-on time.
₹5,000 per participant on double occupancy, or ₹7,500 for single occupancy. Children under 13 come free. Room and food are included. Payment is 100% in advance, to Project Solitude LLP, and the advance is refunded in full if the organisers cancel a session.
Included: two nights’ stay at the Maiti Bastu with all meals (food and stay are included; the group orders from a fixed menu before arrival), all materials and ingredients, guidance throughout from the curators and the local women, everything you make, packed for travel, a complimentary set of Gohona Bori, and parking. Not included: travel to and from Chauddhachuli (pick-up from Tamluk or Kolkata can be arranged for a fee), and personal expenses.
The Bastu is at Chauddhachuli, Haludbari gram panchayat, Khejuri II block, Purba Medinipur, West Bengal 721432: about 150 km from Kolkata, an easy drive of around 3.5 hours. The nearest rail station is Tamluk.
Pick-up from Tamluk or Kolkata, and the drop back, can be arranged for a fee. Or make your own driving arrangements: parking is available at the Bastu.
No. No experience is needed.
The residency is for cooks and food writers, people who work with craft, Bengalis who grew up eating bori and never watched one being made, and anyone with the patience for a slow two days and the willingness to be bad at something in front of strangers. You are guided by hand throughout.
English and Bengali. You are taught by Shimul Sarkar, his mother Shilpa Sarkar Maiti, who is the trainer, and women from Chauddhachuli.
Yes to both. Children under 13 come free. If you come alone you have a room to yourself, at ₹7,500 for single occupancy (₹5,000 per participant when sharing). The enquiry form asks how many people are coming, so tell us there.
Where you sleep, what you eat, and what is around you.
At the Maiti Bastu in Chauddhachuli: a remote village property of a little over two acres, home to the same family for nine generations. The original mud house has given way to brick, but the trees, the ponds and the contours of the land are as they were.
There are three private rooms, each with a queen bed and an attached bathroom with running hot water, and one dormitory with three beds and a separate bathroom.
All meals are included, and dinner is at the Bastu. The group orders its meals from a fixed menu before arriving, so there is no cooking to do. Meals are thalis: one dal and two vegetable dishes, with a choice of egg, chicken or fish, and fritters on the side. Something special can be arranged with prior notice, limited to what the local market has. No pork, mutton or beef is served. Local staples worth trying include muri chola (puffed rice from the village mill with black gram), fritters made with whatever the farm has, pani puri, samosas, and fish from the Rasulpur river system nearby.
Yes. Chauddhachuli is a remote village, but the Bastu has continuous power, backed by an inverter, and a generator for long power cuts. All the main mobile networks work here (Vodafone Vi, Airtel and Jio all have towers nearby), and there is Wi-Fi from Alliance Broadband.
Days are mild, generally 23–27°C (73–81°F), and nights drop to around 12–16°C (54–61°F), occasionally lower in a cold spell. Skies are mostly clear, the air is drier than in the monsoon or summer, and gentle north and north-westerly breezes are common. The shaping is done outdoors in the sun, so bring light layers for the day and something warm for the evenings and early mornings.
The haat, the village market, sets up every Wednesday and Sunday. You can watch muri being made at a local puffed rice mill, sit by the pond, or go and see the ruins of what is said to be India’s oldest post office, twenty minutes away. The Rasulpur river is close, and so is the sea.
Nothing here is a scheduled excursion; ask the curators and they will point you in the right direction.
Buying Gohona Bori and pickles without coming to make them.
Gohona Bori is made from biuli’r dal — a local variant from the same family as urad, grown in fields here and prized for its texture — and seasoned with food-grade poppy seed. It is ground and battered entirely by hand.
Every batch carries a guarantee of 100% authentic ingredients, including food-grade poppy seed. Poppy seed is a base ingredient in this recipe and is expensive — around INR 2,200 per kg — and we do not substitute it.
Yes. A small quantity of Gohona Bori and pickles is made each winter, by the same women who teach the residency. Everything is sold on advance booking: you tell us what you want before the season, and we make it.
The whole process depends on winter: cold weather for the batter to rise, clear sun to dry the bori to the right crispness and colour. Production is only possible between November and February. You can register interest at any time of year and we will contact you before the window opens.
Not at the moment: there are no international orders for now. Orders go out in batches from mid-December 2026 to the end of February 2027. Gohona Bori is fragile, so it is delivered by hand within Kolkata only, packed in paper boxes. Pickles and other items travel safely by courier within India, in glass bottles.
Gohona Bori comes in packs of 30 pieces, at ₹1,500 a pack, and keeps for a year. The minimum order is one pack of 30; larger orders go up in batches of 30.
Pickles and other products (Kuler Achar, Aamsotto and Mishti Aamer Achar): pack sizes and prices are announced in February 2027, depending on availability over the coming year.
Who we are, and why we teach the craft rather than sell it.
Turiyo began working on Gohona Bori in November 2021. Today Turiyo Residency hosts the residency at the Maiti Bastu in Chauddhachuli, where the craft is taught by hand, and makes a small quantity to order each winter.
Yes. For the first stretch the plan was the obvious one: build a market, scale production, get the product into cities. Scaling the product meant compromising the craft, so we moved away from that. The shop is still there. It is not the business.
Keep the craft intact in its traditional form. Teach it to anyone genuinely interested in learning it. Let it survive on its own terms rather than on the terms commercialisation would impose on it.
With Turiyo Foods, which began in 2021 to revive handmade Gohona Bori, pickles and preserves while creating income for younger women in the village. Over fifty women from the local community took part, and outside experts were brought in to train and mentor them.
It is also personal. The founder, Sandip Maiti, grew up watching his mother and grandmother make Gohona Bori. When it became clear how few people were still making it, he set about salvaging the detail of the technique and persuaded family members to help pass it on.
Shimul Sarkar curates the residency and runs each session alongside his mother, Shilpa Sarkar Maiti, who is the trainer, and a small group of local women from Chauddhachuli, several of whom came through the Turiyo Foods programme.
We read every enquiry ourselves. Or, if you already know you would like to come, tell us who you are and when.
