There can be no happier tiding for a Bengali than comes from a BCSIR Scientist's researches into that silver beauty, the hilsa. The hilsa is not only paramount to the Bengalee taste, its oil cuts at cholesterol, the chemical that helps human blood to coagulate. This is one dread word that haunts all that have crossed forty. Understandably, cholesterol is at the root of most cases of thrombosis, or an appointment with death.

This is not exactly an earth-shaking revelation. This was doing the rounds for quite some time in the medical and nutritionist circles as well as among the layman omnivores. Oil of all sea fishes cut down fat in the human body. The riverine fish oil doesn't do that trick. The difference comes from the sea fishes' feeding on planktons and other algae which are not available to the denizens of the rivers. The hilsa is a sea fish and, little wonder, its oil should help man, especially those of advancing years.

That is all to the good. But the hilsa offers something more. It is particularly rich in triglyceride which is almost a poison to the human body. Does T then cancel out the C benefits of hilsa. Or something of the good remains? Or the bad overwhelms thegood?

These and similar other questions are, however, futile, for hilsa, a species that used to be the most profuse among all fishes in Bengal, has become a rare bird accessible only to the affluent.