On a sticky morning in the eastern Indian city of Kolkata, Koustav Bagchi moves from door to door in a crisp white and red traditional attire, a fish in hand.
Drums thud behind him as supporters chant his name. A lawyer-turned-politician and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)'s candidate from Barrackpore in the upcoming West Bengal assembly elections, Bagchi is banking on the piscine prop to do the quiet work of persuasion.
There are no speeches about policy - just a visual cue: I am one of you.
A few kilometres away in Kolkata's port area, another BJP candidate, Rakesh Singh, stages a similar spectacle. Dressed for effect and flanked by party workers, he hoists a fish repeatedly as he moves through early-morning crowds, taking on the city's mayor Firhad Hakim in one of the state's high-profile contests.
In Bengal, fish is more than food - it is the bloodstream of the cuisine, woven into memory, ritual and everyday life, a marker of both identity and belonging.
