An Indian dhaba: The complete food
experience By Siddharth Srivastava
NEW DELHI - In India there is every kind of
restaurant anyone could ask for. McDonald's may have
taken root and is spreading across the country, but
nothing beats the dhaba experience.
Until
recently, I lived at Chanakyapuri, which is the
diplomatic area of New Delhi - the capital of India and
the same locality in which US Ambassador to India Dr
David Mulford and Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari
Vajpayee both reside.
Tucked a couple of
kilometers away from this high-security area is a
popular dhaba called the Rajinder da Dhaba, the
da in the dhaba a derivation from the
local dialect Punjabi, meaning that the dhaba
belongs to Rajinder.
The dhaba is now run
by Rajinder's two ample sons, their dimensions a result
of the enormous amounts of free chicken curry they
consumed during childhood, courtesy of their father's
dhaba. Dhabas such as Rajinder number several
thousands and can be found all over India, along the
highways, in little crooks and crannies of big cities
and metros, as they do not take up much space while
giving good returns to the minimal investment.
Beat cops and municipal authorities have to be
kept well oiled and happy by the owners, but they come
cheap. Sometimes, even a meal a day suffices.
Traditionally, dhabas are meant for tired
truck drivers looking for a break from their long
journeys, alongside highways. They offer cheap food,
music, an open-air television and a charpoy - a
bed with a wooden structure knitted with jute strings -
which is a tad uncomfortable but has the best
ventilation given the summer temperatures and erratic
power situation here.
Some of the popular
dhabas along the highways also provide girls who
sing, dance and offer more of which is illegal, but
still a flourishing trade.
However, over time
dhabas have come to define a culture, centered on
food - any aphrodisiac pales in comparison to this
ultimate turn-on: a blob of leg in a bowl of curry and
butter, tandoori rotis, a preparation of wheat
resembling pancakes on a sheet of newspaper, onions
sprinkled with pungent syrup and a liberal dose of
Indian masala (spices) - everything that goes
against the spirit of new-age health gurus. The
government of Punjab, one of the wealthier states of
India, lists dhabas as an attraction worth a try
by tourists, except that many a foreign visitor has gone
away clutching his/her stomach, given the heavy dose of
masala and mustard oil. But dhaba food can
get no more Indian. Also, social barriers do not matter
here.
The crowd at Chanakyapuri where I lived,
despite backgrounds where hygiene is a very important
consideration, were regulars at the Rajinder
dhaba for years.
I took a friend. I don't
form a general opinion based on a single episode, but my
advice is that a dhaba is not the best place to
bring a date. Seema found the atmosphere a bit
overwhelming. She, if I may take the liberty, belonged
to the classes - not the masses.
To begin with,
a comment on the ambience of the Rajinder dhaba,
which like most others includes buzzing flies, grime,
lingering muscular dogs, an envelopment of fumes spewed
by the traffic whizzing close by. The eating area is
limited to a few rusted wrought-iron tables, fixed to
the ground to prevent people hitting each other. The
rest is open sky and the charred interiors of the
tandoor, a huge clay stove filled with charcoal
to roast the meat or prepare the rotis.
I grew
up eating at dhabas, but Seema obviously had
finer tastes. When we arrived at the Rajinder
dhaba, everybody stared at her as they would if
an alien had descended from a UFO. There were a couple
of sari-clad women present, perhaps wives of laborers
from a construction site in the vicinity, but it is a
tradition in the dhabas to stare at anything that
arrives in a short skirt. It is allowed.
A guy
farted loudly, just after finishing his meal. I heard
her say "Oh god" under her breath. "Should we leave?"
she asked.
"Just taste the food, taste the food
and see for yourself, forget about anything else," I
insisted.
The Rajinder dhaba, as during
any other evening, was bustling with people of every
hue. So was the no-holds-barred passion of gorging
chicken. Opel Astras and scooters, Cielos and
motorcycles, truck drivers, bureaucrats and Indian
diplomats who might have interacted with Mulford earlier
in the evening, daily-wage laborers and businessmen, all
jostled for the limited space to wend their way for
their piece of chicken leg or breast at Rs25 (56 US
cents) a plate, delivered in white earthen saucers, the
price being the same for years despite double-digit
inflation.
There are no etiquettes, it is an
unlimited use of fingers and palms, no spoons, one is
only expected to burp loudly, an act that draws the
stray dogs who expect you to leave, depositing the
remnants with them. Sleeves rolled, noses running, heads
bent, fingers dipped in gravy, well-heeled gentlemen
stood alongside others wearing almost nothing. The burps
formed a long spray of fog that hung in the air for a
while as it was winter; some washed up at a running tap
in a corner, others wiped their hands on their pants and
left, to chauffeur-driven Cielos or the bus stop.
We chose a relatively empty table. I could
almost witness images of an upmarket restaurant passing
through Seema's brain, even as her expression changed
from bad to worse. I went off to fetch a plate of curry
as she reluctantly agreed to take a couple of bites
only. From the short distance away, I watched a burly
man built like a tank settle his plate next to her and
proceed to devour his food feverishly.
The
chicken was scoured to the minimum, lips gnarled in
every direction, the bones cracked open and marrow
licked clean. Even hungry hyenas in National Geographic
in a drought couldn't be as intense as this guy.
To add to her woes, the man was a sadist. He
seemed a regular and guessed that the girl (it could be
any girl) was in some discomfort. Observing her skirt,
he embarked on a loud conversation, with nobody in
particular but everybody around, who seemed to be
familiar with his presence.
Laden with Hindi
expletives that sound much more obscene than their
English counterparts, he talked of a fight a couple of
days back that engulfed the dhaba. It started
from the serving area when someone from one group
spilled on someone from another group. Both the groups
threw their curry at each other, scalding skins.
"One person lost his eye," he said.
Then
the hangers-on and onlookers tried to intervene, which
led to both the groups pouncing on everyone, using their
fists, plates and car accessories as all the curry was
splattered.
The man pointed at the ground that
still carried stains of the previous day - blood and
curry. When I carried back the chicken, Seema told me
she was about to faint before she almost did, clutching
my arm, spilling curry on the ground and my pullover.
"Water, water!" I looked around, hoping for a
few sips.
Somebody brought a bucket of water and
threatened to pour it on her, just as I pushed it away.
It was cold. Seema's eyes opened wide for an instant,
emanating one final cry of desperation before she seemed
to pass out for good.
I held her while a crowd
gathered, forming a circle around us, some holding
pieces of tandoori chicken, as if they were watching a
film shoot in progress.
"Make her smell a shoe,
a shoe," one of the laborer women insisted.
A
man in rags and equally dirty shoes threatened to take
them off.
"She will be fine," I stopped him.
"Let's get out of here," she murmured.
I
was relieved that she spoke and tried to calm her by
offering Wall's choc-in-a-box ice cream that someone
handed me as I carried her to the car, like an injured
player being taken off the soccer field. Inside, she
brightened, to launch into a blistering tirade at my
hopeless judgment of hanging around town. She swore that
she would never visit a dhaba again.
I
have never again been to a dhaba on a date, but
rest assured I slip in time, however busy I might be, to
grab hot and spicy chicken with rotis on a worn-out
newspaper rag.
It's divine.
Siddharth Srivastava is a New
Delhi-based journalist.
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