Delirious Delhi

by Dave Prager

  My coffee addiction confounded my co-workers both in how desperately I relied on it to begin my morning and the fact that I prefer my coffee as black as the insides of my ears after a day in Delhi’s winter pollution. Murali and Dipankar both argued that black coffee would kill me, although this conversation usually took place as they sucked down cigarettes during chai breaks. They saw the irony.

  Because the coffee from the office’s cursed tea machine was too sweet for my tastes (yet still not sweet enough to hide the repellent flavor of Nescafé), I scored my fix every morning from the boutique hotel across the street. They didn’t have to-go cups, so I would bring an office mug with me and carefully cross back across the street while trying not to spill my seventy rupees’ worth of espresso, passing co-workers at the office gate who couldn’t understand why I’d spend so much money on such a minuscule amount of coffee. (“Because espresso is concentrated!” I’d tell them, sounding lame even to my own ears.)

  While Western-style coffee shops are new to Delhi, coffee itself is not. Coffee is especially popular in south India, where they serve it after meals in a metal cup that overflows into a metal saucer. The customer adds sugar and then pours the coffee back and forth between saucer and cup to mix and cool it. South Indian coffee is cut with chicory, which makes it delicious with milk and sugar but too bitter to drink black. My co-worker Govind once gave me a packet of south Indian coffee to make in my French press (which I employed when I was too lazy to cross the street); I brewed it black, without milk or sugar, and even I couldn’t choke it down.

  At the end of a meal, I like to have coffee. So do south Indians. North Indian meals traditionally culminate with a pinch of anise seeds and sugar crystals from a plate that, along with toothpicks, arrives with the bill. But for many Delhiites, the evening isn’t complete until they’ve had paan.

  Paan is one of the most extreme eating experiences we’ve ever had. It combines a collection of flavors that would each dominate the palate on their own—like cardamom, peppermint, cloves, rose petal preserves and many others—and then wraps them with an aromatic betel leaf into a triangular mass that’s almost too big for the mouth. When we’d chew it, our tongue would drown in an eruption of tastes and textures. It would fill our mouths and push out our cheeks and require all our concentration to neither choke nor dribble it down our shirts. There are dozens of varieties of paan, and an entire book could surely be written about its history and variety.

  It’s nominally intended as an after-dinner digestive, and it was extremely effective in soothing my stomach’s angry protests against the quantity of chillies I’d eaten just minutes before. But paan is a social experience as much as a culinary one. While many restaurants sell it, most people seem to prefer buying it from sidewalk vendors who are surrounded by canisters of leaves suspended in water and dozens of jars containing the seeds and pastes and spices that they’ll mix together to their own closely guarded proportions. No two paanwallahs make it the same, which is why some of them are putting their kids through college on their earnings and others are so legendary that people drive across the city to partake in their edible artistry.

  We first learned the importance of paan as a bonding ritual after a party thrown by Abhishek, the realtor who’d helped us find our apartment. We stayed late enough at the party that we found ourselves helping with the clean-up. (Well, helping Abhishek’s wife with the clean-up, anyway. The women had spent the party clustered in the kitchen cooking and watching the children, while the men drank whisky and talked man stuff in the living room. Jenny had refused to toe the gender line, but the men had completely ignored her the entire night.)

  Abhishek had chivalrously promised us a lift at the end of the night, and it seemed rude to change our minds. So we waited with him until all the guests had departed. At the end there were Abhishek, his wife and child, his friend Arvind (who was finishing “just one more glass” for the third time as we all sleepily watched him drink) and the two of us. But just as we were finally walking out of the door—and just when we finally began to imagine slipping into bed—Arvind’s mouth opened again.

  ‘We must get some paan.’

  And so, at two o’clock on a cold Delhi morning, Jenny and I reluctantly piled into Abhishek’s car and drove to Nizamuddin Railway Station. Abhishek’s fatigue instantly evaporated as he and Arvind piled out of the car, and they laughed and shouted and high-fived and dwelled over their ritualistic bonding. We’d waited in the car because we thought they’d just guzzle the paan and be done with it, and by the time we realized that the paan was so much more than the food itself, we were too tired to get out and join them. We watched through drooping eyelids as Abhishek and Arvind lived a Mastercard commercial, chatting and carrying on and slapping the backs of the other men who pulled up for the same feeling of kinship. That was what paan was all about.

  Jenny and I rarely ended our meals with paan, and not just because it required a certain gastronomic fortitude to appreciate. It was because we could never choose paan over sweets. Delhi’s sweets shops contain a rainbow of variations on the theme of nuts, condensed milk and edible silver foil in glass cases that stretch as far as the competing sweets shops right next door. My favorite was gulab jamun: a ball of dough the size of a donut hole but far denser, rolled in a sugary rose-water syrup. One must be careful with food this sticky, though—I was once three balls into a box of gulab jamuns when I noticed a dead fly embedded in the fourth, its legs spread wide as if run over by a cartoon steamroller. It had gotten stuck, it had gotten squished, and it had nearly gotten ingested.

  Some sweets shops also serve food, like Nathu’s Sweets in GK-II, where I ate my very first meal in India. In Delhi’s restaurant continuum, sweets shops are most comparable to diners in the US: cheap, no-frills, with a counter up front for take-away and tables in the back for eating in. Sweets shops that serve food are often air-conditioned, which sets them higher on Delhi’s restaurant continuum than dhabas, a word that technically refers to highway truck stops serving greasy Punjabi fare but is accepted to mean any cheap eatery where price is a bigger concern than comfort or sanitation. A good rule of thumb is this: if the dishes are being washed on the sidewalk, it might be a dhaba; and if it’s a twelve-year-old doing the washing, it definitely is.

  We rarely ate dinner at sweets shops because we knew we couldn’t resist the fatty temptations of dessert. But temptation beckoned even while walking down the street. There’s nothing in the world better than hot jalebi—fried batter dipped in inhumanely sweet orange syrup—straight out of the street vendor’s oil. Or sweet lassis served in terracotta cups that one smashes to the ground with a satisfying crunch (it’s a satisfaction matched in the dessert world only by the act of cracking the charred sugar on a well-made crème brûlée). On the other hand, while we loved kulfi, India’s pistachio or saffron-flavored answer to ice cream, any taste of it would only remind us that we weren’t eating the kulfi falooda at Roshan Di Kulfi, the landmark Karol Bagh restaurant. On our trips there, we’d begin with chhole bhaturey and raj kachori, a dish that is most accurately described as “a big ball of dough filled with all sorts of stuff and covered in all sorts of sauces.” But the main event for us was always the kulfi falooda, in which the ice cream is drowned with sweet rose-water noodles and bits of almond and pistachio.

  Roshan Di Kulfi is one of Delhi’s more famous food destinations. The crowd spills out of the door and onto the street, and the only way to avoid eating on the sidewalk is to hover over someone’s table and snatch it up the moment they stand.

  But it is not Delhi’s most famous restaurant. That honor belongs to Karim’s.

  And Karim’s reputation perpetuates in the breathless refrain every veteran Delhi expat asks every novice Delhi expat: “You haven’t been to Karim’s yet?”

  Karim’s unmarked alley entrance means that one can never stumble upon Karim’s. One has to be seeking it out. One has to be in the know. And this defines Karim’s allure: the twisting alleys of the Old
City hold a million secrets the Western eye will never uncover, but to know about Karim’s is to conquer at least one of them.

  Some people have told us that Karim’s is the oldest restaurant in Delhi. Others have told us that Karim himself invented Mughal-style food. We never really knew, and it never really mattered, because the mystique of Karim’s was as satisfying as the food. Ducking our heads to walk through the narrow entrance, we follow the alley just south of Jama Masjid as it opens into a bustling plaza encircled by Karim’s multiple dining rooms. Each dining room is overseen by a uniformed head waiter, and each head waiter is beckoning urgently for us to enter as if they’re all in competition with each other. But we can’t choose one and sit down just yet—we’re still coping with the sensory overload. Kebab guys wrap ground meat around skewers that ooze grease into the coals and spew smoke across the plaza. Bread makers sit cross-legged in an alcove, slapping dough into balls and pulling puffy white naan out of the ovens. Busboys balance more dirty dishes on one arm than we’d think a human bicep could manage. And motorcycles honk and weave through what is not just the middle of the restaurant but also an active thoroughfare. We gape until one of the head waiters finally commands our attention again, pulling our sleeves and leading us to the particular dining room over which he stands sentry.

  Every time we went to Karim’s, we learned a deeper secret. The first visit was one of simple culinary discovery: that chicken curry could be so succulent, that mutton kebabs could be so juicy. In our next visit, we learned that Karim’s vegetarian curry, with paneer cubes, dates and a cashew-based gravy, was the stuff of dreams. On one of our last visits, we learned that the quarter-inch of oil puddled atop every bowl of curry wasn’t supposed to be eaten. It was there to show that the food was so well cooked that the fat had liquefied; we were supposed to drain it into a separate dish.

  And then there was the time we got to the truth about the most tantalizing item on the menu. Its name glistens on the laminated menu cards from the greasy prints of a thousand other patrons who have rested their fingers on it in wonder. It’s the tandoori bakra, and it’s priced at 4,500 rupees, or ninety dollars. “Please order twenty-four hours in advance,” it says.

  On a menu where the average dish costs one-fortieth of that price and arrives at the table in five minutes, the name alone had us salivating. With roasted mutton chops this good, what must their tandoori bakra be like? And what the hell’s a bakra?

  Thanks to EOID, we found out.

  The best thing we ever did in India was join a group called Eating Out in Delhi. Founded by one-time Delhi University lecturer Hemanshu Kumar, EOID seeks out local eateries that would never appear in the Lonely Planet, usually in neighborhoods the Lonely Planet editors had omitted completely. On journeys with EOID, we tried methi chicken in a neighborhood in which every other storefront was selling live chickens. We ate kebabs in the dhabas where Delhi University students hang out. We drank home-made lemon soda from a Chandni Chowk family that’s been making it for generations. And we sampled Mallu food in a tiny café so well hidden in a nondescript alley that we’d never noticed it before, even though it was within walking distance of our home.

  With EOID, we learned that Indian food really does taste better when eaten with the hands. They taught us how to use bread to grasp each morsel or, for south Indian food, to use our fingers to mix rice and vegetables and chutney together into little mounds before scooping them into our mouths. I never fully mastered either technique, so I’d inevitably smear food all over my lips and cheeks with each bite, going through a dozen napkins during my meal while nobody else needed even one.

  We learned about EOID in the very first issue of Time Out Delhi we picked up. We decided instantly it was the perfect organization for us, combining as it did our two favorite pastimes: eating and not spending much money. We sent an email asking about their next event and received an immediate response to join them that very night. Go to a certain corner in Connaught Place’s Inner Circle, the email told us, and wait.

  It was our second Saturday night living in Delhi, and we were still adjusting to being two foreigners in a foreign land. Our parents at home were reading about journalists being kidnapped in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and in their minds the dangers facing those who investigated armed Islamic militancy in failing states were also threatening people who worked in advertising agencies in the world’s largest democracy. So they’d made us promise to exercise extreme caution when dealing with strangers, especially strange men. And we abandoned that promise the moment the car pulled up to us as we waited on that corner in Connaught Place.

  Three male strangers stared at us. “Are you Dave?” one of them demanded.

  I nodded.

  “Get in.”

  Jenny and I looked at each other, thought about our parents’ warnings, shrugged, and did as we were told.

  No guns were pressed into our sides, fortunately. No hoods were thrown over our heads and no ransom demands were issued. Instead, we were whisked to Gurudwara Bangla Sahib, the most important Sikh temple in Delhi, to meet up with the rest of the EOID gang. Donning scarves to cover our hair in respect, we tasted some of the parshad (the ritual sweet given to anyone coming to pay their respects) and toured the temple grounds, chatting with the friendly people whom we were now pretty sure weren’t going to dump our bodies in the Delhi Ridge.

  After a leisurely walk around the vast pond, we sat crosslegged on the floor in the Gurudwara kitchen with hundreds of other people to eat the langar, which is the free vegetarian meal given by Sikhs to anybody who wants it, regardless of religion, class or income. With assembly-line efficiency, men spooned hot dal and vegetable mush out of metal buckets, which we mopped up with simple chapattis. It was delicious.

  But on an EOID outing, delicious is not enough. The night is not over until at least one person’s belt buckle has popped off. So we then went to a dhaba near Connaught Place for tea and pakoras and then, still not satisfied, to Saravana Bhavan for appams drowned in hot coconut milk.

  During our time in Delhi, EOID gave us some of our most interesting experiences, favorite memories and closest friends. The EOID event that best combined all three was the evening when Hemanshu decided to solve the mystery of Karim’s tandoori bakra. While Jenny stayed home (rightfully anticipating a vegetarian’s worst nightmare), thirty-five of my hungriest friends and I descended upon Karim’s with our appetites and our orders placed twentyfour hours in advance. There we discovered what tandoori bakra was: a whole goat, stuffed with rice and eggs and almonds, slow-cooked and presented on a silver platter.

  As a handful of hurried waiters dropped the two goats we ordered onto our table, my mind and my stomach raced back to the summer of 2000, when my band headlined an outdoor pig roast in the Maine woods. A hundred people, a warm night, and an excess of loud music and cold beer all led up to the main event: the unveiling of the pig, which had been buried in a pit of coals since early that afternoon and was scheduled to rise like a spice-rubbed Lazarus around 10 p.m. But the pig was slow to cook, arriving four beer-soaked hours late to meet a frenzied crowd. We surrounded it, tearing at it with bare hands, stuffing pig flesh into our mouths with one claw while reaching with the other for more. We were men and women reduced to our basest state: grunting, eating, swallowing, slobbering, wiping our hands on our shirts and going back for fourths.

  That pig roast was the most delicious meal I’ve ever had in my life. And this is what I was expecting to waft out of Karim’s kitchen: meat that melted off the bone and into my mouth. My heart leapt with the appearance of the men bearing the mutton, followed by other men bearing tiny knives for us to carve with. Hunger and excitement overcame our table manners: ravenous hands sawed and pulled and jerked flesh off the bones and onto our plates. Within moments, we reduced the poor animals to their skeletons.

  And that was when my dream of that Maine summer faded. The juicy piece of midsection looked like heaven; but in my mouth, it was tandoori-flavored chewing gum. I worked
at it for minutes. The rice, mixed with boiled eggs and spices, was spectacular. The bread melted in our mouths. The side dishes—various curries and kebabs—were as good as ever. But the bakra itself was tragically disappointing.

  I was expecting a Maine pig roast. I was expecting Thanksgiving dinner. I was expecting a New York street fair turkey leg. What I got was . . . not.

  This was the moment when I realized that life was more interesting when there were mysteries in it. That it was probably better to leave the table before I had eaten my fill. I write these words today with Ganga’s food in my heart, with Park Balluchi’s paneer on my mind, and with the memory of Sagar Ratna’s tomato coconut rava dosa still making my mouth water. But more than all those joys, what makes me wish to return to Delhi is knowing that there are so many aspects of it I have yet to experience.

  Which is why, when I do eventually come back, I doubt I’ll go to Karim’s. Because their menu holds no more question marks for me—except for their “brain curry.” Which I’m perfectly content to leave to my imagination.

  1. http://ourdelhistruggle.com/2010/01/25/finished-manuscript/#comment-2893

  2. http://www.indiastudychannel.com/resources/73074-Harmfulchemicals-fresh-looking-vegetables.aspx

  3. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Delhi/Govt-arms-itself-tocheck-vegetable-adulteration/articleshow/4646131.cms

  4. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Cities/Allahabad/Adulteration-on-rise-during-summer-season/articleshow/4693574.cms