Is nihari Delhis most iconic dish? No. Chicken biryani? No. Dal makhani? No. Chhole bhathura? No. Aloo tikki? No? Masala dosa? Of course, not. The best Delhi food is not found in restaurants, but in the streets. It may not be the most delicious but it is more satisfying. Ill tell you why.
Eating is an art that is cultivated not just by tasting a variety of delicacies, but also by trying to understand the people who earn their living by those dishes. One afternoon last week while walking in Sarai Kale Khan, a low-rent neighbourhood in central Delhi, I met a man who has been hawking white rasgullas on his bicycle for 22 years. I had never tasted better rasgullas before.
Lalta Prasad serves the cheese-based juicy dessert to customers on a steel plate. The dish is accompanied with bread pieces soaked in sugar syrup. Priced at Rs 10, a plate has two rasgullas and a slice of bread, cut into halves. The syrupy bread is a poignant reminder of calorie needs of the poor. The food industry in India is being corporatised. Snacks such as biscuits are increasingly coming in packets, sealed and barcoded. They are out of bounds for a large section of people who cant afford the printed price. Vendors like Prasad cater to this segment of the society.
While most street food vendors have a wooden cart (or thhela), Prasads establishment is built on his bicycle. It has a steel box, called peti, fitted on the carrier. The back of the peti has Rasgulle written on it, in Hindi. The box is divided into three compartments. One has rasgullas, the other has pieces of bread floating in sugar syrup, and the third is stacked with dry bread slices. A container fitted on the cycles handle is filled with water that is used to wash the cutlery.
Prasads spongy round rasgullas are delicious, though exceedingly sweet. He wakes up each morning at four to make them. He boils the milk till it coagulates, collects the fat (or chenna) that comes off, roll it into small balls, which in the final step are boiled in sugar syrup. The entire preparation takes about three hours.
By nine, Prasad is out in the streets. He pedals his ware in Ashram, Bhogal and Jangpura, localities close to his home in Sarai Kale Khan, and earns about Rs 100 daily. After paying Rs 1,800 as monthly rent for his single-room accommodation, he sends the remaining amount he is able to save to his family. Prasads parents, wife and three children live in a village near Gwalior, Madhya Prdaesh. We have two bighas of land in a barren hill where hardly anything grows, he says. Thats why I came to earn in Delhi. Belonging to an impoverished farming community, finding a calling in this sweetmeat was accidental. Prasad had equal chances of becoming a coolie.
His room has no furniture, not even a bed. He sleeps on the floor. His possessions are limited to a bicycle, a stove, two blankets and two electric bulbs. With hopes of getting out of poverty, he started selling rasgullas in Delhi 22 years ago. The hopes havent materialised. Would his life improve in two decades from now?
Most probably I would still be selling rasgullas, Prasad says, and still be struggling for money.
Same is the story of Naresh Chandra who sells ram laddoo, the classic Delhi street food. These are fried dumplings made of moong daal batter that are served on a leaf bowl with coriander chutney and grated radish. I met Chandra in the posh Lodhi Road. It was late evening and it had rained an hour before. See, its all full, Chandra pointed to the basket, placed at the top of a tripod-like wooden stand. I spent Rs 450 in making these laddoos and my earning today is just Rs 350. He, however, had good news to share. Father called from the village. My wife gave birth to a daughter.
There is no luxury of celebrating the occasion. Chandra will reach home a rented room with an attached bathroom in a nearby slum called Kotla Bau Park at 11 pm. Before going to sleep at 1 am, he will have to soak the moong daal in water for the next day. At 4 am, he will wake up to make 600 ram laddoos on his kerosene stove. At 9 am, he will be back on the road.
Im a pheri walla. I never stay at one place but keep walking, and I set up my stall wherever there is a crowd. Chandras world is confined to a small area in and around Lodhi Road in Central Delhi. He always stops outside Sai Baba Mandir, CGO Complex offices, Meharchand Market and Lodhi Road Market. Sometimes he walks as far as Khan Market, one of Delhis priciest shopping districts. When hungry, he goes to a dhaba in Meharchand Market for dal-chawal. Its just Rs 25. The cheaper the food, the better.
Chandra has been in Delhi for ten years. His wife, Kusma Devi, and his five children live with his parents in a village in Badaun, Uttar Pradesh. His mud-built house has two rooms. The property includes two bulls and four buffaloes. We grow wheat and rice on our land but the fertilisers are expensive and we dont get enough produce. In Delhi, Chandra manages to make Rs 8,000 monthly. Rs 750 go to the room rent and Rs 2,000 is the food bill. I send the remaining money to the village. We borrowed Rs 60,000 from a bank for my sisters marriage so we have to pay back that amount too.
What will be the future of Mr Chandras many children? Villages are not conducive to serious studies. Bringing the family to the city does not make for sound financial sense. Chandra doesnt know hat to do. The ram laddoo vendor then picked up the basket, places it on his head, fixed the tripod under his arm and started walking towards Lodhi Garden, in search of customers.
Reader, if you get a visa to Delhi, you might not find Chandra or Prasad but you should definitely have ram laddoos and rasgullas from vendors like them.
Mayank Austen Soofi lives in a library. He has one website (The Delhi Walla) and four blogs. The website address: thedelhiwalla.com. The blogs: Pakistan Paindabad, Ruined By Reading, Reading Arundhati Roy and Mayank Austen Soofi Photos.
