The Walled City encyclopaedia.

[Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi]

This Walled City street is frequently suffused with the spicy fragrance of fresh biryani, or mutton stew… or korma, or yakhini, or chicken do pyaza, or kofte, or nihari. The faintly sweet scent of crispy browned onions permanently lurks in the air.

Truth be told, this small lane in Mohalla Qabristan has no official name. You may simply call it Gali Bawarchi Wali. For it is home to a community of bawarchi, the traditional cooks who prepare bulk meals for special occasions, such as weddings, etc. The street’s four principal bawarchi khanas go by the names of Mughlai, Hasinuddin, Yameen and Kamran.

The lane also has three tandoori roti bakeries. They go by the name of Imran Roti Wale, Chirago Roti Wale, and Shami Roti Wale.

The owners of all these kitchens and bakeries have familial ties to each other. This makes the gali an interconnected echo-chamber of chacha, bhatija, mamera bhai, phoophera bhai, and so on.

The tandoori bakeries are busiest around the conventional dining hours, when their daily patrons from neighbouring households gather to pick up their share of rotis. The lungi-wearing bakers are then seen busily wrapping the family-size stacks of piping hot rotis in scissored sheets of old newspapers. (During idle hours, these hardworking men lie down beside the unlit tandoor, scrolling through their mobile phone).

The bawarchis on the other hand tend to cook outdoors, setting up their coal-fired angeethis alongside the street. Yameen Bawarchi is the street’s oldest kitchen establishment, though it is impossible to determine its exact age. Its patriarch, the elderly Yameen, spends his waking hours sitting on a wooden cot, silently gazing at his massive collection of pans and cauldrons. He vividly remembers his boyhood, learning his cooking skills from his late father, who, in turn, learned his skills from his father.

The owners of these inherited establishments acquire their status due to accident of birth. The street’s true strugglers are the karigars—the hired cooks of these bawarchi khanas, who arrive from distant villages to make a career in the city. Take karigar Ayub. Hailing from UP’s Bahraich, he has been working at Hasinuddin Bawarchi for 40 years. Modest and unassuming, the man commands immense prestige. Nobody, not even his employers, dares to call him by his name. He is instead addressed reverently as Chacha. This afternoon, he is sitting on the kitchen staircase, holding a cup of chai. See photo.