A loss to Delhi suisine

[Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi]

Late author Sadia Dehlvi’s drawing room in Hazrat Nizamuddin East was a gossip adda for the capital’s elite. Its other draw was Sadia’s homemade meals. They offered the choicest of traditional Purani Dilli cuisine, including dishes that have become extinct.

Sadia’s comrade in the kitchen was her cook, Muhammed Sabir. A friendly gent with carefully combed hair and a confident booming voice, Sabir had been a staffer at Sadia’s household for 20 years. This was a period long enough for the UP native to himself become a master of Purani Dilli cuisine. Over the years, he had picked up culinary tips, techniques and authentic recipes from his historically minded employer, who inherited her formidable cooking skills from her ancestral roots in Old Delhi’s Phatak Habash Khan neighbourhood.

This Sunday, Sabir died, aged 47. The cause was heart attack. He is survived by wife, Shaheen, and children Farida, Sahil, Irshad, Sirtaj and Farina. His remains were escorted to his village Fatte Purwa in janpad Bahraich. The ambulance drove over the same highways and country roads on which Sabir would travel during the 12-hour long bus ride to home for holidays. He was buried beside the graves of his elders.

“Sabir is my boss,” Sadia would say half-jokingly. “He decides the menu everyday.” On certain evenings however, one of her moody drawing room guests might abruptly declare a desire for some fancy Dilli dish. No problem! Cheery Sabir seemed to be made for these emergencies. In no time he would appear with his popular aloo gosht—the meaty flavour of the gosht so thoroughly seeped into the whole chunks of aloo that these humble potatoes would be more flavoursome than the gosht. Or perhaps it would be his equally popular safed daal—sprinkled over with sliced ginger, bhuna pyaz and chopped pudina leaves. All along, Sabir’s nonchalant demeanour would suggest supreme effortlessness on his part. As if this talented chef had a secret djinn producing the tasty feast from nothing. That said, being the sole cook for a society hostess who loved inviting people to her table, this must have been a trying job for Sabir. But he made it look easy.

After Sadia’s death in 2020, Sabir worked through a series of home kitchens. Having been for so long with a caring employer (whom he called “apa,” sister), he struggled to find that same sort of comfort zone. At the moment of his passing, he was working in a “kothi” in south Delhi’s Panchsheel Park.

When he was working in Sadia Dehlvi’s kitchen, Sabir used to reside in a spacious barsati atop her second-floor apartment. One evening, he was standing outside the barsati, on the roof, with his young son. The sky was soaked orange with sunset hues. See photo.