In purple blood. The street in central Delhi is lined on both sides with shops stocked with spare car parts. It is a landscape of metal. Battery rickshaws and motorcycles pass through. Summer’s rude sunlight strikes steel surfaces and bounces towards the eye. Now, a cart appears bearing something purple. Yes, it is once again the season of kabhi-khatta-kabhi-meetha jamuns. In another part of the city, a cart piled high with purple jamuns stands before a row of autos. Tiny droplets cling to the berries. Whether they are sweating in the June heat or simply wearing a fresh coat of water hardly matters. They look inviting. The vendor admits he keeps them that way by sprinkling them with water from a pitchkari. It makes

On a city's anniversary. On lifting the lid off the giant aluminium deg, clouds of pure scented steam escapes into the city’s smoggy air. Beneath the steam lie long grains of rice, each separate and glistening, entwined here and there with pieces of chicken, and with limpid strands of whole green chillies. Across Delhi, Ghaziabad and Gurugram, small eateries and roadside shacks serve this rice dish from morning till night. It is biryani, but not Delhi-style biryani, Lucknow-style biryani or Hyderabad-style biryani. It is Moradabadi biryani. The city that lent its name to this particular biryani has now crossed the 400-year mark, completing four centuries of history. Moradabad was founded in 1625 and named after Prince Murad Baksh, son of Shah Jahan, the

Table for many. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] The menu of the day is nearly as long as the table itself. This afternoon, a row of pans claiming most of the table holds kali masur dal, makhani dal, matar paneer, chhole masala, aloo gobhi, and anda curry. There is also a choice of chawal and fresh rotis. Lakshmi Dhaba, on Central Delhi’s Humayun Road, beside a cab stand, has all the basic features of a roadside eatery. Yet it feels unusually welcoming. Is it the long table and the scattered chairs around it, which give the place an informal, relaxed atmosphere? Or is it the fact that despite the sweltering June heat, it remains comfortable enough for tired and hungry citizens

A summertime tradition. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] In cities, traditions slowly fade, until one day nobody remembers when they disappeared, and no one anyway has the time to notice what has been permanently lost. Delhi’s game wali kulfi is close to that precipice. Even so, on scorching afternoons, at least one street vendor still hawks this unusual phenomenon. Look for him in the lanes of the Walled City. Citizen Nizam returns to these pages because he is among the last surviving custodians of a summertime tradition that blends dessert with gambling, harmless gambling really. This late morning, he is at Turkman Gate Bazar, bearing the familiar smile, and the same hand-painted cart, the same kulfi. Everyone knows kulfi. It is

Chaikhana by Ghalib's. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Debt-ridden poet Mirza Ghalib is nearing the end of his life, passing the final days in a mansion in Old Delhi’s Ballimaran. He is still writing verses, still daily walking the short distance to a chaikhana with a disarmingly hopeful name—Dilkhush, meaning “heart-happy.” Ghalib is long gone. Dilkhush still stands in Ballimaran. If only this were true. Parts of it are. Ghalib’s last home is indeed nearby, and the chai establishment does exist. But Ghalib died about 150 years ago, while Dilkhush Tea Stall appeared twenty years ago, as the man at the counter explains. Those historically minded people who like continuity, and try to seamlessly stitch the present to the past in the historic

A zila Ghaziabad drink. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Agra is known for its petha. Ajmer for its sohan halwa. Gurugram for its doda barfi. Indore for its poha. Kakori for its kebabs. Mathura for its rabri. Nagina for its gulab jamun. Nainital for its bal mithai. Orai for its rasgulla. Sandila for its peda. Ghaziabad for its… oh, here’s news! The Government of Uttar Pradesh has assigned each zila, or district, a signature dish that is acknowledged to be its culinary speciality. Ghaziabad, across the Delhi-UP border, has been paired with soya chaap and pickled chillies. In the coming days, this reporter will try to investigate the city’s soya chaap culture more closely, though the street food scene currently visible

Double thrill. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Delhi has hundreds of thousands of street carts. Thousands of them sell cooling drinks through the brutal summer months. This cart is different. It offers two kinds of drinks. Nothing unusual in that. One metal container holds lemon sherbet; the other is filled with rose sherbet. Nothing unusual in that either. The containers are unusual. Both bear eye-catching drawings and labels, almost like the work of a trained artist. The style feels familiar, as if seen elsewhere too. Is the cart owner the artist? “No,” says Rajesh, the soft-spoken man manning the stall. “These were painted by some chalta firta painter,” he explains, describing the artist as a sort of street vagabond. The artwork was

Tasty etymology. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Over the years, we have been digging out why some curiously named streets in Delhi are named the way they are. This time, let’s try to probe the stories behind the names of some of the curiously named snacks sold along those streets. Ram Laddu No one knows how these deep-fried, savoury spheres of moong dal came to be called Ram Laddu. Perhaps, like many nameless things, they were simply placed under the generous umbrella of Bhagwan Ram’s divinity; the refuge into his sacred name being a universal inheritance. After all, even if nobody knows anything about a particular thing, Bhagwan Ram still does—Ram jaane! Or perhaps the name stuck for reasons now lost to

A snack vendor’s migrations. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Seasons shift, and with them come migrations. This cycle is a constant in Mehdi Hasan’s life. Until a few months ago, he was hawking roasted peanuts in a city market—that is his winter trade. During the post-monsoon months, he sells roasted bhuttas. Now the city has entered what many consider its most hostile phase: summer. And Mehdi Hasan has again migrated back into selling cool, sweet, refreshing bel sherbet. “That’s what I do every summer,” he says, his face breaking into a kind, easy smile, as if untouched by the heat, the dust, the chaotic traffic, and the noise of an April afternoon roadside. The soft-spoken gentleman launched the summertime sherbet ten

Fans of fen. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Flaky, light, and crisp, fen is a kind of—shall we say—biskut? In truth, it is closer to a puff pastry, made up of many fragile layers, each ready to collapse under even the slightest pressure of the finger. Fen may be brittle, but it is among Delhi’s most democratic bakery offerings. It is affordable to many. A classic companion to morning tea, it now sells for about ten rupees for two. Not long ago, it was five. At the turn of the century, it could be had for a single rupee. The snack is traditionally the stuff of mornings. At dawn, fens begin to arrive at the city’s roadside tea stalls, delivered daily by distributors