Making A Difference

The Dosa Fidayeen

Go green. In red-blooded Pakistan, kafir vegetarian food is making inroads.

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The Dosa Fidayeen
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Chutney Please

  • Dosas, idlis, veg thalis a rage in Pakistan, particularly in Karachi, where a string of veggie restaurants have mushroomed
  • Even other restaurants add veggie dishes to their menu
  • Dosas and chaat are now served at wedding receptions
  • Ponderosa, Karachi’s first veg restaurant, opened 17 years ago

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Five years ago, a story was doing the rounds of the Quetta cantonment, where the rich and powerful live. The cantonment was abuzz with rumours about the financial woes of one of its residents, Kamal Ahmad. They said his business had crashed and the news couldn’t be wrong for it came from the family retainer himself. Worried friends immediately enquired from Ahmad’s wife, who confronted the retainer as he sat eating his vegetables and dal—dishes that had lately become a staple of the Ahmads as well. Glancing at the plate and dejectedly looking up, he asked, “Why else would you have become vegetarian overnight?” Ahmad’s wife burst out laughing and replied, “Because Sahib had to stop eating meat for medical reasons.” Indeed, vegetables in Pakistan have been synonymous with the poor and the ill.

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The tale is just one of many which Pakistanis used to illustrate their disdain for anything green. Now, though, a silent culinary revolution seems to be transforming the perception and palate of the ordinary Pakistani. Veggies are no longer infra dig, languishing on the margins or remembered from a trip to India. Vegetarian has become trendy, a cuisine of choice for those dining out. It’s like the “new Chinese in town”—dramatically different from what mamas can cook at home. And delicious as well.

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Chatkharay restaurant in Karachi

Vegetarian restaurants are mushrooming in Karachi, Pakistan’s melting pot. Mirchi opened three weeks ago, exclusively catering to those wishing to partake of the veg experience. Such has been the response to its chana chaat, golgappas and dahi bhalle that owner Rehan Musa plans to soon introduce masala dosa, which is both the craze as well as the defining element of Indian cuisine here. Patio in Karachi is a creation of Sunita Acharia and Wafah Hassan, who have together carved a niche for themselves. There’s also Dum Pukht, Chatkharay...the list is expanding everyday.

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It’s even resolved a peculiar problem Newsline editor Rehana Hakim would encounter each time she had an Indian friend to entertain—vegetarian restaurants in upscale localities. A few years ago, she had just one or two places to take her guests; today she is spoilt for choice. Incidentally, Gazebo, also in Karachi, is her favourite. As Rehana says, “Gazebo’s is the nearest to the Indian cuisine that I have had in Delhi. Previously, it was only at the Indian consulate where we could eat dosas.” Dosa is king in Pakistan, the demand for it prompting many multi-cuisine eateries to add it to the menu. Equally popular are the savoury chaats. Nowadays, it isn’t considered outlandish to serve these two dishes at wedding dinners, particularly on the day of mehndi ceremonies, says Gazebo’s owner, Nasreen Wahab. The carnivorous Pakistani is undergoing a metamorphosis. As Sunita puts it, “If 10 people walk in, five will opt for vegetarian.”

The gastronomic change is also bringing cities other than Karachi in its sweep. The rage in Islamabad’s Kitchen Cuisine is decidedly bagharay baigan, a Hyderabadi export. Veg thalis are becoming ubiquitous; it’s considered a speciality of Table Talk, a restaurant in Islamabad’s spiffy Kohsar Market. Amna Khan, a frequent visitor, says, “We come here often for the pure vegetarian thalis. For dosas, we even have to order ahead of time, but they are fabulous here.”

It’s a little known detail but this “breathtaking culinary revolution” had its origins 17 years ago, when Ponderosa opened. This is where the cosmopolitan Pakistani or the nostalgic migrant, in whom the memory of the ‘taste of India’ still lingered, flocked to eat dosas. Among Ponderosa’s employees was one who old-timers remember as Fazelat Auntie. Believing the dosa had greater potential than any cbms in enthusing Pakistanis, she went around Karachi in a mobile van called ‘Amma ka Dosa’, reaping profits that she ploughed into a catering service. She died two years ago, living long enough to see the Pakistani acquire a more eclectic taste in food.

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Ironically, Ponderosa is no longer around, closed down by owner Farhan Sheikh for personal reasons a year ago. But the man isn’t sitting quiet, persuaded again to open a new Indian dining outlet within a year as “the trend is growing amazingly”. Sheikh links the popularity of vegetarian food to the growth of satellite TV: “Every house in Karachi gets Star TV and its programmes on cooking have popularised vegetarian food.”

The taste-for-India revolution was in reality sparked off by the expat Pakistani who befriended Indians abroad, relished the cuisine, and wished to revitalise his taste buds in Pakistan as well, says Shenaz Ramzi, who’s soon to publish a book on Pakistani cuisine. She adds a caveat, though: “Indian food has become popular in Pakistan because it as much a part of our heritage as it is of Indians.”

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Ramzi says what’s exotically passed off as Indian has been an inextricable part of the cuisine of many communities—Bohras, Memons, Lucknawis, Delhiwalas, Gujaratis, Khojas and Hyderabadis—who came from India to Pakistan following the Partition. Explains Ramzi, “In a way, these dishes have been a part of Pakistan’s cuisine as well. The difference now is that while for a good many decades communities tended to live in ghettos, today, the larger cities in Pakistan have become cultural melting pots. With greater interaction, it was only a matter of time that dishes once consumed by specific communities became popular with others too.” This social transformation also coincided with the emergence of niche restaurants which broke away from the tradition of serving a salmagundi of dishes from different cuisines under one roof.

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Veggie paradise Mirchi serves up sev puri, chana chaat, dahi puri and masala aloo

Critics also differ on whether or not the Pakistani can adopt the authentic Indian style of cooking veggies. Leading food critic Irfan Hussain is emphatic, “We Muslims are better at cooking meat than vegetables. We tend to overcook veggies, making them limp and devoid of colour, flavour and texture.” Wafah, the joint owner of Patio, says, “Compared to the way they (Indians) cook vegetables in India, we fry ours for a longer period.” The taste may be a little different from the typical Indian dish—but it’s still delicious.

Providing a stamp of legitimacy to the Indian cooking style here is the story of those who own Indian restaurants. Patio’s Sunita Acharia has parents who had migrated to India after Partition; 30 years later she was back in Karachi, now married to a Pakistani. “You can say the soil of Pakistan brought me back,” she says. Sunita began a takeaway, Bawarcheykhana, where she personally did the cooking. And when she met her business partner, Wafah, they began Patio. “Wafah had some old Lucknow recipes,” she says. Can’t the duo then be trusted to cook the authentic Indian way? Similarly, Mirchi’s Rehan Musa hails from Bombay, as do his in-laws. About Mirchi, he says, “We finally brought out the food that we’d been eating all along.”

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Still, it’s true that at times dishes have to be rejigged to suit the Pakistani palate. The south Indian rasam could be a starting point. As Sunita says, “Pakistanis just can’t acquire a taste for it. It’s too watery for them.” There are others who have taken to filling chicken and keema in dosas. Call it a civilisational thing, some links are common, some a commingling that chefs on either side of the border conjure up with such ease. It’s a pity the politicians can’t  break a dosa over the same.

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