Alauddin versus the Marwaris

So the wedding of my brother Ram and his much-better half Mriga was a very interesting affair. Our theme for the wedding was food and we did little else except eat. Ranchi is known for its fine देसी चिकन and assorted meats, besides other scrumptious food-stuff.

Now we Kakkars do not think much of vegetarians but since they did gather the wedding as vegetarians inevitably do and since my father was all-enthusiasm for his son's wedding, he decided to make top-notch arrangements for "those" people too. But there was a catch. Our non-vegetarian food is made beautifully by the waiter-cum-cook at Ranchi club- Allaudin. Allaudin is an anti-God since God is creator and Allaudin begins with creation ends. But when it comes to meat preparation of any kind, Allaudin is akin to PG Wodehouse's Anatole (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Jeeves_characters#Anatole) if you can keep a tighter-than-a-corset watch on his chilly-use. Allaudin's list of ingredients begins with 'हरी मिर्ची' and ends there too. My मीनू भाभी would sit with Allaudin everyday and recite a highly drool-inducing menu (also pronounced मीनू by the older Kakkar खानदान, so for example चाचा would say, "मीनू आं मीनू दिखा दो" that somehow never ceases to amuse me) and she would then ask, "बताओ क्या क्या चाहिए बाजार से", to which Allaudin would promptly begin, "लिखिए हरा मिर्चा". Here, I would coming flying in the scene, dragging my father and shouting "हरा मिर्चा नहीं नहीं!!!" and prod my father in his perfectly-round stomach until he instructed Allaudin to listen to what I was hysterically communicating.

Make no mistake, my claims of being a free woman does not, for a moment, put me in doubt that I still need mine father to get anybody to even hear me. Ah, the sad irony! Sigh!

But moving on. Now it is a well known fact in Bihar/Jharkhand that the best vegetarian food is best prepared by the मारवाड़ीs. They make some 20 items that are served in tiny कटोरीs on a big थाली and oh, everything is heavenly. So my father pulled a few मारवाड़ी strings and a group of nice मारवाड़ी cooks agreed to come home to cook us some वाह-वाह खाना. All of us would stuff ourselves to the brim during every meal and then swear to skip the next meal but we were at it again as soon as the meal was served. Our stomachs were most unhappy and our taste buds on cloud 9.

But (yes you were waiting for this, weren't you!) there was a catch, of course. The मारवाड़ीs are pure vegetarians and they also tend to display a highly prejudiced viewpoint of religious fanaticism. We were unaware of the second and we forgot about the first. So on day one, we had Alauddin come in to make his chicken and prawns and everything that was once alive. Oh brilliant stuff! We ate, we ate some more, we cried a little bit पेट पकड़ के and then we resumed eating again. बीच बीच में we danced and side में the पापा-भैया लोग drank. It was well past midnight when we all slept.

The next morning, we woke up to some very unappealing हल्ला-हंगामा. Problem: The मारवाड़ी cooks were on their way and the cooking area resembled a graveyard. ओये होए, वड्डा स्यापा! With marvelously swift movements for a bunch of groggy पंजाबीs, the site was cleaned of its meatish sins and we all ate a nice breakfast of चिवड़ा, amazing melt-in-our-mouths चीला,fruits that nobody cared to look at and चाय of course.

Thereafter, we kept a close tab on the situation and realized to our annoyance that my father had set-up a land-mine in his schedule for Alauddin and the मारवाड़ीs. So Alauddin would cook downstairs in the kitchen while the good vegetarian blokes were stationed on the terrace, which also had a room storing all food supplies for the शादी. One day one, Alauddin wanted हरा मिर्चा (rolls eyes) and he was asked to fetch it from upstairs but he looked at the speaker with the best "दिमाग ख़राब है" look and refused to fetch what he needed with a very noble reason- "हम को कुछ हो गया तो मीट सब कौन बनाएगा". What a man!

But it all proceeded without causalities and ended with a lot of upset-stomachs that told us how much people couldn't resist the food. The stories of Alauddin do not end here and will be shared in a later post.