East to west, north to south; Cuisine gets standardised

Travelling by train from north India to eastern part of India reveals that the regional variations in food is gradually losing out to the invasion of Punjabi cuisine in a big way. Standardisation seems to be a norm in hotel and party menu even though places may be 1200-1500 kilometers apart 

It was travel time again as I traversed the length of the country from the foothills of the Shivalik in north India to the Indo-Gangetic plains of eastern India as I reached a small town of Bihar from Chandigarh in the relatively pleasant month of April.

Over a period of time, travel, changing cuisine, language, dress along with culture and social milieu every 100 kms has fascinated me like nothing else. But not this time round. Partly because the journey was by train; but mainly because of what I thought was a growing standardisation of cuisine across the 1500 odd kilometre I traversed by different modes of transport.                             

I felt as if standardisation of cuisine was becoming the new norm, right from Chandigarh to Patna with hardly any change noticeable anywhere in the food menu. People might be speaking different languages—Punjabi, Haryanvi, Hindi in Delhi, Hindi in the typical accent of Western UP in Mathura-Agra, Urdu and its variants in Lucknow, Magahi in Patna, Maithili and Bhojpuri in north Bihar, but in roadside eateries, they are eating the same stuff made in and around the Tandoor, if not the industrial food.

Take the popular train Shatabdi Express for example by which I started the journey from the joint capital of Punjab and Haryana. Regular travelers would vouch for the fact that breakfast in the train is to be consumed only if you are extremely hungry or had a fast a day before and you presume you will die of hunger if you do not take the food. Leave it alone if you do not want factory made bread, butter, jams, pickle, cutlets or Omelette made on an assembly line without any semblance of taste. Even tea looks like Khaki water and tastes awful notwithstanding the sachet of sugar and milk powder which you pour in the cup and whatever time you spend dipping the tea bag in hot water.

There could be better things for you only if you skip the breakfast in Shatabdi. I wanted to relish the famous pakoras of Panipat. But I couldn't. The vendors selling pakoras at Panipat railway platform do not come near the sealed windows of Shatabdi as passengers in the elite train would not patronise it. In any case, there was hardly any time to look for one, even for a foodie like me as the train stopped for a minute and then started its journey to the national Capital. I remembered the pakoras I had in a popular roadside eatery in Panipat city two years ago and it was the best in this part of the country.

Then it was New Delhi in three hours and twenty minutes flat. As I had to catch a connecting train to Patna, the only viable place to eat in a limited time-frame was the food joints opposite the Railway station on the Paharganj side. One can savour the famous but limited cuisine of old Delhi to some extent here but only if you venture in the lane behind the main road. Bedmi Puri with spicy potato gravy is a treat any day. For dessert you have suji ka Halwa in which ghee flows liberally. Do not come here if you fear for your heart. This is not for the “weak hearted” as the puri too is deep fried and that too twice to make it crisp. Then you can have a glass of creamy lassi or even boiled milk and then move on to catch the train.

This was one meal in the entire journey of 1500 kms which I later recalled with some sense of gastronomic satisfaction. The pantry of the train from New Delhi to Patna served unimpressive bread pakoras, samosas, vegetable biryani, egg biryani, dip tea, tomato soup made from powder, etc. It is better to remain on fast for the entire course of the journey rather than eat from the train pantry. Of course, if you cannot fast and control the hunger buds for that long then you can order from the limited menu the train pantry offers or get down on the platforms to look for something.

I chose the second option. But it was thoroughly disappointing. Right from Moradabad, Rampur, Bareilly to Lucknow, you only get chips, biscuits, soft drinks and bottled water. At best, there were some unhygienic samosas and bread pakoras at some of the platforms. But given the swarm of flies at the stations combined with stench, you cannot act brave and experiment with those.

As the train had a few stops, I hopped from one station to the other without much success. For food, you get the Janata khana. At Lucknow, vendors on platform served chhole-chawal and nothing else. The hungry souls of another train on the opposite platform practically looted the food as the vendors made quick money selling them. I could not even get the aroma of the famous kebabs of Lucknow which was swirling in my mind from a previous visit to the city. Of course, there are several mobile applications now and you can order food online from the train itself, but I was not sure whether they served the famous Lakhnavi items or were simply serving what passes off as Punjabi dish. I did not risk the option of going to the market and have a fill of the kebabas. I could have got stranded in Lucknow as the train would have moved without me. I am not even distantly related to the Railway Minister to get any special favour and would never ever even dream to become a minister in-charge of Railways given my limited qualifications.

The lesson was learnt quickly. If you want to travel long distance by train, have home cooked food with you or simply remain on fast. The only other alternative was to look for fresh fruits at the platforms or munch the ridiculous chips. I still fail to understand why people eat chips and sip soft drinks with it. I gave up the effort long time back. Dipping glucose biscuits in hot tea and gulping it down is a wholesome exercise to me, much better than the combination of potato chips-soft drinks. This is what I did.

Then I was at Patna, the Capital of Bihar. Many non residents have a poor opinion about the cuisine of Patna or Pataliputra of the bygone era, the historical Capital of the Magadh empire of the 6th century BC, the magic of which the government wants to recreate. But I had a very satisfying lunch – rice, roti, yellow dal, alu ka bhujiya, spicy boiled black gram with gravy and raw onions with fresh lemon squeezed on it.  A papad was thrown in with some creamy curd and that made my day. This was a typical Bihar lunch and a nap was necessary before the wedding function in the evening for which I was in the city after a gap of over a decade.

Patna had changed. Flyovers were now dotting the city. You could no longer take a leisurely walk without the honking motorists and the shouting drivers of three-wheelers disturbing your thoughts about how the city was a decade and a half back when I was relatively regular visitor, albeit a transit passenger. In most of the city, black fumes emitting monstrous vehicles were ferrying passengers instead of the good old pedal rickshaws as was the case earlier. The cycle rickshaws in any case would not climb the flyovers and in several areas had simply ceased to operate. I remembered a couple of eating joints where I used to frequent long time back and wanted to relish the cuisine again to find out how times have changed and whether they too have changed or serve the same taste. I feared they had changed like the city of Patna. Though paucity of time forced me indoors, but at the same time, I didn’t feel encouraged to venture out in the new surroundings of the city with which I could not relate to. “Accept change. That is the only constant,” a part of my mind told me. But another part of the same mind was quick to remind me, “Keep the memories of the bygone years intact”. I listened to the second advice.

Soon after sun set, I was at the wedding venue, which was billed as a “Banquet Hall” but was actually a lawn with 3 air-conditioned rooms for the guests and family of those who had hired it on rent.  As per the set routine and timings, snacks were now being served to the guests. None of the snacks interested me as they were similar in looks to the ones which is served in any part of north India—Chandigarh, New Delhi or Meerut. Their names too had been borrowed entirely from other parts of north India and did not have any local snacks. Nevertheless, as the menu was an entirely vegetarian affair, I tried some of them, like paneer tikka, vegetarian kebab, hariyali kebab  and gobhi Manchurian. The taste was slightly tangier and chilly was liberally used as compared to what they do in north India and I found it a little different and perhaps better.

What came as a bolt from the blue was the buffet dinner which was thrown open when the groom’s wedding party arrived sharp at 8 pm. Punjabi cuisine had invaded Bihar like never before. Not that I don’t like Punjabi cuisine, I do relish a few of the items if properly made. But here, I wanted a break as I was longing for some typical Bihari cuisine.  It was disappointing to find only Tandoori roti, missi roti, Naan and laccha paratha. I did not even want to have a look at this which is available at all eating joints in the city where I live now.

There was no sign of good old and time tested tawa ki roti  as Tandoor had overshadowed all other and traditional forms of cooking in wedding ceremonies and other parties. Then you had paneer masala, Shahi Paneer,  Matar paneer and other items with the word “paneer” either as a suffix or a prefix. You had Dal Makhani and its different avatars available here in this wedding which is the staple diet all over Punjab, Haryana and Delhi. There was no sign of the good old Yellow Dal or the popular Dal Tadka, a speciality of the dhabas and line hotels of Bihar. I remember having had satisfying meals in the past with only Dal Tadka and tawa ki roti, with raw onions thrown in liberally along with green chillies. Dal Tadka is very spicy, cooked for several hours to bring out its taste and then heated up in a pan on burning flame with onions and chillies when you order it.

I went to the other side of the venue. Here, I found litti-chokha, the traditional cuisine of Bihar in which sattu (grind and spicy roasted gram) is stuffed inside wheat flour and made into small balls. But the litti was fried instead if being baked in cow-dung cakes or charcoal and served with desi ghee. The chef explained that in weddings and parties, they cannot bake it as it takes a lot of time and instead fry it to save time and serve to more guests simultaneously. This was much better than the Punjabi fare being served in a Bihari wedding on the opposite spread of table. The chokha (mashed potato and boiled brinjal combine) was really awesome and reminded me that I was in the Capital of Bihar and not in the Capital of Punjab and Haryana.

I also tried the Gol Gappa. It had tamarind water and the filling was white gram with potato, much better than the sweet ones sold in Chandigarh in mineral water. The attendant was serving it with bare hands, a welcome change from the gloved hands of those who serve it in several metro cities. Aloo Tikki too was quite decent and had a local flavour. But that was it. There was nothing else available here which I cannot find in the cities of Haryana, Punjab or in New Delhi.

The realisation dawned on me that there has been a complete Punjabisation of cuisine all over from the place of its origin to the distant east. Tandoor has been a great leveler and perhaps the biggest contribution of Punjab to the rest of India in matters of cuisine.

It was time to move on. Now it was journey by a taxi and not a train, which I took from Patna to Bettiah – a district town in north Bihar, some 200 kms away from the State Capital, Patna. Crossing the Ganga Setu for north Bihar early in the morning was a sight to behold—miles of sand and river with hardly anyone in sight on both sides of the river, not even boats and fishermen. Standing on the Bridge for half an hour to gather your thoughts gave a special meaning to this journey. “This water has travelled all the way from Gomukh and Gangotri, passing the cities of Rishikesh, Hardwar, Kanpur, Allahabad, Benares and now will go all the way to the Bay of Bengal,” I thought, as I looked below the Bridge and the flowing water.  There was little sign of pollution here in Patna as the holy river had perhaps absorbed all the pollutants on the way and the tributaries had contributed to fresh water, just before the river entered the Bihar Capital.

“Ganga Maiyya ki Jai,” a man shouted looking at me, breaking my thoughts. I responded, “Ganga Maiyya ki Jai” as I took the front seat of the vehicle to have a better view of the surroundings.  Now you had miles of banana plantation just as you cross the Ganga and enter Hajipur. It is customary to buy the small yellow bananas, sold by the street vendors as this is considered to be the souvenir of the area, every bite of which was sugary sweet.

Roads are now much better in Bihar and the journey was a breeze through the two-lane road with little traffic through the rural areas of Vaishali, north of the Ganges. It is considered to be perhaps the first Republic of the world, which was in existence in the 6th century BC and a vibrant society. The founder of Jainism, Lord Mahavira as well as the founder of Buddhism, Gautam Buddha, both were associated with this place. While Mahavira was born here, Buddha spent a considerable part of his life here and the Buddhist tales have numerous stories associated with the religion and its founder. Amrapali, the famous nagar vadhu or royal courtesan, who appears in several Jatakas or tales concerning Gautam Buddha, lived here and became the disciple of the Lord. Several films have been made on her life, modern novels written and plays too have been based on her character.

The beautiful Buddha Stupa in Vaishali attracts thousands of visitors though a lot needs to be done to promote the Buddhist circuit of Bihar. The Ashokan pillar, built by the great emperor of Magadh, Ashoka stands tall amid ruins all around. Besides, there is a historic water tank called  Abishek Pushakaran, the water of which is considered to be sacred and the folklore has it that this water was used for the coronation of the kings of Vaishali and even the elected representatives who participated in the parliamentary proceedings then bathed in this sacred water. Another place which I visited was Raja Vishal ka garh, considered to be the palace and the Parliament of the founder of Vaishali Republic, king Vishal.

The place, however, lacks a tourist infrastructure for overnight stay for foreigners and has little to offer. However, there are several other small stupas and other Archaeological Survey of India protected Buddhist monuments. But at the end of the day, the tourists from Japan and Sri Lanka who come here quite often, retreat to Patna for overnight stay and then proceed to Bodh Gaya.

After the visit to the Buddhist Stupa and the monuments which Vaishali had, the hunger pangs started troubling me. But I was terrified at the prospects of eating potato chips and gulping soft drink, which seemed a possibility when I took the State highway Number 74. These two items, along with “Mineral water” of unheard of companies, were on sale at the small shops which were in and around the highway. Out of the blue, I saw a dhaba near a place called Kesharia, close to the ruins of a Buddhist stupa. Tourists come here to see the stupa and offer prayers in the makeshift Buddhist temple. Though this stupa is not that well maintained and is actually a ruin, it had plenty of greenery and still it attracts tourists who come to see monuments associated with Buddha.

The dhaba which I spotted from a distance was called “Mukhia ji ka Line Hotel” and looked perfect in the sylvan setting to have a cup of tea amid acres of green fields. In this part of the country, dhabas are called “Line Hotels” and no one has any clue why the word “Line” is prefixed to the word “Hotel”, but that is the way it is.

After getting down from the vehicle, here I saw “Mukhiya ji” frying fish in a pan with a strong aroma invading my nostrils and my senses when I got close to have a look. I asked which fish it was. “Naini from the local river,” said the middle aged man cooking it, pointing to the river barely a kilometer away from his kitchen. Instead of tea, now I ordered a meal comprising of fish curry, rice and aloo bhujiya all for Rs 100. I also ordered some fried fish for a small additional amount.

This was the best meal of the trip. The taste of the fresh water fish and meal was heavenly.  The sitting arrangement was a small cabin of thatched hut for privacy, adding to the earthen charm of the place. Nothing in this world, not even the broken chair of the “Line Hotel”, could take away the great taste which “Mukhia Ji” had perfected in his 25 years of cooking. Prepared in mustard paste and local spices, the fish was as fresh as it could be and my 1500 km trip was made.

There was no sign of Tandoor anywhere in the small dhaba made of thatched bamboo and local material as the cooking was mainly being done on coal besides a small gas stove. I changed my opinion. The flavor of local cuisine is still alive and kicking. The only condition is that you have to be slightly off road, away from the beaten track, search hard, really hard and hope to be lucky to find such a place.