Babu, Nabi Karim and Chicken Changezi
Babu
When I met Babu he was a 23 year old boy with one wife and 4 children from the Nabi Karim area in New Delhi. He was 5.4; he was very dark with a shining smile and he was thin.
It was 2003 or 2004, I was still heading some creative departments in some really big advertising house in Delhi (Mudra Communications for the ones who want to know) and was still dreaming of a career shift.
Babu was a freelance production chap with great resource connections in his line or in any line for god’s sake. He was a hard working young man whom you could even ask for Hippopotamus meat in two hours time and without blinking his eyes he would promise you to deliver within three hours – without even knowing what he was committing. But on a good day he would actually make wonders and deliver things that you thought was impossible.
I know about an instance where some big shot in Guwahati had to erect an amusement park with all its rides and frills in two months time under some government pressure. He didn’t want to spend a lot of money on it… as he had to run it only for a few months, until he recovered his due payment form the government. Someone connected him with Babu….. the legend that is popular in some Delhi circuits goes: that Babu had nudged his connections and arranged an unbelievable bargain for this businessman.
What was the bargain?
He got him to buy almost half the rides of by-then-closed AppuGhar in Delhi. And that too for the price of junks as the Delhi Govt didn’t know what to do with them. Now the story doesn’t end here –Babu got this humongous Cargo delivered in Guwahati within a month and then got everything repaired and made that park running in two more months (sticking to his normal +1 unit of extra time).
Well, I know this to be a true one – the rest is up-to you to believe it.
Nabi Karim and Chicken Changezi
As I have recently decided to write about my encounters with delicious foods, I also have decided to write about the amazing people I have met in my life. So this one is about Babu and about a dish named Chicken Changezi from the by-lanes of Navi Karim in old Delhi.
Babu had introduced me to the Nabi Karim area and to Chicken Changezi on an unavoidable trip to the lanes of Pahargunj in old Delhi. I had to supervise a fabrication work for one of my INCREDIBLE INDIA campaigns and I had to accompany Babu who was coordinating things. When we finished our work with the fabricator in a Pahargunj alley it was close to midnight. Babu requested me to have some food and then start for home. With my tired body and soul that moment what I needed was a warm water shower, some good food and SLEEP. I refused.
Babu immediately started his motor bike and eye-gestured me to hop on for a lift up-to the far off parking lot where my driver was waiting. I was happy that Babu didn’t argue at all…
Babu’s motor-bike took twists and turns through the alleys no wider than the bike itself and then he killed the engine and asked me to follow him. I didn’t react and did what he wanted. The area was mostly dark by then and in no time the lane became narrower than one I could think of. We were walking like men in Egyptian paintings to pass through the narrower bottlenecks.
’These are the in-famous Alleys of Nabi Karim – Sir,’ Babu whispered in his Rajasthani Hindi (I forgot to mention, he was actually from Jaipur in Rajasthan).
I kept quite….. I knew him to be a good man until he finished his second bottle in the night, but then again I was worried in my mind. I knew he was only taking me to the food joint against my will – and not to the parking lot, but I was still worried…. as I never had dreamt of roaming in the lanes of Nabi Karim this late in the night.
Suddenly a bottle neck widened into a well-lit opening and there were people and there were 2-3 food stalls – all with large iron tavas on whooshing stoves, and people with long iron spatulas constantly working on a semi-liquid substance on the tavas. I concentrated on the closest stall.
Whatever was being cooked on the tava, the aroma that oozed was fantastic. At least I never had encountered that good a smell from any street food, anywhere.
I keenly observed the stall. You don’t enter anywhere. No tables, no chairs – as no one was expected to sit. It looked like they pride themselves for their food and that was what they were focusing on. I refocused.
There was no menu card as the only offering was Chicken Changezi – you could ask for Tava rotis, Tanduri rotis, Khameeri Rotis or Naans as per a hand written board that dangled in the mid night breeze – but they didn’t make any of them.
As you ordered your choice, the ‘chotu’ of the shop would run down yet another narrow alley to source them from some nearby muslim dhaba.
They keep things simple.
Babu and I had to wait as there were people already waiting. People from different classes, but with the same interest in the dish served. By this time I was interested in the whole experience and wanted to absorb things like a sponge. I did the only thing I was good at.
I observed.
It seemed, Chicken Changezi was a dish consisting of grilled chicken pieces (which have been marinated in lime juice and spices and already was half grilled) cooked on the tava in a burnt amber coloured gravy. And as a food enthusiast I figured the magic of the dish lies in the size of the tava (which was around four feet in diameter); continuous heat and constant arm movement with the spatula on it with an astonishing skill of a gymnast.
Our turn came and we were served on simple steel plates. Our rotis reached and we started. By then I was absolutely an insider to the place – I almost had started belonging there. We ate. None of us talked until we both finished our first servings. Then ordered our next.
I could say it was a taste to be acquired, and which could only be acquired by the second serving – by the fourth portion of the morsel. Initially through the first serving, you find it a little sour and tangy but then it grows on you and well by the end; you discover it to be a very good change from the regular chicken dishes that you find.
People were polite and talked less as they also were cooking with magical skill. The food was the king there in those alleys and the midnight queues said it all.
The curry was spicy and the chicken pieces were soft and delicate…but above all, for me what worked was the raw environment. Today when I look back – I am sure the night and Babu’s company also had added a lot to the taste.
Babu will always remain in my mind as long as I remember this amazing dish called Chicken Changezi or will it be the other way round….. I don’t care – I have already told you the story.
But before I call it a story and sign off, I should mention this trivia – Babu had this funny way of introducing himself as Babu bhai…. with a pause in between ‘Babu’ and ‘babu bhai’ with an uncanny similarity with the way James Bond introduces himself. It was so fascinating, I had developed a character (with the same name) in my book – The Job Charnock Riddle…. and many people actually have liked him.
Victor Ghoshe
15 June, 2016
