The reinvented dhaba post-Covid

Pushpesh Pant

The writer of these lines, dear readers, is no gypsy woman with sharp protruding teeth and head covered in a colourful scarf sitting in front of a crystal ball; but truth be told — the urge to gaze into the future is strong. What will we be eating, how and where ‘After the Lockdown’ are questions that concern us all.

Food business will take a long time — no one knows how long — to recover from the near-mortal blow the Covid-19 virus has dealt it. Even after trains are back on tracks and planes fly again, few people would be courageous enough to step out to eat. What is more, with the economy in doldrums, not many will have disposable incomes to splurge on trendsetting exotic (and expensive!) eateries offering varieties of local and global cuisines. Those who had till six months back ecstatically unveiled plans for rapid expansion in India and abroad are at the moment desperately trying to cut their losses. Worst hit are going to be the luxury hotels, home to iconic ethnic restaurants. Each one of them, with zero occupancy and hundreds of rooms to maintain, is struggling to cope. The state of upmarket standalone restaurants is no better.

A semblance of stability

So where does that leave other purveyors of food? The situation today is akin to the post-Partition days in the immediate aftermath of World War II. The magnitude of tragedy crippled the economy and tore apart the social fabric scarring minds and pushed the country towards a precipice. It was the humble dhaba, which played a significant role in re-establishing a semblance of stability. The roadside eateries, based on tandoor, replicated the sanjha chulha — the traditional community kitchens — in the villages of undivided Punjab. The food served was basic, great value for money, prepared before your eyes and had a taste of home fare. It was a place where the refugees converged, exchanged information about government’s relief measures and hoped against hope to be reunited with their loved ones separated in the blood-stained tumult. No one had heard of ‘social distancing’ then. Strategies of survival hinged on bonding with fellow sufferers.

Cut to the present

Unlike those times, social distancing today has disturbed the circumstances people have to eat. Survival of the refugees, migrants and daily wage earners displaced internally depends on the availability of inexpensive food at reliable outlets. Those living in shared accommodation in pigeonhole-sized rooms can’t observe social distancing. Rather than die of starvation they would risk contagion. The only precaution they can take is to keep the duration of exposure as short as possible and consume the food bought maintaining a safe distance from other customers. Not all can take home packed food as this would involve using dishes and washing them. Disposable biodegradable utensils are likely to emerge as the norm.

A novelty in the hill town

When I was a student in Nainital in the closing years of 1950s, dhaba was a novelty in the hill town. Sher e Punjab in Talli Tal called itself a hotel but was identified as a dhaba. Those strictly vegetarian avoided it as it was rumoured that the same ladle that stirred the chicken curry was used to make the kali daal lip-smacking flavourful. Orthodox prohibitions crumbled with the passage of time as the young and old discovered that the dhaba offered good value for money, the food was freshly prepared and was refreshingly different from the insipid home fare.

Many years later, motoring down the legendary GT Road researching the text and photographing the highway, we discovered that not all dhabas specialise in tandoori chicken or saag gosht. There are Amritsariyan de dhabe that proudly proclaim that they are Vaishno — 100 per cent vegetarian. Somewhere near Kanpur, the Punjabi dhaba makes way for the Yadav or Brahmin dhaba and yellow daal finally displaces maahdi makhni.

Creating a pan Indian palate

To cut a long story very short, it is not the high profile restaurants that have shaped Indian taste since Independence but the humble dhaba that has created a pan-Indian palate. Even delux eateries have had to accommodate the dhaba classics on their menu.

Dhabas have, in the past seven decades and more, proliferated all over the land and evolved in response to changing times. East Coast Road (ECR) Dhaba, a popular eating destination en route Puducherry from Mahabalipuram-Chennai, blended flavours of Chettinad with Punjab. Sardarji ka Dhaba in Garhiahaat in Kolkata had endeared itself to the residents of the city by tweaking its fare to their palate. Midway Points in Murthal and Gajraula have emerged as destinations worth visiting for a great meal on their own. Pit Stops for long-distance truck drivers’ dhaba have also gentrified. Purveyors of other regional cuisines flatter them by imitating their style of operations. Today from Surat in Gujarat to Sib Sagar in Assam, we encounter not only the Punjabi dhaba but also affordable family eateries serving food from Udupi, Malabar, Goa and Kashmir.

Hundreds of millions of Indians staying away from home have for years relied on faceless vendors owners of pushcarts and kiosks, holes in the walls outlets to feed them cheap, hot fixed thali meals of parantha, pickle and a spoonful of raita, puri subzi or tawa roti daal and tarkari. Hunger pangs are quelled resorting to affordable relief provided by eat-on-the-run kulche matar, vada pav, paav bhaji, bread pakora, chow-mein, bun omelette and now momo and litti chokha. A half plate of Muradabadi biryani was the current rage in the Capital before the virus wreaked its havoc.

Harbinger of hope

We believe that in days and nights to come the ‘reincarnated dhaba’ will dominate the food scene in India. They don’t have backbreaking overheads — rentals and salaries — are mostly small-scale operations surviving on slim margins of profit. Most ply their business in open spaces where the rules to enforce social distancing don’t really apply. It is sufficient if the physical contact between the buyer and seller is brief. These countless outlets can easily transform themselves as neighbourhood takeaway and delivery-at-doorstep options.

Is it too much to expect that the government will prioritise the relief package for them enabling better hygiene and waste disposal. Multinational and Indian companies who have so far concentrated on upmarket clients, hotels and restaurants better look at this bottom-of-the-pyramid opportunity. Ready-made gravies, sauces not only for exotic Chindian or Thai but regional Indian delicacies developed for the 21st century dhaba appear to present a win-win situation for all.

A large number of professionals employed in the F&B sector have been laid off or have been sent on unpaid leave or accepted sizeable payouts. Many of them are young, on the threshold of their careers. Perhaps they can be helped out with bank loans, subsidies to tide over the lean season by providing back up to small-micro sized f&b outlets. This may well prove the fastest way for the dhaba to come to our rescue in a powerful new incarnation!

Plate up the 4 Ps

Dr Izzat Hussein, our friend, a doctor trained in the Indian system of medicine turned heritage chef, firmly believes that the 4 Ps have always and will continue to ensure that those who cook and feed people professionally need not worry about customers.

1 The first P represents panic that propels people to have a carefree binge before —‘who knows the world may end tonight?’ Shades of Last Tango in Paris, you may say.

2The second P represents passion. Passion is well known to make people reckless enough to happily imperil their lives on the chance to experience ecstasy. Whiff of good food, a mere rumour will continue to embolden them to take myriad risks.

3 The third P stands for pleasures (mostly forbidden) that seduce us in adolescence and continue to tempt dangerously in old age. Addiction to nicotine and alcohol are extremely difficult to ‘cure’, relapses are common and who doesn’t know that those on a medical diet flounder repeatedly as the flesh is weak?

4The final P is perhaps the most crucial — Power that mediates the other Ps. The rich and the powerful will try to enhance their wealth by investing in risky businesses and profit from the misery of the poor. Laws aren’t for the powerful! These investments are likely to keep getting rich dividends.

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