Aurangzeb Road in New Delhi is as spiffy an address as you can get, and is one of the areas under threat by Ram Jethmalani who, it appears, plans to pull down Lutyens' bungalows to make way for highrises. What the hue and cry is all about I don't know, since apartment complexes have already made their appearance on both Aurangzeb Road and its close neighbour, Prithviraj Road. And along with the apartments have come the occupants who some years back would have been dispargingly called `new money' but are today hailed for it..
Among those who occupy these sanctified portals are brethrens from the Marwari community, who have run India's business conglomerates in the past, but are having a somewhat rough time now. To adapt to the new business climate, the Marwari has had to sacrifice his normally modest lifestyle and exchange his dhoti-kurta for the ubiquitous safari suit. More changes have visited the Marwari homestead. The Marwari now entertains at home, liquor is always in good supply, and surprise, the women of the house may even match you cocktail for cocktail. But where the Marwari draws the limit is in what he serves you to eat: vegetables and curries and puris cooked in ghee along with malpuas and rabri for dessert.
The standard menu never changes, not even when the Marwari finds himself cosying up with a chicken on the side, but only as long as it is in a restaurant. But to serve it at home would be sacrilege, and there isn't a Marwari who has breached the faith yet. In my experience, the Marwari who throws a posh five-star party at a hotel may serve you the best brands of Scotch, but don't search the food for rogan-josh, for the menu will not extend beyond jal-frezi.
Our more adventurous friends,who were also residents of Aurangzeb Road, wanting to fight the taboo but not knowing where to start, called us for drinks one evening to tell us they had taken the great leap forward -- with boiled eggs. And true to their word, along with our drinks, we were each served two boiled eggs, a little salt on the side. It felt less like the cocktail hour, and more like breakfast, and so we weren't surprised when our hostess asked us if we would like our bread plain or toasted.Later we sent them a thank-you note along with an egg slicer, and received an invitation to join them for drinks so that this marvellous little gadget could be put to use.
In Golf Links which, is even spiffier than Aurangzeb Road, other friends sent us a new year's invite in the shape of clam shells in which a plastic pearl was set. We were invited for a seaside theme party. Sacrificing other options, we set off in search of gastronomic nirvana. We had reckoned without our hosts being Marwaris though, and the invite had specified seaside, not seafood. There was a great deal of sand about, and fishing nets, and even a boat that was used as a bar, but of prawns or shrimps or king fish, lobster or crab, there was nary a glimpse.
It upsets me even as I mention this,there were huge quantities of dahi-bara, kachumber salad, paneer in palak which a friend imaginatively calls shyam-savera, rabri and, yes, malpua. I couldn't believe this was our choice at the start of a new year! Eight-hundred-and-ninety-four days later, it can still move me to tears.
