Street Food S01E03 Delhi, India
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Short filmTranscript
00:30When I was growing up, I loved going to the movies.
00:43It was an obsession.
00:54What I liked most were the beautiful stories.
01:01I never saw myself as the hero.
01:12To be the hero, one should be handsome, intelligent, and educated.
01:20And that was nothing like me.
01:25But I knew I wanted to do something special.
01:30I wanted to be the hero.
01:48Delhi has always been said to be the heart of India.
01:51As soon as you come to Delhi, the first thing that hits you is the colour.
02:07It's a very old city.
02:10It's got at least a thousand year old history.
02:13You just take it for granted that the old and the new are existing together.
02:22Another thing that gets you in Delhi is the way everybody is rushing around.
02:27It's very crowded.
02:30You are just bumping with people all the time.
02:35Over time, the city of Delhi has been a melting pot of many, many civilisations and many people.
02:42The Tomars, the Rajputs, the Mughal Empire, and of course the British Empire.
02:48And whoever came brought their foods.
02:51So the foods that we eat today on the streets of Delhi go back in time.
02:57That makes it very special.
03:00When you're eating a seekh kebab or a nahari, you're also sampling history.
03:07Many people don't have kitchens, so they totally depend on street food for their meals.
03:12So if someone has to taste a real food, authentic food, it has to be street food.
03:21When you go to the streets, you'll find chole bhature, parathas, and kebabs.
03:27But chaat is the most popular street food in Delhi.
03:32The word chaat comes from chaatna, which means licking your fingers.
03:35It's normally some form of potatoes, deep fried, topped with chutneys, yoghurt, and vegetables.
03:41It becomes a mixture of sweet, sour, crunchy, and spicy.
03:46And it's just an exploration of taste.
03:51Dalton's chaat is special.
03:54It's most renowned for its taste.
03:57Dalton's chaat is the most popular street food in Delhi.
04:00Dalton's chaat is special.
04:03It's most renowned for its aloo tikki.
04:06Aloo tikki is a kind of chaat that's made with mashed potatoes and stuffed with lentils.
04:12It's so crispy.
04:14He's a very humble person with peerless culinary skill.
04:20Dalton is one who can compromise on getting less profit, but cannot compromise on the ingredients.
04:27He is not selling, rather he's offering you.
04:32And whoever goes and eats at Dalton's stall doesn't forget him as a person.
04:57My grandfather started our chaat business.
05:09My father learned it by watching him.
05:18After learning, my father started teaching us.
05:21We're a chaat family.
05:25My father always told us to focus on the taste.
05:30That money is not everything.
05:34If the taste is good, people will like it and come back for more.
05:40And I'm also holding on to those values.
05:44That's why when I go to the market,
05:46I saw good ginger here, good beetroot there, good carrots there.
05:53Spice is where the flavor comes from.
06:01As long as the spice is there,
06:04the flavor is there.
06:06And the taste is there.
06:08The taste is there.
06:10The taste is there.
06:12The taste is there.
06:14Without the right spices, my chaat won't taste good.
06:21I think a lot about my customers, to serve them only the best.
06:31Whenever customers come to my stall, I want to make them happy.
06:36When they smile, I feel good.
06:59Street food is so popular in Delhi because it's the staple food.
07:03It is so popular in Delhi because it started as a necessity.
07:07The laborers needed a place to eat,
07:10and street food seemed to be the most convenient and the cheapest way to get a meal.
07:16But now, street food has become very democratic.
07:19Everybody eats it across class.
07:22You'll find people in diamonds, you'll find very simple folk,
07:26you'll find students, you'll find oldies, you'll find every kind of person out there.
07:33The street food is so popular in Delhi because it's the staple food.
07:49My father started this shop.
07:55He taught me how to cook nihari.
07:59When my father died, I had to manage everything.
08:04Everyone said that the shop would close.
08:08But that never happened.
08:18The word nihari comes from the Arabic word which means morning.
08:22It's cooked throughout the night, it's a meat stew.
08:26It's very spicy and it's very hot.
08:28This place is so popular that you have to actually stand in line
08:32for at least half an hour to an hour just to get a chance to eat there.
08:42Nihari is made from the meat on the bone.
08:45The meat comes from big buffaloes.
08:49We add doshed onion and tomatoes,
08:52as well as garlic, ginger, special nihari spices,
08:55and then salt and chili to taste.
08:59We use the same flavors as our ancestors.
09:03From heaven, my father is watching us.
09:19Whenever I think of my childhood,
09:22it takes me back to a beautiful place.
09:29My family was poor, but we had a lot of fun.
09:36My father had a chaat stall outside of Delight Cinema.
09:41Our entire family helped out.
09:52Family is the most important ingredient in chaat.
09:59But as we grew older,
10:03my father got sick and he could no longer run the stall.
10:09He became dependent on my brother to run things.
10:14But my brother wasn't as skilled as my father.
10:23He started running with the wrong crowd.
10:29Hemp, hashish, heroin.
10:33He was completely immersed in it.
10:39I was too young to do anything at that time.
10:51We had to close our shop
10:53because the conditions at home were so bad
10:56we didn't even have money for bread.
11:12My family had to leave our old neighborhood.
11:19And then my brother,
11:22and then my brother moved away.
11:28The house was shattered
11:31and the entire family was in turmoil.
11:38I felt so alone.
11:52In 1857, after the Mughal Empire was ended by the British,
11:57all the staff of the kitchen were jobless.
12:01So some of these royal cooks had to fend for themselves.
12:07Many of them put up stalls in Old Delhi.
12:11And food from the royal kitchen was sold to the poor.
12:15The poor had to live on their own.
12:17Many of them put up stalls in Old Delhi.
12:20And food from the royal table
12:23then became available to the ordinary man.
12:37This is a very old story.
12:40Our forefather, Karamuddin Sahib,
12:43was a cook for Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar.
12:48When the Mughal rule ended,
12:51he opened a small restaurant
12:54near the Jama Majid Mosque,
12:57which is called Kareem's.
13:00Seekh kebab was the first dish he started with.
13:04He also served mutton korma.
13:07There were two items they had.
13:10Seekh kebab is a ground lamb
13:13mixed with spices and grilled over an open flame.
13:16Another very popular royal dish was the korma,
13:20a braised meat dish.
13:23It was a very popular dish.
13:25Another very popular royal dish was the korma,
13:28a braised meat cooked with fried onions and yogurt.
13:42We haven't made changes to the original spices.
13:48We are still following the recipe
13:51that was prepared by Karamuddin Sahib the same way today.
13:56I belong to the fourth generation.
13:59After us, our kids will be the fifth generation.
14:06Those who are fond of Mughal foods
14:09will continue to enjoy it,
14:12and that makes me very happy.
14:18So when you're eating a seekh kebab,
14:21you can just think back and say,
14:23a thousand years ago,
14:26some prince sat on these same steps and ate it.
14:29It's not just the food, it's also the history connected to it,
14:32and that makes it very special.
14:53When I was growing up,
14:56my family was in a bad state.
14:59Everyone was separated,
15:02and my father was not well.
15:07I was working for a catering company,
15:11but there wasn't much work to do.
15:15I was working for a catering company,
15:18but there wasn't much work to do.
15:20I wanted to bring my family back together,
15:28so I had to do something different.
15:42I decided to start my own business.
15:46Chaat is a very simple dish.
15:49Chaat was all I knew,
15:57but I didn't have enough money to get started.
16:04So my sister pawned her jewelry without telling me.
16:10It was a very important time for me when I found out.
16:14I had to succeed.
16:24I got a few friends to come and help me.
16:33We rented a small shop and started our work there.
16:44We gathered the materials
16:47and worked on all the necessary preparations.
16:54We were excited and very hopeful.
17:06But it was a new neighborhood.
17:09People didn't know who we were,
17:13and that made a difference.
17:18Our business struggled.
17:30I couldn't figure out what I was doing wrong.
17:39Slowly my friends started going back to their old professions.
17:45I was alone and I didn't have any kind of help.
17:54I couldn't afford to pay rent for the store.
18:01I didn't know what to do.
18:09And that's when my father died.
18:15What a bad time it was.
18:3815 years ago, we made a twist with destiny.
18:43At the stroke of the midnight hour,
18:46when the world sleeps,
18:49India will awake to life and freedom.
18:521947 saw the partition of India.
18:56India was liberated from British rule,
18:59but it left deep scars.
19:02India was divided into two parts,
19:05India and Pakistan.
19:08India came from the Muslim-majority state of Punjab.
19:12There was a violent division along religious lines.
19:15Muslim families who had been living in Old Delhi
19:18for thousands of years went to Pakistan,
19:21some by choice and many because they feared the violence at home.
19:25And in return, the Hindu population of Punjab
19:28became refugees and travelled to India.
19:32And when the Punjabi refugees came to Delhi,
19:35they brought with them not only their culture,
19:38but also their food.
19:53A very popular Punjabi dish is Chole Bhature.
19:56Chole is chickpea, boiled,
19:59and of course with a lot of spices in it.
20:02It's eaten with a huge puffed-up bread called Bhatura.
20:09This is our grandfather's recipe.
20:12He came to Delhi because of the partition.
20:17At first, he started with a cart.
20:20We moved to a storefront in 1960.
20:23This Chole Bhature is without garlic and onions.
20:27We make it light, not too rich or spicy.
20:30Mixed with coriander, mint-green chilli and pomegranate seeds.
20:35This is very good for digestion.
20:38That's why people like us.
20:42Chole Bhature may have come from Punjab,
20:45but now everybody eats it, across people, across religion.
20:49This food has become very, very Delhi food.
21:09After my father died,
21:14I was ready to give up.
21:39Spices.
21:50And then, I thought about the lessons my father taught me.
22:00Okay, this is cloves,
22:03and black cardamom,
22:05and green cardamom.
22:08Grind it.
22:15Money isn't everything.
22:21Make people remember your food.
22:26If the taste is good, you will find success.
22:30I realized that
22:33I could not give up.
22:43I moved my cart across the street.
22:48The location wasn't nice.
22:53But with the money,
22:55I bought the best ingredients.
23:01Potatoes, carrots, ginger, masala,
23:04and pure clarified butter.
23:08But I was missing one last ingredient.
23:11My family.
23:17My family.
23:20My family.
23:26I summoned the courage to call my brother.
23:30He had changed.
23:33To my surprise, he came and helped me.
23:38It was a new beginning.
23:45We prepared our tikkis just like our father had taught us.
23:50My whole family had to get involved.
23:56It was like we were kids again.
24:02The fragrance of my food spread around the whole market.
24:07People became interested.
24:10They started saying, let's go to dalchins.
24:14The business started to pick up.
24:16We got so busy.
24:21And we won the hearts of the people.
24:29I have tested many street food vendors,
24:32but the aloo tikki which Dalchins made was overwhelming.
24:38When the World Street Food Congress in Singapore
24:41asked us to bring a few street food vendors
24:43I had to choose Dalchins.
24:50It was like the grace of God.
24:55I never thought that people would love my tikkis so much.
25:02Because of my family,
25:05I was able to do something special.
25:14As an Indian, we believe in eating.
25:17We are foodies.
25:20But we are not good at writing it
25:23and explaining it to the world.
25:27There are many like Dalchins in our country
25:30who are not recognized.
25:33Since we have such a rich street food culture and tradition,
25:37the world should know it.
25:44Street food is what brings us together.
25:48It's where we find a common place.
25:55It not only takes us back in history,
25:58but it's also a way of carrying forward traditions.
26:06All the different people who came here over the years
26:09brought their own food with them.
26:11We not only adopted it,
26:14we adapted it to be our own.
26:19Now it's our time to celebrate it
26:27and share it with the rest of the world.
26:41I never saw myself as the hero.
27:12But through chat, my family was reunited.
27:23For me, there was nothing better than this.
27:27If he could see us today,
27:31my father would think
27:35my son has made me proud.
27:41Very good shot!
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