To the Table at Safdarjung

Heirloom Recipes

When Mrs Gandhi entertained, the town knew. Gautam Anand gives you a glimpse of a colonial-style meal at Mrs G’s residence in Safdarjung, Delhi

Text: Gautam Anand

As she dispensed with the last of the political tangles on an autumn Saturday afternoon, her thoughts turned longingly to the allure of excellent food and sweet rest.
A tall glass of home-made lime juice, and the ushering in of her cultural secretary Ms Bhagat, and the redoubtable Elizabeth Gauba saw the last of the petitioners leave from her residential office on Safdarjung Road. Mrs Gandhi sat, awaiting her dear friends in her favourite posture on the sofa, cross-legged and elegant.
Elizabeth nee Mueller, who also accompanied Ms Bhagat, was a Munich-born German who married Jeevan, a Lahore-born scion of the renowned Gauba family. The two had fallen in love during Jeevan’s visit to Germany to study engineering, and after their nuptials, made a home at 8 Hailey Road (in New Delhi, India) that served as a prestigious school – it was also famously called Mrs Gauba’s School – as well as their abode. Amidst Elizabeth’s entourage was the artist Raza, Ms Sathyu, Indirani Rehman, Krishna Menon, Freda Bedi, Ambassador Chester Bowles and, of course, Mrs Gandhi.
The trio were to entertain a group of English colonial travellers led by a childhood mate of Mrs Gandhi’s, Dorothy Fellows. Fellows and her companions were travelling to New Delhi and Shimla and were keen to have une rencontre intime with Mrs G, who loved entertaining intellectuals, and insisted on having a meal with this lot to showcase the European skills of her kitchen. “We must take out my mother’s China linen and glassware!” she exclaimed. It is worth noting here that Mrs G’s personal distinction was a hallmark of simplicity, almost echoing Plato – “Beauty of style and harmony and grace and good rhythm depend on simplicity.”
Over a sumptuous but simple fare of Green Cheese on Toasted Bread (Gauba’s recipe) and Gucci Var, a Kashmiri Pandit speciality of morel and Himalayan rice, the group enjoyed Mrs G’s recounts of people met and food consumed. “What about the barbecue gentleman that we had on the last dinner, he was amazing,” she said, laughing at the memory of Biri Naggpaul, a refugee from West Punjab who made the most amazing boti tikka. A shambling giant of a man, with hennaed hair, a handlebar moustache and surma-rimmed eyes, he was quite a character with his fabulous skills and a poetic bent of mind.
His famously said...
Kabâb-e-sîkh haiñ ham karvateh har-sûba dalte haiñ
Jal uthtâ hai jo ye pahlû to vo pahlû badalte haiñ
“I am like a seekh kebab, I keep turning sides during my sleep,
When one side gets scorched I turn to the other side.”
On this very playful note the evening was all set.
The recipes are indicative of the style and substance and feminine side of this very powerful woman.