A Taste of Iran in India
A Taste of Iran in India
When two childhood friends reunite after years, the outcome is a triumph. Gautam Anand relates the moment when this happens and the background that puts it into context. Plus, there’s two historical recipes to recreate at home
So the Kaidbehs were eventually coming on their annual visit.
Under normal circumstances, Sheila would be delighted, as Abanbanu, meaning ‘beautiful girl’ (it is the name of the most beautiful woman in Shahnameh, an epic Persian poem), and she had been childhood friends from their academic days at Isabella Thoburn College in Lucknow, India.
Sheila fondly remembered being told that amongst the Iranians, a girl’s name should be blessed so that the name glorifies a person and is chosen with extreme care. A girl’s name has to sound beautiful, and the name should be soothing to the ears. The name should describe the future characteristics that the family wants to see in the girl.
Sheila was after all also the godmother to the Kaidbehs’ daughter. Afsaneh, meaning ‘fable of the ancient’. The name belongs to the Persian queen of Mughal king Shah Jahan.
The Kaidbehs were Iranians. Abanbanu’s ancestors had settled in Awadh and returned to Iran only in the 1930s.
Since her marriage, the family was domiciled in Tehran, and Agha Kaidbeh was reported to work within the High Echelons of Government. For some inexplicable reasons both wore black, complete with dark glasses, adding to the mystery of their aura.
Even by the admission of the Iranian ambassador, last year, addressing a group of foreign policy analysts in New Delhi, Gholamreza Ansari made an important admission. He admitted that Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, leader of Iran’s Islamic Revolution, came from an important family of divines from Kuntoor, in the Awadh region of Uttar Pradesh, not far from Lucknow. Lucknow and Awadh have always been at the very heart of the world’s Persian culture.
With the decline of Delhi in the early 1700s, Awadh came into its own as the main source of literary, artistic, and religious patronage in North India. Its rulers, called nawabs, were Iranian Shi’ites from Nisapur, who not only encouraged the existing Persian-language belle-lettrist activity to shift from Delhi, but also invited, and received, a steady stream of scholars, poets, jurists, architects, and painters from Iran. Although Urdu was at this time becoming more widely used both for artistic expression and for everyday speech, Persian remained the medium of government, academic instruction, high culture, and the court language until the mid-13th/19th century. The best Urdu poets produced divans in Persian, often under a different pen-name from that used in their Urdu compositions.
Sheila’s anxiety albeit had its roots elsewhere, her much cherished boti chef (hereditary cooks from the Kangra valley) had been indisposed and had since departed to the salubrious climes of the lower Himalayas.
Sheila and her family were very much dependent on the Chelmsford Club for their meals (Sheila though accomplished, was not particularly fond of cooking).
The Kaidbehs were used to Sheila’s genial household and the munificence of her table.
Sheila was a first-class homemaker and kept a beautiful brownstone at New
Delhi’s Queen’s Way Lane (now called Janpath). Double-height luxury
apartments built originally for the
English, by the English, and her neighbours continued to be colourful with Mrs
Hoggs’ boarding house, a motley crowd the fashion set, her culinary skills had yet to be surprisingly tested!
Sheila finally decided to take the plunge and she decided to limit her travails to either the Chicken Pepper or Ginger Chicken, plus everyone’s favourite, an Indo-Iran combination of Saffron and Turmeric Rice.
Turmeric is an Indian contribution to Iranian cuisine and saffron (kesar) is an Iranian addition to India’s auspicious herb cabinet. The main difference between saffron and turmeric is... Saffron is a spice that comes from the flower of crocus sativus or saffron crocus while turmeric is a spice that comes from the curcuma longa plant of the ginger family, which grows in Asia and Southeast Asia. Both these spices are used to add flavour and colour to food. However, saffron is very expensive, while turmeric is the more affordable spice out of the two.
The rest of the cuisine would have to come from the Garden Party (the café at the next-door Imperial hotel) where the Kaidbehs were staying.
The outcome was a triumph. With both Sheila and Abanbanu reciting in rhythm from the immortal Bal-e-Jibril.
Sitaron se agay jahan aur bhi hain
Tu Shaheen hai parwaaz hai kaam tera
Tere saamne aasman aur bhee hain.
(You are a falcon. Soaring high is your nature. There are skies yet for you to conquer.)
– Allama Iqbal
Two lines that have inspired generations and continue to do so. This sher is from his ghazal, Sitaron se aage jahan aur bhee hain, abhee ishq ke intehaan aur bhee hain.” The ghazals and each sher of the ghazal can be interpreted in several ways but do look at the political interpretation of the ghazal considering Iqbal was a poet of the pre-independence era and was a freedom fighter during British India. It had inspired Mohammad Mosaddegh, an Iranian politician who served as the 35th Prime Minister of Iran, holding office from 1951 until 1953, and a close relative of the Kaidbehs.