The reason why Guru's rajma tastes better than any you will ever have is because he does nothing at all to it
"What's so great about my rajma?" he asked me suddenly, as though he didn't know. "There's nothing in it. It's just boiled with red chillies and salt"
These days, Inderjit Singh aka Guru sits at his little restaurant only when he feels like it. Most times, he doesn't feel like it. Age, diabetes, sadness, trembling hands, intimations of mortality, these take their toll. Cooking doesn't seem quite as much fun. So he leaves it to the very clever women in his life — his daughter, his wife — to run Guru da Dhaba. He is there but only in spirit.
As for his sturdy rajma, somehow it survives, even in his absence. When I wrote about it in my blog, it became easily the most shared, tweeted and commented upon food story I had ever written.
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That was back then, a very different time, the 1980s, when everything in Lokhandwala Complex, Andheri West, was creative and game changing. No one was surprised to see a Punjabi vegetarian dhaba. Run by a Sikh, no less.
Like any self-respecting sardarji, Inderjit Singh's distinguishing quality was that he himself didn't know what he would say next. This made it something of a challenge to extract a recipe for anything from him, as I discovered shortly after I broached the subject of his amazing rajma with him.
Rajma, for those not in the know, is the Punjabi name for a comfort food made of cooked red kidney beans. The purest rajma I have ever eaten was at the home of a schoolmate in Old Delhi decades ago. I remember steaming rice, a clear hot spoonful of ghee and an overwhelming rajma — medium brown, not submerged under a cavalry of cardamoms, cloves, gingers and garlics, not mashed, not forced to join hands with black dal. The red kidney bean, allowed to speak for itself, emitted a mellow purr, mumbling first but growing in confidence with every mouthful.
Guru's rajma came very close — a thin, dark red gravy within which rested perfectly cooked red beans. With Guru's chapatis, arbi masaledar and boondi raita, you were very near a perfect meal.
"Do you cook it yourself?" I asked him back then admiringly.
"Mr Siddharth has already written about me," he said, as though everything ended with that. The article in question was framed and hung behind the cash counter. Next to
the aluminium container with chilled chaas.
"Oh, well then," I said, turning away.
"But I cook it myself," he said to my retreating back. "My kadhi is even better. Best in and out of Punjab. Rajma and kadhi. Never forget." Guru in
a nutshell.
The sardarji himself is from Rawalpindi. His young life was spent in Dehradun. Later, in Mumbai, he chugged an autorickshaw around for years, found it wasn't enough. Started making and selling tea, with moderate success. Spurred by his wife, Guru rented himself a stall in Kamadhenu Shopping Complex and graduated to serving simple lunches that his wife cooked at home and sent to the shop in dabbas. One thing led to another, dabba became dhaba. Guru da Dhaba.
It was only when his wife fell ill that Inderjit really began to emerge, a veritable turbaned Neptune rising from the foam, colander in one hand, perforated spoon in the other, methi all over his beard, ready to cook or be cooked. His wife, the Guru's own guru, taught him all that he knows, turning a three-wheeled dilettante into a passionate chef.
I know. I've watched the gnome at work. Around 9.30 am, he will alight, all sweating and profane, from someone else's auto-rickshaw, cutting and chopping fresh vegetables picked by his own hands. Then he will get in there and start cutting and chopping with the boys. Every day, Guru presides over the rebirth of his own menu. Never tires of it.
"What's so great about my rajma?" he asked me suddenly, as though he didn't know. "There's nothing in it. It's just boiled with red chillies and salt."
"What about the gravy?" I asked him.
"This is the uncle," he said unexpectedly to his young son, "who is going to take pictures of me for the papers. He says people are more important than food."
"I need a shot of you cooking rajma," I said, hoping I wouldn't get some unrelated oddball answer.
"I may not even be here," he said, suddenly combative, as though I'd tried to sell him a defective eutectic freezer. He decided to dismiss me. "You go. Come back tomorrow at 11 am. Shoot what you can. The rajma will be on the table. You can't have everything your way. "
But the sardarji was there, and he did create his extraordinary ordinary rajma which respects the bean it boils. It is elegant, so simple to make. Even you could make it.
Well, all right. If you really want the recipe, write and ask me for it. Say please or nothing will happen.
Here, viewed from there. C Y Gopinath, in Bangkok, throws unique light and shadows on Mumbai, the city that raised him. You can reach him at cygopi@gmail.com Send your feedback to mailbag@mid-day.com
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