Silly Weekend

Okay, so we didn’t end up going to Chowk because my comrades didn’t believe that my stomach would be up to the challenge yet. Instead we went to this restaurant called Barbeque Nation which is this really cool place where you pay one set price and they bring you all these different meats and things on skewers to cook on this little coal stove they put in the middle of your table. These are the starters, and afterwards there’s a buffet where you get main dishes. This is where they trick you (and we totally caught on) that the starters are where the real awesomeness is, so we just ate those for a super long time before getting a couple curries and desserts at the buffet. I generally hate mushrooms, but there were these stuffed mushrooms that were just incredible, I couldn’t stop eating them.

We had a pretty nerdy, academic moment too. The waiter was showing us the series of sauces we could brush onto the starters while they were cooking, and one of them was “oriental sauce.” The guys were like “Oriental sauce? what’s in it?” Which is pretty innocent, though the guy had no idea and had to go ask the manager, but it degenerated into a discussion of the implications of calling it “oriental sauce” and how that’s connected to colonialism and Edward Said and blah blah blah. You know you’re a graduate student when…

The absolute best part was the music. When we walked into this place they were playing these horrible Muzak renditions of Michael Jackson songs. After a while the music changed and it was even worse. We were trying to figure out what this horrible album could be and after about three terrible covers of Besame Mucho and various other golden oldies, I was about to talk to the management. That’s when I looked over the wall and saw that there was an actual guy serenading us. He sang three different Bob Marley songs and even broke out the Hotel California. He was pretty much the most nerdy looking middle aged dude with a mustache who looked like he had just come from his accounting job. We were absolutely laughing ourselves silly. I have videos, but I’ll have to wait until I have American internet to upload those.

On Saturday I got up early to go to Kakori where we saw this pretty old Sufi complex. We chatted a bit with the Imam whose family had been running this place for generations. We sat in this room where people come to get spiritual guidance and various talismans and blessings (Sufism is a bit more of a mystical tradition) What was interesting is that about half the people who came in were actually Hindu. Quite the mix! Afterwards we went to his really old-fashioned Haveli http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haveli (which actually still has the men’s and women’s quarters) In fact, we were actually, at this point, split up by genders. The girls went back to the zenana area to hang out with his wife and eat famous Kakori kabobs (they were pretty good) There were ducks too, that we decided to name after characters from Mughal-e-Azam. Aunty thought we were pretty silly, because I guess you just don’t name ducks!

All in all it was a very interesting experience. I got some great pictures and was happy to see some of the more rural areas and villages outside of Lucknow.

Here’s a picture of me with one of the Sufi Dargas in the background (A Darga is a shrine where Sufi saints are buried)

And this is the very nice Imam who was teasing me for wearing a green salwar qamiz, which is the color of PAKISTAN. dun dun DUN. He was just joking around, and then commented on the fact that 99% of his family and almost that percentage of Muslims in Kakori had emigrated there after partition.

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~ by yatrahindustan on August 4, 2009.