Original subtitles

When I was growing up,

I loved going to the movies.

It was an obsession.

What I liked most were the beautiful stories.

I never saw myself as the hero.

To be the hero, one should be handsome, intelligent, and educated.

And it was nothing like me.

But I knew I wanted to do something special.

Delhi has always been said to be the heart of India.

As soon as you come to Delhi,

the first thing that hits you is the color.

It's a very old city.

It's got at least a thousand year old history.

You just take it for granted

that the old and the new are existing together.

Another thing that gets you in Delhi

is the way everybody is rushing around.

It's very crowded.

You are just bumping with people all the time.

Over time, the city of Delhi has been a melting pot

of many, many civilizations and many people.

The Tomars, the Rajputs,

the Mughal Empire, and of course, the British.

And whoever came brought their foods.

So, the foods that we eat today on the streets of Delhi

go back in time.

That makes it very special.

When you're eating a seekh kebab

or a nihari,

you're also sampling history.

Many people don't have kitchens,

so they totally depend on street food for their meals.

So, if someone has to taste real food,

authentic food, it has to be street food.

When you go to the streets, you'll find chole bhature,

parathas, and kebabs.

But chaat is the most popular street food in Delhi.

The word "chaat" comes from "chatna"

which means licking your fingers.

It's normally some form of potatoes, deep fried,

topped with chutneys, yogurt, and vegetables.

It becomes a mixture of sweet, sour, crunchy, and spicy.

And it's just an explosion of taste.

Dalchand's chaat is special.

He's most renowned for his aloo tikki.

Aloo tikki is a kind of chaat

that's made with mashed potatoes

and stuffed with lentils.

It's so crispy.

He's a very humble person

with peerless culinary skill.

Dalchand is one who can compromise on getting less profit

but cannot compromise on the ingredients.

He is not selling, rather he's offering you.

And whoever goes and eats at Dalchand's stall

doesn't forget him as a person.

Our chaat business was started by my grandfather.

My father learned it by watching him.

After learning, my father started teaching us.

We're a chaat family.

My father always told us to focus on the taste.

That money is not everything.

If the taste is good, people will like it and will come back for more.

I am also holding onto these values.

That's why, when I go to the market, I always look for the best ingredients.

I saw good ginger here, good beetroot there, good carrots there.

But...

spice is where the flavor comes from.

Without the right spices, my chaat will not taste good.

I think a lot about my customers, to serve them only the best.

Whenever customers come to my stall, I want to make them happy.

When they smile, I feel good.

Street food is so popular in Delhi

because it started as a necessity.

The laborers needed a place to eat,

and street food seemed to be the most convenient

and the cheapest way to get a meal.

But now, street food has become very democratic.

Everybody eats it across class.

You'll find people in diamonds, you'll find very simple folk,

you'll find students, you'll find oldies,

you'll find every kind of person out there.

I want nihari.

My father started this shop.

He was the one who taught me how to cook nihari.

When my father died, I had to manage everything.

Please bend a little.

I've ordered two.

Everyone said that the shop would close.

But that never happened.

The word nihari comes from the Arabic word which means morning.

It's cooked throughout the night.

It's a meat stew.

It's very spicy and it's very hot.

The place is so popular

that you have to actually stand in line

at least half an hour to an hour

just to get a chance to eat there.

Nihari is made from the meat on the bone.

The meat comes from big buffalos.

We add gosht, onion, and tomatoes,

as well as garlic, ginger, and special nihari spices.

And lastly, salt and chili to taste.

We are using the same flavors as our ancestors.

From heaven, my father is watching us.

Whenever I think of my childhood,

it takes me back to a beautiful place.

My family was very poor, but we were happy.

My father had a chaat stall outside of Delight Cinema.

Our entire family helped out.

Family is the most important ingredient in chaat.

Bat now.

But as we grew older,

my father got sick and he could no longer run the stand.

He became dependent on my brother to run things.

But my brother was not up to that mark.

He started running with the wrong crowd.

Hemp, hashish, heroin.

He was completely immersed in it.

I was too young to do anything at that time.

We had to close our shop.

Our conditions at home were so bad, we didn't even have money for bread.

My family had to leave our old neighborhood.

And then my brother moved away.

The house was shattered,

and the entire family was in turmoil.

I felt so alone.

In 1857,

after the Mughal Empire was ended by the British,

all the staff of kitchen were jobless.

So, some of these royal cooks had to fend for themselves.

Many of them put up stalls in old Delhi.

And food from the royal table

then became available to the ordinary man.

This is a very old story.

Our forefather Karimuddin Sahib was a cook for Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar.

When the Mughal rule ended,

he opened a small restaurant near the Jama Masjid Mosque,

which is called Karim's.

Seekh kebab was the first dish he started with.

He also served mutton korma.

There were two items we had.

Seekh kebabs are ground lamb mixed with spices

and grilled over an open flame.

Another very popular royal dish was the korma,

a braised meat cooked with fried onions and yogurt.

We haven't made any changes to the original spices.

We are still following the recipe that was prepared

by Karimuddin Sahib the same way today.

I belong to the fourth generation.

After us, our kids will be the fifth generation.

Those who are fond of Mughal foods will continue to enjoy it.

And that makes me very happy.

So when you're eating a seekh kebab,

you can just think back and say,

"A thousand years ago, some prince sat on these same steps and ate it."

It's not just the food. It's also the history connected to it.

And that makes it very special.

When I was growing up,

my family was in a bad state.

Everyone was separated

and my father was not well.

I was working for a catering company,

but there wasn't much work to do.

I wanted to bring my family back together.

So I had to do something different.

I decided to start my own business.

Chaat was all I knew.

But I didn't have enough money to get started,

so my sister pawned her jewelry without telling me.

It was a very important time for me when I found it out.

I had to succeed.

I got a few friends to come and help me.

We rented a small shop and started our work there.

We gathered the materials and worked on all the necessary preparations.

We were excited and very hopeful.

But it was a new neighborhood.

People didn't know who we were.

And that made a difference.

Our business struggled.

I couldn't figure out what I was doing wrong.

Slowly, my friends started going back to their old professions.

I was alone and I didn't have any kind of help.

I couldn't afford to pay rent for the store.

I didn't know what to do.

And that's when my father died.

What a bad time it was.

Long years ago, we made a tryst with destiny.

At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps,

India will awake to life and freedom.

1947 saw the partition of India.

India was liberated from the British rule.

But it left deep scars.

India was divided into two parts,

India and Pakistan.

Pakistan was made from the Muslim-majority state of Punjab.

There was a violent division along religious lines.

Muslim families who had been living in Old Delhi for thousands of years

went to Pakistan, some by choice,

and many because they feared the violence at home.

And in return, the Hindu population of Punjab

became refugees and traveled to India.

And when the Punjabi refugees came to Delhi,

they brought with them not only their culture

but they brought their food.

A very popular Punjabi dish is chole bhature.

Chole is chickpea, boiled. And of course, with a lot of spices in it.

It's eaten with a huge puffed up bread, called bhature.

This is our grandfather's recipe.

He came to Delhi because of the partition.

At first, he started on a cart.

We moved to a storefront in 1960.

This chole bhature is without garlic and onions.

We make it light, not too rich or spicy.

Mixed with coriander, mint, green chili, and pomegranate seeds.

This is very good for digestion.

That's why people like us.

Chole bhature may have come from Punjab

but now everybody eats it, across people, across religion.

This food had become very Delhi food.

After my father died...

I was ready to give up.

- Greetings. - Hello.

Mr. Gyani, how do you do?

I'm good.

What's up?

- Just spices. - Spices.

What can I get you?

But then, I thought about the lessons my father had taught me...

Okay. These are cloves, and then black cardamom.

And green cardamom.

This completes the list.

Can you grind it, please? But don't overdo it.

- But have it done medium. - We'll make it coarse.

"Money isn't everything.

Make people remember your food.

If the taste is good, you will find success."

- Would you like it finer? - I think this will do it.

I realized that...

I could not give up.

I moved my cart across the street.

The location was not so nice.

But with the money I had left over...

I put it all into buying only the best ingredients.

Potatoes, carrots, ginger, masala, and pure clarified butter.

But I was missing one last ingredient,

my family.

I summoned the courage to call my brother.

He had changed.

To my surprise, he came and helped me.

It was a new beginning.

We prepared our tikkis just like how our father had taught us.

My entire family had to get involved.

It was like we were kids again.

The fragrance of my food spread around the whole market.

People started to show interest.

They started saying, "Let's go to Dalchand's!"

The business started to pick up.

We got so busy...

and we won the hearts of the people.

I have tasted many street food vendors,

but the aloo tikki which Dalchand made was overwhelming.

When the World Street Food Congress in Singapore asked us

to bring a few street food vendors,

I had to choose Dalchand.

It was like the grace of God.

I never thought that people would love my tikkis so much.

Because of my family,

I was able to do something special.

As an Indian, we believe in eating.

We are foodies.

But we are not good at writing it and explaining it to the world.

There are many like Dalchand in our country,

who are not recognized.

Since we have such a rich street food culture and tradition,

the world should know it.

Street food is what brings us together.

It's where we find a commonplace.

It not only takes us back in history,

but it's also a way of carrying forward traditions.

All the different people who came here over the years

brought their own food with them.

We not only adopted it.

We adapted it to be our own.

Now, it's our time to celebrate it.

And share it with the rest of the world.

I never saw myself as the hero.

But through chaat, my family was reunited.

For me, there was nothing better than this.

If he could see us today,

my father would think,

"My son has made me proud."

Subtitle translation by Biplav Sarangi