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Chef Vanshika Bhatia, co-founder of restaurant TOGETHER at 12th, Le Meridien, Gurgaon, who has previously worked under some of the most celebrated chefs in the world – NOMA (Copenhagen), Junoon (Dubai), Gaggan (Bangkok), was always fascinated by how dishes were developed over generations as well as the stories and cultures that were built around food. This is why, rummaging through the treasure of her family’s culinary heirloom, when she came across the heritage of Bannuwali food, she knew she had to explore it further. Bannu is a small town fortified behind high walls now located in Pakistan’s arid North-Western Frontier, sustained by the life-giving river, Kherrum. Deeply affected by the Partition, Bannu’s story is carved with memories. In order to honour her heritage and initiate a conversation with her childhood, Chef Vanshika has introduced Bannuwali food, and particularly her family heirloom dish, ‘Chicken Painda’ in her restaurant’s menu.
Whipping up exotic delicacies has always been a predominant engagement of the home lives of both her maternal and paternal families. The women of her family are maestros in the subtle arts of cooking, preserving, pickling, baking and roasting, while the men in her family have always been famous for their deft hand in making lip-smacking non-veg items. She remembers her Nanaji’s Mutton Tinda Curry and Dadaji’s Fish Fry made in Mustard oil. Her Nani would also be making squashes, jams and jellies every summer, whilst her Dadi’s ‘Muth’, Halwa and ‘Lole’ would have her and her cousins fighting over the next piece.
Bannuwali food is a cuisine of survival, of loss, and memory. It is also the only connection their family and community as a whole, has to the vanished world. Knowingly or unknowingly, these familiar dishes shaped her as a person, influencing her passion for seeking out the stories people build around food.
As a chef, she feels that she can use her unique voice to start a dialogue around Bannuwali cuisine, and in turn, keep their culinary heritage alive.
“I want to talk about my ‘Ghar Ka Khaana’, something I never paid attention to before and never thought was something special,” says Chef Vanshika.
Born in Uttar Pradesh, she spent 18 years of her life in Kanpur, as did her parents before her. However, they are true-blue Bannuwals at heart.
“Our family, our ‘Bannu Baradari’, like so many other communities, was irrevocably scarred by Partition, exiled from the only world they had ever known.”
“I have always imagined Bannu to be a land of gunslinging cowboys, riding horseback into the distance. However, according to Nanaji, it was a reality of harsh privation under the ever-present threat of dacoit invasions. He recalls the sounding alarms as swarming dacoits came riding out across the hills, attempting to breach the city gates, kidnapping young girls, looting shops and creating chaos for Bannuwals. Yet, this was his life and his home, simple and idyllic, untouched by the civilisational power plays that would so desperately affect my family during the years of the Partition.”
Having spent the majority of his life in India, her octogenarian Nanaji still yearns to return to the lost world of his youth. The family fled their homeland, leaving everything– pictures, letters, possessions– in that distant town.
Post Partition, all Bannuwali Hindus arrived in India empty-handed, migrating to Kanpur, Faridabad, Dehradun and Vrindavan. They slowly began to rebuild their tightly-knit community through marriage, alliances, and business.
Even though Chef Vanshika’s generation does not speak the same language as her grandparents’ or share the same ideologies or experiences, it is the culinary traditions of their ancestors that unite them.
Chef Vanshika’s Nanaji was taught how to read and write Urdu, Hindi and English. She still remembers, how, as a child, when she went to Agra with her Nanaji, she was amused to see that he could read what was written on the tombs and graves in Fatehpur Sikri.
She may never have seen or visited Bannu, but carries the memories of her family with herself like a prized possession.
“My grandparents spoke the Bannuwali language and even though I understand it, neither my parents’ generation nor mine speaks it, Hence, I fear it’s going to die out soon. It’s time I tell the story of Bannuwals in the only medium I know how to express myself — food.” And when she thought of food, she thought of the traditional Bannuwali Chicken Painda, which has now made its way into her restaurant’s menu.
Even though the Bannuwals relished non-veg food, they weren’t allowed to make it at home. So, the men used to bring it from outside and have it for lunch during work. This tradition actually made its way to Kanpur. Chef Vanshika’s Dadaji would often tell her how, initially, he and his brothers, who worked together in their small mechanic garage, would get meat on their way to work and put it to cook on a small stove at their workshop in the morning and keep stewing it for hours till lunch. Half the pieces would be gone by lunchtime just on account of people tasting it. And while every day, the brothers prepared a different dish, Chicken Painda was something that was made the most often.
“Very few people in India have tasted Chicken Painda which was my Nanaji’s favourite dish.”
Painda is a fairly straightforward chicken curry. However, it is meant to be eaten with friends or family.
A hardened whole wheat Roti known as ‘Doda’ is broken into pieces on a big thaali. The Painda curry, redolent of dry spices, is poured atop the bread, absorbing the fragrant gravy of the chicken. Everyone sits around the thaali and eats the Painda together.
This culinary innovation bears the legacy of the Bannuwali community spirit, which imparts to them a sense of belonging and familiarity.
“Chicken Painda embodies the spirit of my own restaurant, Together at 12th, and is a mainstay on our menu. When I eat this dish, it always reminds me of my childhood, where we would be given broken Rotis with curry and ghee in a bowl. It was a staple which I thought was given to us for ease of eating. Little did I know that it was the same traditional cuisine from the stories that my grandparents told me.”
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