On the road to happiness

The dhaba and tonga are Delhi specialities. In view of the Commonwealth Games both will be things of the past. Time was when a woman eating at a dhaba was news. In those days, a dhaba belonged to tired truck drivers lazing on ancient charpoys and leisurely eating their favourite kali daal with tandoori roti. The scene is different today. The charpoy has disappeared. Rogan josh has replaced the kali daal. You have printed menus instead of half-clad boys churning out the names of delicacies available. Men and women eat with abandon, girls giggling and talking on mobiles, eating chowmein instead of karhi full of green chillies. Lassi is hard to find, instead of you have colas and beer. . then you might not have a clue about current fashion trends.fashion accessoriesNo parathas, instead you have hamburgers. But chhole pathure are still there.
There may be a hundred dhabas on GT Road, all renovated with air-airconditioners, TV sets and a little flower garden. Rural brides laden with artificial jewellery are seen eating, parties held while the traffic moves fast. At Ambala alone are 10 dhabas in front of the railway station. It must be understood that a dhaba is not an English pub where malt flows like water. It is a poor man's kitchen and middle class eating-hut. Of late even foreign tourists have taken to these open-air eateries simply they are cheap. The philosophy is that the road to happiness lies through the stomach. It is also different from a European inn or a tavern. It is a typical Indian institution with even residential facilities.
Hieun Tsang, the Chinese traveller, stayed in one of these dhabas when he passed through Umballa, then known as Amb-valla (the village of the mangoes). Alberuni, who with the invading armies of Mahmud of Ghazni, refers to these eating places on the roadside in his Kitab-ul-Hind. A dhaba, according to a Punjabi proverb, is like a courtesan, the more you decorate it, the more customers it will attract. Here you have the man of money and the man of culture, the man without money and the one without culture, where you pay for chappatis, the dal is free.
But there is the other side, bemoans the president of the Punjab and Haryana Dhabbawalla Union. “We have to give free meals to bus drivers and conductors who park their buses in front of our dhabas. Then there is a policeman, the security man, the beggars and the sadhu, the wandering ministrel and the eunuchs who perform while the people are eating''.
In other words, an Indian dhaba is a cultural centre with agricultural clientele. It is the soul of India, particularly rural India where everyone knows everyone else. Here alone you have a casteless and classless society.
Dhabas played a significant role during the freedom struggle. It was the rendevous of freedom fighters. They also met at railway stations but the dhaba was more secure. Chandrashekhar Azad worked at a dhaba in Karnal for quite some time after the arrest of Bhagat Singh and his comrades. Bhagat Singh himself had a meal at the Ambala cantonment dhaba along with a police guard during his transportation from Delhi to Lahore jail. Asked what his favourite dish was, he replied: Kali dal with makhan now known as Makhani dal. But no more of it, the games are more important.