How Navrata affects food business
Young Vibhu Sharma, manager of Social, one of Delhi’s most popular bars, scratches his French beard, scrunches his creased brow further, and says to me, ‘Navratra is such a bad time for the restaurant business. Just waiting for it to get over.’
Social pays rent to four landlords, to hire the huge premises it has in the heart of Hauz Khas Village.
Usually, each and every floor is packed, every single table, any day of the week, whether it is a Monday or a Saturday.
Restaurants in Hauz Khas village and elsewhere say that business has never been this bad before during the nine days of Navratra
This Navratra the place was visibly empty. Sharma reckons that the dip was more than one-third of the usual. Social’s predominantly young, yuppie crowd had gone underground. Times of war.
Innovation
Anup Kutty, co-owner of The Toddy Shop, which serves coastal Kerala cuisine, also located in HKV, has a similar story. The north Indians stopped coming.
The restaurant and bar got by on expats and loyal Malayalis, but was nowhere close to full. Says Kutty, ‘The day the Navratra got over, the place was packed.”
It was like the Board exams had gotten over. Toddy also has an outlet in a Saket Mall. The mall guys suggested to them that they have a special Navratra menu to boost sales.
Eggless aata-less buff fry anyone? The story repeats itself across all the prominent Delhi markets and malls. Parking was easier. Restaurants were empty. People stopped drinking alcohol, eating meat and even shopping took a hit – the lull before the Diwali buying frenzy.
It’s total economic shutdown. The anecdotal consensus is this: it was never this bad.
This year we are talking about a Navratra critical mass - the fad of the year. Says Kutty, “Navratra and Navratra food have become an industry now, just like Valentine’s Day.”
The night after Dussehra, I came across a young man sitting in a smashed-up car outside Savitri Cinema in GK II. It was two in the morning. The man was dazed, disoriented and drunk.
There was blood on the passenger’s seat. Too much meat. Too much booze. Too much letting off steam. When I asked him, he mumbled something about Navratra and a party.
The entire Navratra business seems to be of recent vintage. When historian Eric Hobsbawm speaks of ‘the invention of tradition’, this is what he means.
Twenty years ago, I don’t remember it happening on this scale. The family-run El Chico, Allahabad’s premier restaurant, would continue serving its normal menu.
The odd schoolmate, usually a committed Hindutva type, would declare that he had stopped eating eggs for breakfast, but the rest of us could continue with our day-to-day diets.
Navratri was associated with dance and music and the intermingling of the sexes—but all that happened far away, in a mythical land called Gujarat.
In Allahabad, Durga pooja was the big event. We went pandal-hopping. Every night, after the pooja was over, a stage would be set up.
Skits and plays, not necessarily of a religious theme, were performed late into the night. This was the cultural dimension.
All the neighbourhood talent would be on display. This was when you saw your neighbourhood grocer dressed up as someone else, acting out his part in a play, showing the world that he could do other things than sell Amul butter and basmati rice.
Food prohibition was not the major theme of this festival.
At the moment, Navratra is a biannual event. But there are other Navratras too, and you never know we might soon start celebrating all of them.
It worries me (even though I don’t own a mall or a restaurant), that Navratras might go the Fashion Week way (the dates of the two coincided this year).
I’ve lost count of the number of fashion weeks there are in a year. One ends, and the next one begins. I failed to make it to the Fashion Week again this year, just like I failed to eat an authentic Navratra thali.
A reliable birdie tells me that Anurag Kashyap was spotted at the Fashion Week, desperately seeking Amrut whisky at a Blenders Pride event.
A bit like looking for roast chicken in a Navratra platter.
Newness
Fasting and feasting are a part of several religions. What’s different about the Navratra is its newness, the rising popularity amongst the prosperous middle class.
The point is this: Rituals and traditions change; they are also linked to societal trends. They might not be as timeless or ancient as they are made out to be. I remember in the 1980s, my father would try and book train tickets during the pittar-shraadh month.
In those days, people wouldn’t travel during that period. A good time to travel! Nowadays, people don’t seem to follow that particular travel prohibition very much.
The same holds true for Tuesdays and haircuts. In a change from the past, now, at least in Delhi, barber shops often remain open on Tuesdays.
Identity
Food remains an important marker of identity.
By choosing to eat or not eat something, we send out a message: Not only am I different from you, I’m also superior to you.
This is true of anyone who is fundamentalist about their food choices. Vegans, who eschew dairy products, and organic food buffs, are as zealous about their dietary preferences as those following religious prohibitions. They too suffer from an equal sense of superiority.
They are as much a dinner host’s nightmare. Food prohibitions can be life-threatening too. Every year there are reports of people dying of ‘kuttu poisoning.’
Kuttu is an alternative to atta, one of the foods meant to be shunned during the Navratra period. My personal fate this Navratra is that I’m stuck with Monginis eggless muffins.
The Twenty-four Seven outlet down the road from me stocked up on them hoping for a windfall. They obviously didn’t fly off the shelves as expected.
They keep coming, even though Navratra is over, a reminder of those nine eggless days.
The writer is the author of The Butterfly Generation
