An ode to the Artisans of Meat

To add a personal anecdote to John's propaganda below.

A friend from Bombay (you forgot to give him credit John) introduced John and me to Aap ki Khatir. He was stopping by in Delhi on work, and had only a night left for fun and frolic before he boarded his flight back to Bombay.

And he said Let me show you a good time. And we scoffed inwardly, and smiled outwardly. To humour him.

We drove around the Dargah area and stopped a little before the Oberoi flyover. And a rare Delhi downpour greeted us. It may have been a farishtah for most of the despondent populace, but it spelt doom for the promise of street food adventure.

Aap ki Khatir- a hole in the wall and a tandoor on the sidewalk was wrapping itself up in tarpauline. When they spotted us. The ones in cars, who had already ordered, had salvaged their meal, but not sidewalkers like us.

In our Khatir, an English-speaking man in crotch-hugging jeans stepped up and offered us shelter in the Aap ki Khatir hole, that was crammed with furniture. He took our order and egged on his tarpauline artisans of meat. Our Bombay friend squared his shoulders in arrogance and ordered more Kakori. And Mal and Oriya gluttony embarked on a grand song-n-dance. My bong palate, content to play twelfth-man, watched this meat-in-the-rain ritual in sheer disbelief.

Sweet-talking the English-speaking lad helped squeeze last plates of kabab and paratha from the Artisans of Meat. The rains had held off by then. The gluttons burped in euphoria over Coke. We packed some and headed home. The Mumbaiyya had won this round.