Pune On My Plate: In quest of ‘kabsa’ and ‘majboos’, international students travel across city for food that tastes like home | Pune News
Yaseen Adam’s biweekly trip from Pune’s Baner to Kondhwa, which is nearly 19 km away, has more to do with food than socialising. An engineering student from Sudan, Adam says it’s only in Kondhwa that he gets to taste a dish that reminds him of home.
Kondhwa’s few makeshift restaurants offer Adam something similar to kabsa — which he describes as “a remote cousin of biryani”. “If you can imagine biryani with 10 per cent of its normal Indian spicing, it would be the closest we can get to kabsa,” he explains.
“Cooking is too much of a hassle. We get all the spices and ingredients but I prefer to eat out. So, whenever I am nostalgic about home or just want to eat something that reminds me of Sudan, I travel to Kondhwa from Baner,” he says.
Adam is not alone. For international students who have made Pune home, getting a taste of their land often translates into travelling.
Other than Sudan, Pune has a large population of students from other African countries, Afghanistan, Iran, Bangladesh, and the Middle East. There are more than 14,000 international students from 64 countries studying in various colleges affiliated with the Savitribai Phule Pune University. The number of international students, if one takes private institutions into account, can well be over 20,000.
A slice of home in Pune
All of them without exception have one thing in common — they miss the food of their homes and homeland and Indian food, while delicious and palatable, can’t replace that in totality.
By far Kondhwa and NIBM seem to be the favourite spots for international students to try out their ‘home cuisine’.
Begum Khalida Mukthar, a student from Bangladesh, considers herself lucky as Bangladeshi food has many similarities with Bengali cuisine. “Our staple is rice and freshwater fish. Pune does have shops which sell such fish, so most of us try to stay together and cook when we can,” she says.
Mukthar, who is pursuing a course in Computer Science, says she misses sweets the most. “Bangladesh is famous for its sweets, but in Pune, there are hardly any shops which sell such sweets,” she adds.
She says she has discovered a few nondescript shops in Raviwar Peth where they get some of the savouries which closely resemble the ones they get back in Dhaka. “Many Bengalis have made Raviwar Peth their home. In the evenings, some hand carts sell chops (deep-fried cutlets) and beguni (batter-dipped deep-fried brinjals). Once a month we try to go there. Also, it is easy on our pockets,” she says.
Dhakai parotha, a staple fried bread made of refined wheat flour and eggs, resembles Kerala’s porottas, which are easily available. “But it’s not the same, once you have had the Dhakai parotha from old Dhaka you would know. As it (Kerala porotta) is the closest we can get, we try that also once in a while,” she further says.
Sadiq, a student from Oman, talks about a small eatery in NIBM’s Galli No 2 which he visits if he misses home. “This place might not have fancy decor or cutlery but it’s kabsa rice in the closest I can get to the Omani majboos,” he says.
Majboos, Sadiq explains, is a rice and meat dish slowly cooked over a wood fire and blended with spices. “You can see similarities between majboos and biryani but the former is less spicy,” he says.
Alifya Kazi, who moved to Pune from Dubai to study, had a tough time trying to find the perfect shawarma. “Unlike the ones that are served in India, shawarma in Dubai is served with meat and vegetables wrapped in freshly baked bread,” she says, adding, “We have some shops that try to serve such a variant in Vimannagar, and I try to have them when I am homesick.”
Most of the international students wish more areas in Pune would open up to cater to their palate and pursuit of food that tastes like home.
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