On this must-do Delhi food tour, there’s no actual Indian food

Night is closing in on Humayunpur in Delhi, a settlement area primarily for migrants from north-east India, and I’m tucking into a Burmese lahpet thoke, a tea-leaf salad, with one of my oldest friends. “Oh my god,” she groans, as we shovel spoonfuls of the salad – a delicious melange of cabbage, peanuts, tomatoes, cucumber and sesame seeds, with a ginger, garlic, chilli, lime and fermented tea-leaf dressing – into our mouths.

We’re both finding it difficult to talk, eating at the pace we are. This is lucky because our host for this evening, Eesha Singh, co-owner of the tour company No Footprints, who is leading us on tonight’s private Refugee Food Tour, has a lot to say.

Samosas, kulcha and other Punjabi delicacies at My Punjabi Food stall during the Delhi Refugee Food Tour.

“Flawed or not, Delhi has historically given refuge to a lot of international communities,” says Singh, as my friend and I continue stuffing our faces. “So tonight, I’m going to take you into different refugee communities and tell you about how that community is making connections with its new home in India today, through food.”

Delhi’s diverse refugee communities, including Afghans, Tibetans, Burmese and Punjabis, continue to shape its culture and modern history. As Singh explains, this makes understanding their narratives key.

We gobble down the next dish at Mohinga: the Taste of Myanmar restaurant, a lemongrass-infused rice noodle and fish soup called mohinga that’s considered to be Myanmar’s national dish, while Singh gives us a brief history of how Burmese people originally came to live in India.

Myanmar, formerly Burma, was under British colonial rule from 1824 to 1948. After independence, the Union of Burma ruled as a parliamentary democracy, but in 1962 the Burmese military overthrew the republic and established a single party dictatorship. During the following seven years, 155,000 Burmese Indians were repatriated to India and resettled by the Indian government in Burmese colonies.

Since August 2017, when the persecution of Rohingya Muslims by Buddhist nationalists and Myanmar’s government began, about 720,000 Rohingya have fled Myanmar. These refugees escaped to neighbouring countries including India, after being denied citizenship in their own homeland and to escape persecution and atrocities including arson, rape and murder.

It is a truly devastating history. But, as Singh says, for refugees like the Burmese, “food is a way to reclaim their identity and preserve their cultural heritage in India”.

We walk out into the night, following Singh through narrow alleyways strung with clusters of low-hanging electrical wires and open drains, to the car that will deliver us to our next destination. I have only one day in Delhi, and when I asked an Australian friend who spent 15 years living in India what I should do with my 24 hours, she said this new tour was a must – especially if I was looking for something beyond the ordinary.

When I discovered that No Footprints, who run various tours throughout Delhi and Mumbai including dawn tours, street food walks, cycle tours and more, also counted Nigella Lawson as a past guest, I booked immediately.

Our next stop, also in Humayunpur, is a small Tibetan restaurant called Yo Tibet that’s buzzing with young Tibetans and Indians. Following the Chinese invasion of Tibet in March 1959, tens of thousands of Tibetans fled to India, and according to the most recent figures from 2020 there are about 73,000 Tibetan refugees living in India. The small hill town of McLeod Ganj in northern India is the de-facto capital of the Tibetan community and the home of the Dalai Lama, but here in Delhi this area is their home.

Travellers washing their Afghan meals down with cold glasses of ayran, a salty, mint-infused yoghurt drink, at Mazaar restaurant during the tour.Credit:

Historically, it has been difficult for Tibetans to make money or find jobs in India because they are not officially recognised as refugees here, since India has not signed the 1951 United Nations convention on refugees. Being unable to access the Indian welfare system, Tibetans have become self-sufficient, setting up their own businesses and looking for work independently.

“Tibetans have a very high entrepreneurial spirit,” says Singh, as we tuck into a plate of steamed vegetarian momos, which Singh says has become Delhi’s most omnipresent food. “They’re very hardworking, and because of that they have been able to employ people from diverse backgrounds, so they haven’t become too isolated.”

A traditional cold mung bean noodle dish smothered in soy sauce, garlic, chilli oil and spring onions called laphing arrives at our table, and as we eat, I think about how food and culture are ways Tibetans and other refugee groups in India can remember who they are and where they’re from.

As a midway stop on a tour about convergence, there could be no more fitting place in Delhi than Dilli Haat. It’s an open-air market where the cultures of all Indian states come together, through the sale of handicrafts and food.

“Dilli Haat was started by an Indian politician, activist and author named Jaya Jaitly, who wanted to create something to empower craftspeople across the country, and to educate the younger generation about how to preserve culture through Indian handicrafts,” says Singh, as we walk through the entrance gates.

This lemongrass-infused rice noodle and fish soup called mohinga is considered to be Myanmar’s national dish.Credit:

Through the creation of Dilli Haat, Jaitly transformed the lives of many craftspeople across India, providing them with training, techniques and technologies to improve their trade. Tonight the market is buzzing, and overflowing with stalls selling everything from Indian puppets and cashmere blankets to leather sandals and jewellery.

At the back of the market is a food bazaar, and after a spot of shopping that’s where we reconvene with Singh, at a stall called My Punjabi Food. The Punjabis are an ethnic group of Indians and Pakistanis, about 20 million of whom live in north-western India, and about 68 million of whom live in eastern Pakistan.

Abuli pulao, the Afghan national dish, is a fragrant combination of rice, tender lamb, raisins, carrot and chopped almonds.

We sit at a wooden table under bright lights with astro turf beneath our feet, while Singh gives us a brief rundown on partition in India. In 1947, British India won its independence from the British and, after almost 200 years of British rule, split into two new self-governing states – Hindu-majority India, and Muslim-majority Pakistan, which was split into two areas about 2000 kilometres apart. Singh points these out on a map she’s spread across the table, telling us that East Pakistan has since become Bangladesh.

The partition of India forced millions of people to leave their homes and move to another state. It was the largest forced migration of people in history that wasn’t due to war or famine. In Punjab and Bengal – provinces adjoining India’s borders with West and East Pakistan, respectively – the violence was especially intense, with massacres, arson, forced conversions, mass abductions and savage sexual violence.

“After partition, Punjabi refugees carried their tandoor ovens, along with their grit, entrepreneurial spirit and hardiness, to Delhi,” says Singh, as two thin, deep-fried puri bread pockets the size of soccer balls arrive at our table. “The eateries they established started Indian restaurant food and established the culture of eating out in India, and Delhi’s food predominantly became tandoori.”

We tear the puri apart and stuff them with spoonfuls of chana masala, a spicy chickpea curry, and lime pickle. It is completely moreish, and we don’t stop eating until we are almost bursting.

Tour leader Eesha Singh and tour guests.

Our tour ends in South Delhi, in an area called Lajpat Nagar. Here, in Singh’s words, “displaced Afghans have built a little Kabul where eateries serve flavours of their homeland”.

At Mazaar Restaurant, sitting on a raised platform covered in an Afghan rug and pillows, we somehow manage to find room in our stomachs for Kabuli pulao. This Afghan national dish is a fragrant combination of rice, tender lamb, raisins, carrot and chopped almonds, and we wash it down with cold glasses of ayran, a salty, mint-infused yoghurt drink.

Finally, with our mouths free of food for one of the first times all night, all that’s left to say to Singh is: thank you.

THE DETAILS

Tour
No Footprint’s Delhi Refugee Food Tour costs from $110 a person and runs for about 4½ hours. See nfpexplore.com

Fly
Qantas flies direct from Melbourne to Delhi four times a week, and from Sydney to Bengaluru four times a week, then connects to Delhi (a three-hour, 10-minute flight) through codeshare partner IndiGo. See qantas.com

More
See incredibleindia.org

Nina Karnikowski travelled with assistance from Qantas.