Nahari has always been for me a will o’ the wisp--enticing and elusive. When I was a kid, my mother told us stories of her childhood, when their servant would sneak in bowlfuls of slow-cooked, delicately spiced nahari for my uncle, who loved trying out stuff that hadn’t been cooked at home. And nahari definitely rated high on the list of things that couldn’t be cooked at home--who would sit up through the night, making sure the meat cooked just right, neither underdone nor mashed to a pulp? Nahari was bought at a nearby food stall early in the morning--about the only time it’s available all across India, in Muslim-run food stalls and restaurants. Nahari, you see, is a very Muslim dish--a wonderful mutton curry (mutton, for those unaware of what it means in the Indian context, is goat’s meat) that’s simmered slowly through the night in a blend of spices till its gravy is thick, the meat deliciously tender, and the spices soaking through right to the marrow. We’d never had it because we’d never had the courage to get up at the crack of dawn to go buy it, so when we heard of a place in Chowk, in Lucknow, where they made nahari through the day, we decided to add it to our list. "The nahari’s good," said our friend, a very senior chef who’d worked in Lucknow for several years. "But Raheem’s is a bit dirty".
That, by the way was the understatement of the year--wrong on both counts. Raheem’s is very dirty, and the nahari’s very good. The eatery--it’s too decrepit to even call it a restaurant--consists of some six tables, squeezed together in a tight huddle beside the road with a ceiling above. The chairs are greasy, the floor’s covered with soot (brought from the tandoor--the oven at the entrance to Raheem’s--on the bare feet of the little boys who act as waiters), and the little room at the end is to be avoided. It was offered to us as a 'private dining area', but we scurried out as soon as we discovered what it was--a grubby storeroom with a table and two benches. When we finally managed to find a table, however, things began happening. Placemats and napkins were neatly arranged on our table--both being neatly torn pieces of newspaper. Two bowls of piping hot, aromatic nahari appeared, along with a quarter-plate of finely chopped green coriander as a garnish. Then arrived the kulchas--crisp-topped, soft leavened breads hot from the tandoor. We’d had factory-made kulchas in Delhi, and they seemed positively sexless compared with this mouthwatering stuff at Raheem’s. We ate on, ordered more kulchas, had some Coke to wash it down (incongruous, yes, but what the hell!), and then had a plateful of spicy pasanda kababs. When finally we rose, sated and glassy-eyed with contentment, we were offered the bill. For a hefty meal for two people, it was only Rs51.