Eating at dhabas is a
pretty good idea because the food is finger-licking delicious, the service is
usually as quick as that of any fast food place, and the bill is usually so low
you have to check twice to make sure you’ve seen it right.
Making dhabas
gender-based places is not a good idea at all. Because why should one gender be
deprived of this delicious option? And instead have to waste a precious part of
life dressing up to go to some fastidious place that serves OK food eons after
the order has been placed and then charges an arm for it, piling injury on top
of insult.
Dhabas should be open to all. All dhabas should be
open to all.
For a very long time, the
Afghani dhaba Al Madina at Al Asif Square in Sohrab Goth would be vetoed
for a visit by our group of friends because it was thought to be unsafe for the
female gender. Because perhaps the men there might not be too used to seeing
women at the dhaba and would not know how to behave with them? The only
solution for this was to go to the dhaba and give them some exposure.
So after a lot of hesitation
from one side and some strong-arming from the other, we agreed to head out to
Al Madina for a taste of Afghani dhaba food. For the record, we women
drove there ourselves, all the way up to Sohrab Goth.
When we reached the place, the
menfolk entered into a concerned strategizing meeting to discuss how to keep their
female friends safe. A male-only unit went in to reconnoiter and assess the
safety situation for us, whilst some of our friends stood around us in a
protective circle. After getting an all-clear, we were finally taken in a cordon
inside The Men Only Den.
Inside the dhaba
compound, we discovered a mini-neighbouring country with shops selling niswaar,
heavy-duty plastic slippers, watercoolers, megaphones, ropes, and checkered scarves.
We were led inside a ‘family
hall’ that was surprisingly quite clean and pleasantly done up, with red
curtains serving as room dividers and red rugs laid out on the raised, cemented
baithak. Two other ‘families’ (this is a term that means there are some
women in the group) were already there, so the presence of women was not such
an unusual occurrence after all.
The owners and waiters were quite
excited to see us, a big ‘family’ group - who wouldn’t want more customers and
more namkeen boti orders? The waiters were the same men who wait on
tables at any regular food outlet anywhere in Karachi; it did not look as if at
Al Madina they would morph into monsters. They behaved in the same polite and
efficient manner as the waiters at any other restaurant.
The food was delightful: rosh,
namkeen boti, shorba, and Afghani pulao, accompanied by naan,
fresh salad, and raita and finished off with cardamom mint tea served
with sugar balls, almonds and candy.
Someone asked for paan
out of the blue, and just as we were thinking how there could be paan at
an Afghani joint, the waiter whipped one out – his own personal paan – from his
pocket and offered it to us. Well, that was the level of service we received.
To add to the pleasant
surprise, the bill came to an unbelievably low amount.
It was a small meal for us
women (ok, maybe not so small) and a giant leap for womankind - to break the
glass ceiling by breaking bread in a women’s no-go area.
Do try out such places with
your families – in suitable attire, of course - not only for some great food,
but also to make your country and countrymen normal and safe places and people.
