Suleman's

On the third day of this journey, I discovered that we were getting more confident about the shoot and the clippings from the previous two days started moulding themselves into a documentary. Personally, in some corner of my heart I felt like a movie star after rehearsing my dialogues every night for the next challenge. My day would start with Harshlata yelling on top of her lungs “JIJA WAKE UP, PLEASE WAKE UP, GETTING LATE, COME ON!!!!” and when I finally got up from the bed, her excited mood bought a smile on my face and I was super charged up to hit the streets.

Objective no.3 on my things to do list said Rafiq Ji, living in the interiors of Bikaner, this man is famous for making flavoursome Meat Puri’s. A complicated recipe and yet the taste of every masala that goes into making this dish so special, lingers around my taste buds for days. This is a unique concoction of a Puri and keema stuffing that consists of minced meat, garlic, ginger, coriander powder, red chilli powder, turmeric, garam-masala powder, salt, onions, green chilli, mint leaves, lemon, curd and oil. Once this stuffing is added to the Puri dough it is then ready to be submerged into a wok full of hot oil. After an intense session of deep frying these golden yellow disks are all set to satisfy the hungry non-vegetarians. The secret behind this dish being so incredible is only and only its keema stuffing. It can be eaten in the form of a main course meal easily and in case there are some leftover meat puri’s from the previous meal, you can store them in the refrigerator, as they freeze well. Just reheat them whenever you fell hungry again.

While munching on the tempting Meat Puri’s, I began talking to Rafiq Ji and his family. They have been running this business successfully for the past 30 years, by a family consisting of 300 members and not to forget the 301st is on his/her way to join this gigantic flock. Suleman’s also own the largest butchery in Bikaner and along with meat puri’s they have mastered the art of making kebabs and keema samosas. In short this family can make practically anything that involves meat as its core ingredient. However, the meat puri’s are only made on order basis and delivered personally by Rafiq ji.

As we started shooting this episode, Harshlata had some trouble trying to fit 300 of them in one frame, so we decided to shoot those cooking the meat puri’s for us. The remaining family members gathered around in small groups to ensure they could all be a part of this documentary in some capacity. The first shot was taken outside their house which was located in an Islamic neighborhood. The women present there were all a part of the daily chit chat session which started with the morning tea and ended with the evening one. It was interesting to see how the entire locality knew the inside story of each other’s households. There were half constructed houses and well furnished ones too, everyone shared the same religion mostly. However, one thing common between all of them was the unity and mutual admiration of the other person’s religious feelings.  

For a split second, I got a little nervous as there were boys staring at us from the rooftops and women with their children, giggling away to glory, while we were getting my dialogues sorted. Yet I was wooed by their innocence and once Harshu succeeded at monitoring the decorum around us, we were all set to roll the camera and I introduced this massive family flawlessly on the 11th take.

Rabia, who is Rafiq Ji’s better-half, started preparing the mixture for the puri dough, along with two other women Abida and Sajida (Rabia’s sister in laws) who were organising the mis-en-place for Keema stuffing. While they were busy cooking, I went into memory lane telling Harshlata how all my cousins and I would crave to eat meat puri’s and towards the end of the day there would be a casserole full of meat puris on the dining table. Although my appetite was only enough for one Puri somehow I would manage to stuff myself with another helping. Our conversation lasted for 15 mins and by then our lunch was all set to hit our taste buds.

Without talking further Harshlata, Navendu Ji (our guide) and I indulged ourselves into the world of sinful joy. After the hearty meal, we packed up and said Bye-Bye to the Suleman family. On our way back to The Heritage Resort, the three of us had a long discussion on how the day passed by so quickly and it wouldn’t have been so smooth sailing if it wasn’t for the ladies of this family who had done their home work before we arrived to their beautiful home. Organising skills were commendable; I was pleasantly surprised to see how well this family ran their show all afternoon with no major obstacles coming our way. This family led me into thinking “the more the merrier” is an apt saying for them. In this world where people find happiness in terms like “Nuclear” this family has set a beautiful example of living together in peace by staying united and also channelizing this strength by working in harmony. Kudos to the Sulemans!!