Main nizam se naina laga aayi re, Nar naari kahe so kahe/ Main nizam se naina laga aayi re. Almost 700 years ago, Amir Khusrau, the favourite disciple of Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya and one of the world's finest contemporary poets, came up with this couplet in his modest house in Ghisiyapur, now known as Nizamuddin Basti in Delhi. As strains of the same tender poetry, set as khayals and taranas to the strains of a peti and dholak make way through the forked by lanes of Nizamuddin, replete with rose petals, layers of green chaadars and red threads, they remind us of a side of Islam that many other places bustling with Ramzan’s usual food and festivity, more often than not, don’t. They put out the Sufi face of it, one where the idea of religious ceremony converges with the arts; where a chaadar is enshrouded on the shrine of Nizamuddin Aulia amid the claps of qawwali, repetitions of key verses and improvisations within the ragas. With music and its morals finding no space in Islam, this merger becomes all the more intriguing. Once satiated by the music, those fasting rush to the food stalls, most of which put out large degchis of dum biryanis and piles of sheermal for iftaar. With no real restaurants around except a Karim’s, people prefer to sit near these degchis and enjoy their biryani. One side of Nizamuddin has many stalls claiming to be Muradabad’s oldest biryani makers, the air redolent with the aroma of meat, spices and rice. This one, however, isn’t for the meat trail. The skewered seekh kebabs fare a little better. So does the kesar phirni. But what caught our eye and tastebuds was parantha and halwa served at one of the first stalls. A large round flattened and greasy maide ki roti (one is enough to serve at least four people) is served with sooji ka halwa. Divine and oily haven’t gone hand in hand like this in a while. Nizamuddin may not be considered the ideal place for catching the Ramzan buzz for old Delhi has the food and the atmosphere. But visit it for the magic and mysticism that this dargah and its lanes have lived with for years.
