A chilly start to 2024 hasn’t quite dampened the spirits of eaters and travellers looking for ways to revel in the wintry joy. What has happened, however, is a rather unusual twist to Delhi’s culinary landscape—we seem to have started the year on a litigious war-footing over two of Delhi’s eternal dishes. You see, even as butter chicken and dal makhani continue to land on our dishes at Millennium Falcon pace, they’ve also landed up at an unlikely spot—the Delhi High Court.
The case in contention is between Moti Mahal, one of Delhi’s most iconic restaurants, and Daryaganj—a newer but considerably well-known spot thanks to their marketing of what they offer. In a nutshell—Moti Mahal has claimed that Daryaganj’s marketing claim of being the “inventor” of the two dishes is “misleading”. The former has asked Daryaganj to stop making such a claim.
The latter, in response, has so far sounded amicable, removing Moti Mahal’s mention from their website and other marketing material.
The contention here lies in the fact that Moti Mahal’s founder, Kundan Lal Gujral, was a business partner to one Kundan Lal Jaggi. Jaggi’s family has now set up Daryaganj—named after the Old Delhi locality where the original Moti Mahal was founded, post-partition. Moti Mahal’s present generation has laid claim on the invention of the dishes, stating that Gujral is the one who came up with them after the two, along with a third partner, moved to Delhi from Peshawar due to the Partition.
The Jaggi family, meanwhile, has so far maintained that Gujral was the face of the brand, while Jaggi is the actual genius who came up with butter chicken—later using the same sauce for the gravy chicken dish and the famed dal makhani.
While this is a serious matter indeed for both the families and their soaring businesses, I couldn’t help but chuckle. The fate of Delhi’s favourite dal and chicken dishes could now depend on the course of action that is decided within the four walls of a courtroom—hardly an epicentre for anything culinary. But then, haven’t we forever argued on such issues—inserting the proverbial chicken and egg debate into as many pseudo-intellectual arguments as we can?
Food, I’ve always believed, is harmonious. It binds people together, brings them to celebrate moments in life in both abundance and misery. In one occasion, amid a talk on food of the Partition that I’d delivered in Chennai, a gentleman in the audience stepped up to say that they’d never truly given much thought to the history of certain dishes—let alone understanding how dishes like my family’s bread halwa are actual vehicles of society, culture and history to travel through time.
Yet, today, for two families in Delhi that trace their roots back to pre-Partition India, the very harmonious dishes are nothing short of dinner-table furore. I can’t help but think of Charlie Chaplin’s The Great Dictator as I write this—in this critically studied film, Chaplin’s character, a gentle, kind-hearted former soldier, must imitate a dangerous dictator from dooming the world into war and destroying humanity.
While this might not be quite the same situation, it is indeed similar if you think about it. Both the families behind Moti Mahal and Daryaganj have so far claimed that butter chicken and dal makhani are theirs! Which of them is right… what if they’re both right to varying extents? More importantly, how would this change the perception of thousands in this grand bottomless cauldron of a city, who choose either of the two restaurants to dine in, ever so frequently?
You see, for us, butter chicken is a celebration of how far we’ve come. Ever since the blood stains of the Partition, our social fabric has evolved to considerable degrees of prosperity. Today, this dish is more of an indulgence than warmth-inducing sustenance. In such times, which of the two claimants do we side with? Can we even settle this, perhaps, with a cook-off—akin to a football derby like Real Madrid and Barcelona, or Manchester United and Liverpool?
Even as this lawsuit turns into a multi-crore tug of setting the record straight, I can’t help but imagine that among us diners, most will chuckle upon this fight, and move on to place an order for dal makhani and butter chicken for their Friday-night house parties. Yet, hailing from a family that has lived through Partition ourselves, I can also empathise with why this conversation is so crucial to either of the families. After all, what else do we have left to celebrate the lives of those who built us back to what we are today, if not our very identities from all those years ago?
Vernika Awal is recognized as a food writer celebrated for her well-researched articles on her blog 'Delectable Reveries'.