Manzilat - in search of a destination

 I first visited Manzilat on a sultry summer afternoon. For many years now, my aspirations and my achievements during my trips back home have been at an eternal phase lag. This means that I first heard of Manzilat at least four "visit equivalents" back. As such, this would have been four years ago. However, the pandemic added a constant term to the phase lag - I had been waiting to go to Manzilat for a good six years by now. Nevertheless, these aspirations, a large part of which amount to visiting restaurants I have never been to, end up in two broadly different classes of outcomes - either the expectations are in more or less  reasonable resonance with the experience, making me even more eager for the subsequent visit; or there is a destructive interference between the expectation and the reality, which Americans call a "Meh" ! Manzilat was an outlier in this landscape to begin with. Manzilat, even from the beginning, caused a rather sharp polarization of opinions -  a large number of my friends and relatives clearly loved it and couldn´t wait to go back for a second and third time. A smaller number not only couldn´t care less, but they also went to a significant extent in elaborating why it was not such a big deal and why better experiences might have been had at other venues. This, in itself is not so uncommon but more recently, a number of fans had become disappointed from their latest culinary excursions at Manzilat. A trusted source alleged that earlier, the proprietor was able to engaged experienced cooks who made a difference. However, of late, particularly during the pandemic, many of these trusted comrades left, forcing her to fall back on local slum dwellers, who she had to train and the quality of the offering had to suffer as a consequence. My expectations about Manzilat thus became a continuum, almost like the proverbial Schrodinger´s Cat - the encounter would define what the expectation was to begin with. It is against this backdrop that I suddenly decided on a whim to give it a try for lunch, given that Manzilat´s is about a 15 minutes´ walk from my residence.

No matter who you talk to,  a convergent point of agreement about Manzilat is that you need to make a reservation. In apprehension of this, I had tried to establish a line of communication almost right after I landed at Kolkata, through WhatsApp, inquiring about how long ahead of time did we have to make the reservation. Fatimaji was surprisingly responsive, given that she runs a one-woman managerial show, assuring me that a couple of days´ notice would be sufficient. However, on this summer afternoon, when I decided well past noon that I was going to try my luck, I hadn´t made any reservations. Most of my culinary excursions in Kolkata these days are spent over worrying whether my kids would enjoy them, or not. On this day, they were away on a trip with the rest of my family and I was, after a very long time in Kolkata, a free bird - a feeling I hadn´t experienced in a rather long time. I tried my luck at sending a WhatsAppp message, inquiring if they would have a table for a lone diner for lunch but clearly, my expectations about the speed of response was over estimated. Nevertheless, being completely free on my own , I started walking towards the restaurant under the watchful eye of a  summer sun, which was playing a cat and mouse game with the clouds, while I navigated through the busy traffic and pedestrians around Ruby hospital. Just about five minutes away from my destination, I saw a message on my WhatsApp - "if it is for one person, we have space. Please mention your name" .

Manzilat is on a the terrace of a three-storey building and from everything I had heard, I was expecting to be seated on the terrace. Surprisingly, as I made my way through the door, I realized that a space somewhere away from the open terrace was being readied for me. By this time, the sky was overcast and although there was evidently perceptible humidity in the air, there was no scorching sun shining directly on us. Moreover, Manzilat has sturdy overhead shades, offering protection  from the direct heat of the summer sun. So, I asked my waitress, adorning a nose piercing and with a disarming smile, if I could sit outside and if she would mind turning the fan on. She was quite convinced, as I could see, that it was a temporary muse and that I would retire inside as soon as the space was ready. So, after a good ten minutes or so, when she returned and told me that the table was ready and when I requested to continue to sit outside, it took her by surprise and she kindly reminded that the heat might become bothersome. By this time, I had sensed the magic of a meal under the open skies of Kolkata where I could spread my eyes across the tops of the buildings, but where I was not so high as to seem disconnected from the pulse of the city. So, I insisted, borrowing a bit of my American "know it all" confidence, that I would like to sit outside for the entire meal. Although I don´t know for sure but I wonder if she chuckled within, betting an unknown bet that I would regret the decision by the end of the meal.

Very many reviewers have complained that the service at Manzilat is slow but I did not find it to be so. It will be hard for me to dissect whether that was because I was overprepared but in any case, when the complimentary "Khus ka Sharbat" appeared, I was still revelling in my view of the late afternoon Kolkata sky away from the skyscrapers. Contrary to what some of the reviewers had said, the Sharbat was not cloying and was rather refreshing, perhaps because I was quite hungry by this time. For some unknown reason, I had decided that the biryani, which would have been the only thing I could order, had I chose to do so, would not enable me to get a good sampling of all that Manzilat had to offer. Nevertheless, when the waitress asked me if I wanted anything other than their Ulta Paratha and Galauti Kabab, I had to make a real effort not to add the biryani to the order. Anticipating a long wait, I let myself get lost in the solitary view of a summer Kolkata afternoon sky, by then stealthily changing shades under the layer of a cloud while the sounds of the streets underneath grew from a subdued mid afternoon laziness to the humming hustle bustle of the afternoon rush hour. 

Halfway into folding the Galauti Kabab systematically with the two parathas that I ordered, I realized that I desperately needed to make more of the experience and to let my sensual experience linger, which by then was well fed by the gastronomic delight and reinforced by the visual sensations. So when the waitress appeared again, I ordered a Rezala and one more paratha. That it would be a Chicken Rezala rather than Mutton threw me off but it was decidedly delicious - full bodied in flavour, not overly spicy and the chicken literally melting in my mouth. But how do you expect a prediabetic Bong to stop at that ? So, I had to order what I consider to be an acid taste of all places that serve Mughlai cuisine - a Firni. The Firni at Manzilat is outstanding - not overly sweet, with the right proportion of garnishing and of a truly exquisite taste. In hindsight, given how few components go into making Firni, this is a rather nontrivial achievement !

So my dear friend, if you are bored with the air-conditioned, tailored, artificially lit and sometimes crowded dining experience in Kolkata, I suggest a departure. Go to Manzilat on a lazy summer afternoon when the heat may not be so piercing. Have a meal outside on the terrace and do ponder about the nawabs of Awadh who had to leave their dear abodes, that they held close to their hearts, and that they attempted to recreate while struggling to find new roots in our city. What might have gone through their minds as they lazed under the summer sky, munching a paratha with a serving of kabab, and thinking about all that they had left behind ? 

Jab chhod chale Lucknow nagari, kahe haal ke hum par kya guzari

As I sat on the terrace of Manzilat that afternoon, my yearning for all that I had left as home twenty four years ago, were likely not so different from the forefathers of Fatimaji, who were desperately trying to settle down in Kolkata as the country roiled in a historical turmoil. So, when I left my table, bade goodbye to Fatimaji and my waitress, I knew one thing for sure - I would be back again to pick up the threads right where I left them as I cast a longing look at the Kolkata skies from the terrace before climbing down the stairs, to be onto the streets again.