Don’t forget your veggies

The Gallery Cafe hosted an evening of poetry recitals and iftar celebrations on Wednesday. But what made this one special was the fact that it served — wait for it — and all vegetarian spread!

But first, the poetry. The gathering spent the first half of the evening taking part in a poetry recital from the vast collection of legendary Pakistani poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz — with translations from the original Urdu renditions into English as well.

“The whole evening was tuned to being Hyderabadi, and a Hyderabadi’s idea of a pleasant evening is good food and a bit of sher-shayari,” said Vijay Marur, one of the evening’s organisers. Explaining why they chose to go with Faiz’s poetry, he said that Faiz had a huge fan following in Hyderabad. “He’s a political and romantic poet,” said Vijay, “In one line he writes about how he misses his girl, how he misses caressing her and looking at her, and the next moment he’s talking about his land, his country where he’s being persecuted. It touches the hearts of everybody.”

But the real showstopper was the vegetarian take on iftar cuisine, with paneer haleem, mirchi bhajjis, hummus and baklava on the menu.

“The cafe’s Chef Keshi masterminded the menu and worked on a combination of sweet and hot dishes,” added Vijay. “So he came up with the Kandahari mirchi bhajji, coated with chaat masala.” Overall, Faiz did make the evening perfect and yes, it was a true Hyderabadi experience.