Memory Trigger 13. Breakfast Food.

I was introduced to Dal Pakwaan in 1990 at a place called Ulhasnagar which has a fascinating story of giving refuge to refugees and becoming a town buzzing with small scale and cottage industries making the local populace a hard working and prosperous lot. I visited the place at the invitation of a delightful family to help them with their marketing efforts and have since been very involved with them and their clientele.

I stayed at a hotel there for a couple of nights visiting a number of the Agent’s customers during the two days and on the second morning the agent took me to have dal pakwaan at a famous local eatery where we were joined by a number of his friends and some members of his family as well. On many subsequent visits to Ulhasnagar, I always made it a point to have at least one breakfast in the same restaurant.

In Pune, the dish is not easily available and we have to go to a suburb, Pimpri to get them. I often get someone to bring them from there or have gone there on a few occasions to have this delicious and filling dish.

My memory of this dish has been triggered by this BBC article on a Real Estate tycoon, who belongs to the Sindhi community which brought this dish to India from Pakistan.