Mohammad Fazluddin looks at the net of silver beads he’s woven with satisfaction. It is suspended on a nail at Meraj Gul Mahal, a craft shop the size of a telephone booth, located in a by-lane opposite the Big Mosque on Triplicane High Road. The beads will form the base for a sultani sehra, an accessory that will drop like a curtain over a groom’s face. The 80-year-old has been making such essentials for Muslim weddings for decades. Despite his age, he opens the shutters of his little shop every day. For, orders flow during the month of Ramzan, at the end of which the wedding season begins.
Triplicane reflects Fazluddin’s spirit — hope and the prospect of a new beginning. Shoppers with their purses full, thanks to generous friends and family; shop-keepers whose cash counters are filling by the hour; restaurateurs whose evening specials sell like hot cakes... everyone is happy. “Ramzan is when women buy new burqas,” says Shanaz Akthar of Sana Burqa House. “Even those who cannot afford them save up for new ones.” The new arrivals this year are double-coloured and umbrella-cut burqas.
The shops that sell wedding merchandise are filled with laughter and friendly chatter. At Chand Basha, Kairoon shops for stone-studded bangles for her daughter, who is to be married. The shop has been around for over 80 years, and is among the more popular in the area. Bottles of beads and sequins and racks of red-and-gold dupattas and hand fans line the shop. How has business been, we ask Basha, when Kairoon cuts in: “Of course it’s good. Just look at the man. He’s getting plumper every year,” and laughs. As we step out, Zakira Begum waves at us with a grin from across the road. It’s a shame if you take pride in knowing Triplicane well but don’t know Zakira. The smiling lady sits at the same spot a few blocks from the Big Mosque with tubs bearing pale-white circles of rumani semiya every year during Ramzan. She makes the semiya at her house in Royapettah and has been selling it for 40 years. Several other men and women are also seated on the pavement selling semiya.
The Big Mosque nearby bustles with men who walk in prayerfully to break their fast with the nombu kanji served inside. If there’s one thing that’s as important as the fragrant kanji, it’s the vadai. For many, it’s a tradition to have the kanji with a vadai or two. Waheeda Begum and her mother have been making vadais for the hundreds of people who come to the mosque.
Seated at the gate, Waheeda slides in circles of batter into a vat of hot oil, while her mother extracts them once they are cooked a crispy brown. Her medhu vadais are legendary; so are the muttai bondas.
Triplicane High Road and Dr. Besant Road play host to several vadai sellers during this season. With women at the helm, these pushcarts do brisk business. Then, there are the many biryani restaurants that whip up evening specialties. SHB Biryani, famous for its mutton biryani, sells a range of deep-fried delicacies, such as mutton and chicken cutlets, chicken roti, a dish made of spicy minced chicken masala wrapped in a thin maida roti, chicken samosas, chicken rolls... all of which disappear the moment they reach the counter. Men stop by to buy them for their fasting families.
But, what’s Ramzan without Afreen Juice and Tea Shop’s chicken samosa? It’s almost a sin to miss the crumbly, greasy samosa with a chunky chicken filling. Haleem, a Hyderabad specialty, is not as common as vadai and biryani in Triplicane. Afreen stocks Pista House’s haleem. Abdul Rahman, who works in the IT sector, has brought Sheik Hafiz, a haleem specialist from Hyderabad, to make the delicacy and sell it at a makeshift stall opposite the Ameerunnisa Begum Sahiba Mosque near Zam Bazaar. “We supply to several restaurants in the city,” says Abdul.
As dusk falls and the muezzin calls for prayer, the streets of Triplicane grind to a halt. But it lasts just a moment. The rhythm picks up again, and goes on and on.
Triplicane never sleeps.
