As dusk nears and the deep and insistent call of azaan pulsates through the nooks and crannies of Triplicane, small bowls filled with a sunshine yellow concoction make their appearance in the two rooms adjoining the main hall at the Big Mosque. Fayaz Hussain’s men arrange them — 600 bowls each in each room, to be precise — in neat rows with prayerful concentration. Soon, men and children who arrive for their evening prayer, will sit down for their first meal that breaks their day-long fast. Nombu kanji or the fast porridge, is precious.
It is served warm at the Big Mosque all through the month of Ramzan. According to Fayaz — the darban (maintenance in-charge) — his team makes enough for over 1,200 people a day. “This comes up to 60 kilograms of kanji ,” he observes. “And on Fridays, up to 3,000 people come to the mosque to pray.” The preparation starts at 7 am. “Four men make the nombukanji on a wood-fired stove within the mosque’s premises,” explains Fayaz.
“The main ingredients are jeeraga samba rice, toor dal , onions, tomatoes, carrots, beans, pudina leaves, ginger, garlic, spices such as cinnamon and cloves, chilli powder, coriander powder, and salt,” he adds. The spices and vegetables are sautéed in oil in a mammoth cauldron; after the masalas are added, the rice and dal are introduced. The porridge is flavour-packed. Fayaz adds that the men also sprinkle a dash of chicken masala in it. “During the one month that we make it, we add mutton on four occasions, namely on the 15th, 21st, 27th, and 28th days of the fast, ” he adds.
Fayaz has been in-charge of maintenance at the mosque for 17 years now and he says that the nombu kanji ’s recipe has remained the same ever since the mosque came into existence, over 200 years ago. “It remains in dum until it’s time for the evening prayers,” explains Fayaz. “We start scooping it into bowls and arrange them at around 5.30 pm.”
While a lot of people come to the mosque to break their fast, some, like Ghias Ahmed Baig, who owns Sana Burkha House opposite the mosque, sends someone to fetch some kanji for him in a steel tiffin box. For him, the nombu kanji is nothing short of heaven. “It’s the ideal food to break the fast,” he feels. “The warm liquid is easy on the palate and the intestines. Since we don’t drink even a sip of water through the day, our throats are parched, and drinking the kanji is soothing.” Ghias will not trade this dish for anything. “Not even mutton biryani ,” he laughs.
Ghias, who opened his shop in 1986, has been having the nombu kanji during Ramzan, every year till date. “Some 20 years ago, the kanji was served in mud pots at the Big Mosque,” he remembers. “But as years went by, they switched to stainless steel, and then, reusable plastic.”
A little after 6.30 pm every day, when it’s time to break the fast, shops around Triplicane come alive with conversation. “All the shopkeepers sit together to eat our warm kanji ,” says Ghias. The fragrant porridge is easily accessible to everyone, irrespective of religion. One simply has to be in Triplicane at the right time to try it. “What time are you coming?” asks Ghias as our conversation comes to a close. “Come to my shop; I will keep some aside for you.”
