Chicken soup for the soul

IN the rough and tumble of city life, citizens of Karachi often have little to cheer about. Monstrous traffic, crime, load-shedding, pollution, lack of governance and the proliferation of the concrete jungle – to name a few – are just some of the woes that plague this city.

However, there are a few positives, such as the sea (enjoy the beach-front before it’s gobbled up by greedy land ‘developers’ from some sheikhdom) and the pleasant breeze that blows as a result of it to cool the sultry summer days.But perhaps one of the best things people don’t realize about this city is its wonderful winter. Unlike everything else in Karachi, the season of winter personifies balance, for it is not long and miserable like in parts of Europe and America, nor is it an all-too-short burst. If anything, it is perfect: crisp, cool evenings with equally crisp mornings and a pleasant afternoon.

It gives the people of Karachi the ideal opportunity to break out the woollies and gorge on all sorts of winter goodies, such as dried fruit, hot beverages and, of course, soups of all varieties that would not be that popular during warmer days. I’m going to go out on a limb and say that soup does not feature prominently on the map of Pakistani cuisine, unless you factor in the occasional bowlful of yakhni, which is usually served to the sick. Most of the soups served in Pakistan – either in swanky five-star establishments or humbler joints – are of foreign origin and do not enjoy a large chunk of the market share.

This writer is personally partisan to cream of tomato soup, and I’ve had some absolutely heavenly stuff at both a restaurant close to North Nazimabad’s Five Star roundabout, as well as an up-market joint known for its barbeque dishes near the Bilawal House roundabout in Clifton. The cream of mushroom soup served at an American franchise pizza joint also deserves a mention on the soup honour roll.

But these are slightly patrician choices, and specially in these days of recession and economic doom and gloom, these goodies come few and far between, even for the middle class. Instead, what has become a sort of phenomenon in Karachi – largely year-round but particularly during the winter – is Chinese chicken corn soup, a delicacy that defies Pakistan’s norm when it comes to soup consumption. A word of caution here. One highly doubts it is Chinese in origin, as is true with the rest of the fried rice, chow mein, chop suey and God knows what else that is passed off here as originating from the Middle Kingdom. But that is largely true for the rest of the world as far as Chinese cuisine goes.

However, forgetting the purity of its racial stock, the chicken corn – or kaarn, if it is to be transliterated – soup that is available throughout Karachi is for the large part quite delicious and is particularly perfect to warm up cold winter nights. It is available across the economic spectrum, as it is served everywhere from restaurants in five-star hotels, to push-carts in shanty-towns, with varying taste, price and standards of hygiene.

As mentioned above, though chicken corn soup is available year-round in the metropolis, as soon as the first icy wind blows in from Balochistan, Siberia, or wherever it’s coming from, the stalls selling the soup in question multiply exponentially. Everyone from broast-wallahs to falooda sellers place a big, steaming cauldron of soup outside their shops or push-carts to let the punters know they’ve got the goods by the bowlful.

There are a few personal favourites when it comes to sellers of chicken corn soup. Two Bohri gentleman stand out: one is located in the Hyderi commercial area of North Nazimabad. Shabbir Bhai, I believe his name is, used to operate off a push-cart. But business started booming and along with another Bohri gent, who used to sell some equally heavenly mixed chaat and bhel puri (this deserves another column) next to his thela, Shabbir Bhai moved into an empty shop a few paces away from where his push-cart used to be.

His chicken corn soup is immaculate. There is very little corn, unless cornflour counts, but with a whole boiled egg, crispy papri and shards of chicken, this gent whips up a mighty fine chicken soup. The choice of condiments is yours, as soy sauce, hot sauce, green chillies in vinegar, garlic paste, salt and pepper are laid out at your disposal for you to flavour your soup with according to taste. Needless to say, it’s standing room only after Maghrib at Shabbir Bhai’s in winter.

Another Bohri gentleman – a slightly older chap – used to set up a smaller chicken soup stall near the St Patrick’s Cathedral in Saddar. It’s been a while since I have had this as the Saddar traffic nightmare is quite a put-off, and I don’t know if he’s still there. But I must say that his chicken soup is also superior to the rest.

Now don’t get me wrong. Not just any old Joe can do chicken kaarn soup well. I’ve had my share of the watery and the utterly tasteless.

qasim.moini@dawn.com

The sales pitch of a Suleiman Markhor and Sarah Palin

DESPITE its tantalizingly inviting title — A Treasure in My Backyard — it is safe to assume the ‘goat’ work launched in Islamabad earlier this week won’t be able to compete with say, what Sarah Palin would have to offer for her fifteen minutes of fame.

But more about Palin later.

Many book lovers, with little knowledge of the remarkable conservation effort of a near extinct species in Balochistan, mistook A Treasure in My Backyard for a memoir. Until the denouement, which took place at the United Nations Information Centre, it was assumed that Suleiman Markhor was the name of the author!

They could hardly be blamed since the title on the cover did not offer a great deal of creative interpretation if you didn’t know Suleiman Markhor from a straight horn (which is what Suleiman stands for, in this case)!

The spectacular story is entitled A Treasure in My Backyard: Suleiman Markhor.

It is actually authored by a French anthropologist, Luc Bellon, who — wait till you read this — has made his mark in field research on Baloch and Pashtun culture!

Once again it has taken a passionate foreigner to recount a local glory. In his work presented as a case study, Bellon recounts in painstaking detail how the local community was mobilized in Balochistan to take up the ownership of efforts to conserve Suleiman Markhor, a wild goat, and Afghan Urial, a wild sheep, under the aegis of the United Nations Development Programme.

Beginning in 2002, the Frenchman conducted a series of field studies over a year, collecting wide range of quantitative data and mapping social and political intricacies, which were directly or indirectly linked to the programme.

He says no less than 150 hours of discussions involving Torghar inhabitants and Society for Torghar Environmental Protection (STEP) were taped, transcribed and translated. The marathon effort paved the way for the neat compilation.

For the cross section of the audience in Islamabad, the success story of iconic conservation and sustainable use from Torghar, the black mountain range in north eastern Balochistan, was nothing if not inspirational.

The numbers itself make for interesting reading. STEP in partnership with Torghar Conservation Project have been able to rear the rare species of Suleiman Markhors from a paltry 56 in 1986 to 1,600 in 2000 and the Afghan Urial from a mere hundred to 1,700 during the same period.

Torghar may be the last remaining habitat of Suleiman Markhor but it also has the highest concentration of the animal in the world.

Trophy hunting has greatly helped achieve the end. The tribal community now generates some $200,000 annually from being active players in the project.

The success of the programme can be derived from the fact that former hunters like Samad Aka, a tribal elder, who claimed to have killed more than a thousand animals in his lifetime, eventually turned conservationist.

Meanwhile, even as veteran Tehrik-e-Istiqlal leader Air Marshal (retired) Asghar Khan worked the circuit to promote his latest book My Political Struggle in Islamabad — one of many distinguished launches the federal capital has seen this year — news was filtering in that Sarah Palin, the Republican vice presidential candidate, may be bracing up for a book deal that could fetch her a whopping $7 million!

Never mind if the small-town Alaska girl-turned beauty queen-turned governor couldn’t save John McCain from being swept away by an Obama tide. At least, she threw back some life into the insipid Republican campaign thanks to the entertainment value provided as much by her limited grasp of international relations as with the cost of her wardrobe.

After President Asif Zardari’s “threatened embrace” in a fleeting meeting with the photogenic Palin (which however, did not dissuade her from subsequently, joining rival Joseph Biden to declare Pakistan as the most dangerous piece of real estate on the planet — in a manner of terror speak), there will be no shortage of interest in Islamabad over her personal take of the great YouTube moment.

Last year, it was a biography of US Secretary of State Dr Condoleezza Rice that purported former prime minister Shaukat Aziz to have attempted a “seductive baritone barrage” in a meeting with her, but which she reportedly, “stared down to a blabber” that set the tongues wagging in Islamabad.

But Alaska or Islamabad, it’s a sure bet Palin will hunt down Suleiman Markhor any day.

The writer is News Editor at Dawn News. He may be contacted at

kaamyabi@gmail.com