Tradition or farce in Chawkbazar?

The century-old Chawkbazar Iftar Market, the largest and most popular iftar market in the capital, attracts hundreds of people from all over the country. However, among their popular traditional varieties of iftar items, Boro Baper Polay Khay has gained immense popularity in recent years owing to its unique preparation, presentation and public interests.

Renowned by its unique slogan, “Boro Baper Polay Khay, Thonga Bhoira Loiya Jay”, Boro Baper Polay Khay is made with 12 ingredients and 31 spices. It is mostly a mixture of chickpeas, minced meat, potatoes, goat brain, flattened rice, egg, chicken, spices and ghee, the vendors said, adding that the item is sold at Tk 600 per kg, although it was sold for Tk 500 last year.

Every Ramadan, hundreds of people throng the market consisting of over 100 makeshift shops to buy varieties of iftar items prepared from meat, vegetables, sweets, milk and other ingredients. Some iftar items can be traced back to the Mughal era.

Among these iftar items, Boro Baper Polay Khay is considered a crowning jewel of the iftar markets built across the Old Dhaka’s Chawkbazar, Nazimuddin Road, Chawk Circular Road, North-South Road, and Shahi Masjid areas.

Although the local vendors claimed that the history of the unique item dates back to the Mughal era, the history of who introduced the item could not be ascertained. Some vendors claimed that the item was known as ‘Sheikh Churar Bhatta’ and was renamed after the War of Liberation of 1971 to generate more publicity, emphasising Old Dhaka’s nobility and aristocratic history.

The crowd-favourite item was immensely publicised in the following decades by mass media platforms and became a must-have for relatively new residents of the capital. During a recent visit to the Chawkbazar area, The Business Post found that almost all shopkeepers claimed the recipe to be their forefathers’ and learned from their ancestors.

Mohammed Hossein, who runs a shop at Chawbazar and is famous for his rendition of Boro Baper Polay Khay, told The Business Post that his ancestor, Mohammed Kamal Mahmud, alias Kamel Miah introduced the delicacy some 85 years ago. Kamel used to sell the item in banyan leaves. After his death, his disciples continued offering the item to the following generations.

However, much to the dismay of the shopkeepers, residents of the Old Dhaka denied their claim and said that the item was not popular even a decade earlier.

“They usually make the item by mixing the leftovers of the earlier day’s iftar items, and it is not a healthier option either. The item got popularised by the different television channels of the country in the last decade, without having much merit,” Abdullah Al Nayeem, a resident of Nazirbazar. “Basically, it is a scam, entertained by the vendors for their own benefit,” said Abdullah.

Another old town resident, Sulaiman Shaheed, a journalist by profession, told The Business Post, “This so-called delicacy was never part of any tradition. It was introduced by some unscrupulous sellers to dupe people from the new town into believing that this was a traditional delicacy. It’s just leftover food, which is at times rotten and unfit for human consumption.”

However, these controversies, mostly fumed by the locals of the Old Dhaka, could not hamper the popularity and sale of the much-talked delicacy. Hundreds flock to the makeshift stalls to get a taste of the delicacy, and an additional number of vendors add the item to their menu as their own every year.

Humaira Mustazir, a Dhaka University student, who came to Chawkbazar on Thursday to buy the item for her family members residing in Dhanmondi, said, “We often see the item being hugely published by the television channels during the month of Ramadan. So I wanted to buy the delicacy for my parents today,” said Humaira.

“It is difficult to place an order here as there are countless others who are crowding the stalls to get the same item. I do not have any idea about the nutritional value of the delicacy but it is definitely seemed overpriced to me,” Humaira added.

Apart from “Boro Baper Polay Khay”, other well-known dishes of Chawkbazar include beef, chicken and mutton roast, borhani, chicken tikka, chatni, keema roll, murog musallam, pakora, ghugni, doi bora, kathi kabab, suti kabab, faluda, tehari, fruits, shahi parata, and a variety of sweet and savoury items.