Forgive my obligatory Mughalophilia but I haven’t indulged Pak psychosis in a while on this blog. Too busy getting worked up over my black/AASI heritage. I have a habit from flitting/flirting with causes; my personality type is apparently ENFP the “Activist” so forgive my armchair activism..
Speaking of Pak psychosis I have a small WhatsApp group of the Pakistani Literati. For our first London meeting when I selected an IndoPak restaurant there wasn’t really much uptake, as soon as I selected a trendy Persian place everyone got into it. The Pak psych is a thing of wonder though Persianate halflings like me probably contribute it with our excessive partiality for Hijaz & Shiraz!
The taste of Biryani is miraculous. I can make vegetarian dishes but I have no idea how they get the Biryani tastes, except that they layer the rice after cooking. I suppose it is based on Persian rice dishes but I’ve not seen Persian cooking with such sophistication. My guess is that the Muslim culture in old India developed with the resources of the Mughal courts, the best poets, musicians and cooks. (To me, Pakistanis are like old Royals in exile, leaving an unfillable hole in Delhi culture) But I ate Biryani in Kerala where Malabar had the Moplas. A few years back they invented ‘headcloth Biryani’, it’s a whole subculture.
Yes the spirit of Delhi is in Karachi.
The spirit of Lahore is in Delhi
I thought Karachi is supposed to be like Bombay, and Lahore like Delhi (except that Lahore is not the national capital).
Mind, I’m not saying all the great musicians and so on at the Mughal court were Muslims. There was the great Vaishnava Bhakti singer Tansen who was adopted by the Mughal court, just one example. But the court had the resources to foster high art. (And we must credit Tansen’s patron Akbar as a great influence on uniting and developing North Indian culture)
The Mughals took the music out of the temples and brought it into the darbar, where it evolved.
I wrote extensively about it here:
https://kabiraltaf.wordpress.com/2018/04/18/a-brief-history-of-hindustani-music/
I am a Hindustani Classical Singer myself.