Recreating the Kashmiri experience in Coonoor

Upinder Zutshi and Aparna Challu talk about their heritage hotel Habba Kadal, celebrating Kashmiri Pandit culture and their food

An incense stick quickly fills up the space with a rich, invigorating fragrance that is pleasing and comforting at the same time. Soon, the staff shower yellow marigold petals on us. I am already feeling welcomed at Habba Kadal Heritage Hotel in Coonoor. Named after the bridge spanning the Jhelum, it was a predominantly Kashmiri pandit locality in Srinagar.

“Our ancestors lived there and I spent most of my childhood there. We lost our homes, our connection, but the memories stay with us,” recalls Upinder Zutshi, who led global companies while his wife Aparna Challu worked in the IT field. As they both shuttled between Bengaluru and New York and California in the US, Aparna quit corporate life to run a social enterprise called Respect Origins, an online marketplace for rural artisans. They both envisioned Habba Kadal — Kashmiri Heritage Hub in Bengaluru as a place to offer and experience Kashmiri pandit culture and heritage, and food. “The idea came up over a dinner conversation while in California. Last year in July, we started a 250-seater restaurant in Whitefield with the focus entirely on food,” says Upinder adding that Kashmiri families numbering over 600 from the neighbourhood alone thronged the place.

Habba Kadal in Coonoor spread across an acre, is primarily about offering a slice of Kashmir to non-Kashmiris. They call it a ‘home away from home’ and Upinder says the idea behind the tagline is to treat guests like family. “We have our staff from Kashmir and from across India. My staff may not be highly trained, but they try their best to recreate the Kashmiri vibe for guests. That’s our philosophy.”

“Coonoor is the place we have come closest to Kashmir than anywhere,” says Aparna adding, “Rural inclusivity, promoting origins/ heritage, enabling women is my life’s purpose after 32 years in IT.” One can choose from the garden view deluxe rooms named after the pristine gardens of Srinagar or the mountain view deluxe rooms evocative of the ‘dabb’ or wooden extension that protrude outside the facade with windows to allow for sunlight. “The ‘dabb’ is a cupboard balcony that can be seen at most Kashmiri homes. Here, it also opens to amazing views. We created this environment from scratch. We have a total of 26 rooms. There are deluxe rooms, suites, family and large family rooms, and apartments.”

The two-bedroom Sar apartment named after Sana and Sar from Sanasar, among the most stunning places in Jammu & Kashmir, is decorated with wooden artefacts and antiques that are quintessentially Kashmir. There is a living and dining area done up with Kashmiri furnishings, velvet-carpeted floors, and photographs of yore gracing the walls, and a kitchen. A staircase leads to a terrace that opens up to views of manicured tea estates, misty hills, and the valley.

While Tarangini, the courtyard restaurant offers multi-cuisine largely for in-house guests, including the breakfast and dinner buffets, amazing pizzas, and home-made brownies, another restaurant called Kosar (which means ‘up in the skies’) is exclusively Kashmiri food. We try the Kashmiri pandit cuisine platter served in a brass thali. It has the festive celebratory yellow turmeric rice infused with the aroma and flavours of green cardamom, cinnamon, bay leaves and Himalayan mountain salt. The platter also has the refreshing muuj chutney, which has grated radish stirred into fresh yogurt and tempered lightly with red chilli powder, salt and a hint of finely diced crunchy green chillies. Other accompaniments include the light yet savoury palak nadur with fresh green spinach and sliced lotus stem, a helping of rajma curry, juicy mutton sheekh, mutton gustaba (mince kofta cooked in milk and yogurt spiced with fennel, ginger, cardamom, and pepper powders), and mutton rogan josh. The flavours are rich and subtle and go well with katlam, a multi-layer bread baked in tandoor and topped with poppy seeds and girda, a Kashmiri flat bread much like naan.

“The cuisine at Habba Kadal is a combination of the Wazwan cuisine(the Kashmiri Muslim cuisine) and Kashmiri pandit cuisine,” explains Upinder adding that while Wazwan uses ginger, garlic, onion, and tomato generously, in the latter the dishes are slow cooked, using curd as the base where the flavours are subtle. He also busts the myth that Kashmiri food is largely non-vegetarian. “There is the classic dum aloo, red paneer, yellow paneer, rajma, dried vegetables, apples, baigan, nadru (the lotus stem, a very important element of our cuisine) a tangy dish where lotus stem is served in yogurt gravy, and the pulav packed with the goodness of dry fruits and nuts.”