Tsering Wongdo and his older brother Tsering Dhondup cook Tibetan food in India and dream about a home they've never seen

On a busy road along the Sabarmati river in the Indian city of Ahmedabad, children play and goats scavenge through trash by a row of ramshackle buildings. In one of the buildings, two brothers cook up some of the only Tibetan food in the city.

Tsering Wongdo and his older brother Tsering Dhondup have been whipping up dishes like shaptuk and “thugpa” or noodle soup since they came here looking for work in 2000. The fact that their restaurant has dirt floors and only three walls doesn’t seem to bother the lunchtime crowd.

“Half veg momo,” Wongdo yells out. “Egg chow mein”

One customer, who attends a nearby college, said, between bites of egg chow mein, the gritty atmosphere was intimidating at first. “The space was a little dingy,” she said. “It was weird coming to a place this shady, but the food turned out to be good.”

One of the restaurant’s main draws is the dumplings, or “momo’s,” that the brothers make each morning. Wongdo rolls a ball of smooth, white dough into a small disc and Dhondup spoons ground meat and vegetables in the middle. He pinches the edges together, just like his parents taught him as a kid. Their parents also owned a momo shop. That’s where Wongdo and Dhondup learned much of what they know about Tibet.

They brothers have never actually been there. They were born in northern India, after their parents fled with the Dalai Lama in 1959. The brothers are among the 100,000 ethnic Tibetans now living in India.

The brothers’ parents preserved their culture. They spoke Tibetan, they celebrated ethnic festivals and drank traditional butter tea. As a result, the brothers grew up thinking of Tibet as home. They haven’t become Indian citizens, and are classified as refugees, even though, Wongdo said, it means that they have to renew their passports each year and give up certain rights.

“I only want to be a Tibetan,” he said. “If one Tibetan becomes an Indian and then another follows, then Tibet will eventually become extinct.”

In the meantime, Dhondup said, they’re considered outsiders in the only country where they’ve ever lived. “It can be difficult,” he said. “Sometimes people call me Chinese or they call me Nepali. They look at us like we’re the odd ones out.”
Wongdo and Dhondup say they hope that they can move to Tibet in their lifetime. But they have another, less hypothetical move, in their near future. The Ahmedabad city government is planning to develop the riverfront property where their restaurant sits. They’ll probably have to close within six months.

But the brothers say they’re not worried. They say they’ll find some way to start a new shop, so they can continue to roll out momo dough every morning. Download MP3

Some restaurants in India feed the poor while still making profits (Photo: Jill Ryan)

In a busy street market in the Indian city of Ahmedabad, pots of lentils, rice and vegetables simmer on grated burners in front of a row of restaurants. Dozens crouch on the sidewalk out front, waiting to eat. 35-year-old Krishian-sihn Solanki says he comes here often, when he can’t find a day’s work.

“These restaurants are a little like soup kitchens – they provide free meals for the hungry,” Solanki says. “But unlike soup kitchens, they’re designed to turn a profit.”

Solanki and the others sitting here pay nothing for a meal. But they do have to wait, anywhere from a few minutes, to a few hours, even though the food has been ready since the morning and is attracting flies.

Food won’t be served until someone like Kishor Trivedi arrives. Trivedi, a college professor, hands a restaurant worker a 50 rupee note. That’s a little over a dollar. His donation pays to feed five people a vegetarian meal. Trivedi says he often stops by while doing errands.

“Is a God bless,” Trivedi says. “Is very nice work. Kindness to other persons.”

As soon as his money comes in, a few of the hungry are ushered inside. A restaurant worker spoons rice and lentils onto plates and serves them.

Arif Dalal, one of the owners here, is unapologetic about making people wait for food that’s been ready for hours. Dalal says it’s more profitable to have a sidewalk full of people in need of a meal. That’s just business.

“We have to look after ourselves, too,” Dalal says. “If there is no one waiting outside, the donor will think that no one wants a meal, so the donor will leave.”

Donors do say that seeing a crowd of hungry people motivates them to give. On busy days, dozens stop by. These charitable restaurants can pull in $200 a day. It may not seem like much, but they turn a profit.

The owners say that by closing time they’ve served all the food, and no one goes hungry, and those waiting say they always get something to eat. But many have to cycle among the restaurants to get enough.

After finishing one meal, 54-year old Virendra Singh goes back to the end of the line and sits down. He says he’s still hungry.

“We have no money and we have to eat,” Singh says.

For many of Ahmedabad’s poor, the charitable restaurants have become a permanent lifeline. One woman, breastfeeding her child while she waits, says she’s been eating in places like this for ten years. She sleeps on a cart across the street. An older man says he needs free food because he doesn’t earn enough from his job as a trash picker.

But there’s at least one person here who sees these meals as a temporary fix. Seven year old Ashwin Vagri travels from his village to shine shoes here to support his family. He says he doesn’t like eating for free but it’s helping him save for a future that doesn’t include handouts or dirty shoes.

“I want to go to school and have a business when I grow up: a hotel, a tea stall, a toy shop,” Vagri says. “Or maybe I’ll open a grocery store.”

But for now, Vagri says he will be back here for a meal tomorrow.

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