Zer-e-Intezaam is an ongoing documentary project about the khansamas and cooks who keep the kitchens of Lucknow's old gharaane running. It started as field research in 2022 and has not really ended.
The gharaane are families who have long been patrons of the arts in the city. Their style of mehman nawazi is central to their social identity. The khansamas, or zer-e-intezaams, are the people who make that hospitality possible. Trained in recipes and techniques that belong to the host family, they carry that knowledge across generations, mostly without anyone writing it down.
What drew me into this was a simple realisation: after many conversations with many different people, every story came back to food, and how deeply people care about it. I wanted to look at Awadhi identity, culture and class through the lives of people who are always part of what gets talked about at the table but rarely sit there themselves.
The work is ongoing. Each conversation opens into the next.
