Watery daal and dry roti? Not at the Karachi Central Jail

The kitchen at the jail tries to break free of the age-old stereotypes surrounding prison food

KARACHI: Twenty two thousand, three hundred and sixty eight rotis, hot from the kitchen, were served to the prisoners at the Karachi Central Jail on Saturday.

For years, prison food has been a controversial subject. The largest inmate facility in Sindh, however, is trying its best to break free from its long-held reputation of serving watery daal (lentils) and dry bread to the convicts it houses.

PHOTO: RABIA ALI

The main kitchen, with its outer walls adorned with bright images of trees and mosques, is a surprisingly clean place located just across from the gate of the inner prison. Inside, a daily diet plan holds the place of honour on the wall, revealing the menu for each day. Murghi ka saalan (chicken curry) is served thrice a week and aaloo gosht (meat with potatoes) once a week. The rest of the week, the prisoners eat mixed vegetables, daal channa, daal moong and daal masoor, though on Sundays, they are treated to pulao or biryani.

Breakfast, meanwhile, remains the same every morning for nine months of the year - aaloo ki bhujia, chai and paratha. In the winter, though, the potatoes are replaced by eggs.

The short and stout head of the kitchen, a private contractor named Mohammad Shahzad, frequently pulls a handkerchief out of his pocket to wipe his face in the sizzling heat. "I spend my whole day making food," he says as he stirs a bubbling cauldron.

The daily grind

The kitchen comes alive at 2 am every night as the inmates begin preparing breakfast, served at 6:30 am daily. Shahzad arrives at 7 am and goes straight to work to get lunch ready by noon. Once that is done, it's time to make dinner, which the prisoners get at 5 pm.

Inmate Ghulam Nabi has been working in the prison kitchen for the last seven years. "It's not a difficult task because I owned a pakwan in Orangi Town, so I'm familiar with cooking and catering," he explains. "I work non-stop from 6 am to 7 pm; it keeps me busy."

The kitchen has an inner room where the rotis are made. The inmates get two each for both lunch and dinner. "We make 11,000 rotis in a go, and each round takes us three hours," says a worker sitting in front of one of the seven tandoors (ovens). There's a conveyor belt too, where naan are made at night.

PHOTO: RABIA ALI

Because of security restrictions, the prisoners have no eating hall. Instead, an officer and a convict turn up from each ward to collect the silver drums containing the meals for their fellow inmates.

Fit for a king?

It is 2:30 pm, and Shahzad is now cooking dinner, a dish of daal channa. He is assisted by five inmates, who all have experience of either being in the kitchen or handling food. "These are seven sacks of daal, each weighing 50 kilogrammes," says Shahzad, gesturing toward five cauldrons lined up in a row, emitting puffs of steam as the lentils bubble away.

Shahzad says that they use the best quality of food to cook for the prisoners. "See this?" he holds up empty packets of Tullo cooking oil and National salt. "No one can complain now that our food is of poor quality!"

According to Kamal, who is in charge of the rations, in 2001, the jail would get a mere eight rupees per day for each prisoner. Today, the amount is set at Rs147 - a change that is reflected in what Shahzad is able to feed the inmates. "Feeding more than five thousand prisoners three times a day is not an easy task," says Kamal. "But we make sure that no one goes hungry."

Published in The Express Tribune, December 9^th, 2014.