Khurshid, Muslim and Zulfikar are the Barafwala brothers of Belgaum, siblings of the only Dawoodi Bohra Muslim family in the city. They each and separately work and run the family business, which is an ice factory and cast iron foundry. They have been doing this for decades. All of Belgaum goes to the Barafwalas for its requirement of ice. The brother live separately, but their houses are situated next door and opposite each other, so the families are close. And each family is large, so their get-togethers are something, and the Barafwalas don’t really miss being part of the large Dawoodi Borhra community of, say, Bombay or Ahmedabad. Their mother, the matriarch of the family, an elegant and gentle lady by the name of Atika, lives with them. The Barafwalas have two sisters, Nishrin who is married into the Khorakiwala family of Bombay, and Qibtiyya Chinwala who is now an American citizen in Dubai! The sisters visit Beglaum to see their mother often enough, and when they do, then it is celebration time in the Barafwala family.
 

The brothers invited UpperCrust home a typical Belgaum Muslim meal. They usually cook the hearty and flavoursome Dawoodi Bohra food, which is Mughlai cooking that is influenced by the vegetarian cuisine of Gujarat where the community�s roots lie. But the local Muslim food in Belgaum is something else. It is strangely influenced by the cooking of Hyderabad. The cuisine has mutton and chicken, naturally, because it is a Mughlai food, and there is also the presence of a lot of fish in their daily menus, because of Belgaum�s proximity to Goa and Karwar. Muslims, by and large, are not big fish eaters. But the Barafwalas like their fish. They visit the local fish market in Belgaum where the fresh catch comes in twice a day, make their purchases, and keep the fish on ice. �We have an ice factory, so that is convenient,� said Zahabia Barafwala, Khurshid�s wife, an attractive woman and the mother of Hussain, Hamza and a Insiya, two sons and a daughter. Khurshid runs the Belgaum ice factory and Zahabia has a business of her own. It is called Barafwala�s Fakri Ice Cream. She manufactures all kinds of fresh fruit ice-creams, kulfis, desserts, and juices and runs a small but chic ice-cream parlour at Belgaum�s Maratha Colony that is hugely popular with the locals.  

Muslim Barafwala�s wife�s name is Rashida and the couple have four children, two sons, Shabbir and Mohammed, and two daughters, Kulsum and Mubeena. Muslim runs the family�s ice factory in Hubli, which is a neighbouring city some 60 km away. Zulfikar�s wife�s name is Hameeda, and they have three children, two boys who are in Bombay, Hasnain and Zainulabideen, and a daughter Fatema who is studying in Belgaum. Zulfikar runs the Barafwala ice factory in Dharwad and the cast iron foundry in Belgaum. But to continue with the food, the three families are full of good eaters, so the dining is always of a high order in the Barafwala homes.  

Zahabia describes the food as being a mix of Belgaum and Hyderabad. It is a tangy cuisine, flavoured by tamarind and tomatoes, and spiced with ginger, garlic, onion and for which a base is provided by adding coconut. �The biryani is Hyderabadi, which is a slow cooking dum biryani of kacche gosht. The regular Bohri biryani is Lucknowi, made with red masala. In Belgaum, we do it in a green masala. The home cooking is with masalas that are pounded or ground at home. And the Barafwalas also make a unique chutney to accompany their Hyderabadi biryani out of freshly grated coconut, green chillies, lime, ginger-garlic paste, and chickpeas. But perhaps most intersting is their red chilli masala ladoo made of several spices, including garam masala, and the Bygadi and Jawari varieties of chillies, which can be mashed and put to use in any cooking. There is some more fusion cooking in their deserts when the Portuguese influence of Goa comes into the making of a Kheer that has saffron, nutmeg, almonds, and orange colour besides the main ingredients of rice and sugar. �We make it for Ramzan,� said Zahabia.

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