The 59th National Shooting Championship will be remembered not only for the hits or misses, but also for the delicious biryani.
Shooters who are here from all over the country are loving the delicious biryani being served at a nominal cost.
The man behind this dish is Nawabuddin popularly known as Nawab Bhai, who for the past few years, has been arranging Biryani at various shooting competitions in Delhi. He has been associated with shooting sports ever since 1986 and has played around twenty national shooting championships and is even a participant at the ongoing championship in the 25m centre fire pistol event.
Even the top shooters including Gagan Narang, Samaresh Jung and Prakash Nanjappa are fans of this dish.
‘Nawab Bhai has been a part of shooting ever since I started shooting. He was known more for his stories and incidents than his shooting, but even then he was best at arranging good food no matter where the competition was”, says pistol shooter Samaresh Jung.
According to 56-year-old Nawabuddin, his purpose is not to earn profit but to serve the shooters from around the country with good food during competitions at the Dr. Karni Singh Shooting Range.
Nawabuddin says, “In earlier years when I started shooting, shooters from other states would come and stay together. As a good host we use to prepare dinner for them, those were the days”.
Everyone was fond of the food cooked by Nawabuddin even back then. “Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Sachin Pilot as young boys also used to participate in shooting competitions in 1990’s, they use to often come to me and asked that Nawab Bhai aaj kya khila rahe ho, Rahul and Sachin used to have food with us”, says Nawabuddin.
Shooters use to face problems for food at Dr. Karni Singh Shooting Range during competitions as the range is cut-off from the city and there are no eateries nearby. Hence the shooters started requesting Nawabuddin to prepare something for them.
Only then Nawabuddin felt the requirement of a food stall at the range, as a gesture towards his guest shooters. He has been renting a stall for around five thousand rupees per day with his limited resources and prepare and serve food for all the participants.
Even though he could not make any profits by selling biryani, he continued doing it at various competitions.
Nawabbudin was happy that this time the organizers did not charge him anything for the stall in terms of rent.
He never takes back the extra biryani, he distributes it free-of-cost to as many workers at the range as possible.
“I am planning to start my own restaurant with the name “NFC”, which stands for Nawabuddin Fire Center”, added Nawabuddin.
