Kashmiris love to have baker’s bread for their breakfast and hence, every Kashmiri colony has one traditional bakery known as ‘Kaandar/ Kandur’. Kandurs can be found everywhere in the cities, every locality will have one atleast. In Kashmir, there is a bread for every season. Bread is an integral part of social customs too – engagements, weddings, birth. Long before dawn, hundreds of baker families (Kandurs) in the Valley fire up wood tandoors and start making bread. There are many types of traditional breads. A Kashmiri’s day wouldn’t be complete without a cup of piping hot Sheer Chai (Salty pink tea) and a crisp, freshly baked bread from the Kandur (the traditional baker).
The Kandur forms an intrinsic part of the social life in Kashmir and every locality has their own local Kandur from which the people purchase their daily quota of breads.
In Kashmir, the Kandur shop isn’t just a place where ones goes to buy the morning and evening breads, it is a social hub. A place where you get to hear and participate in discussions that range from gossip to political discourses to moral lectures. It is the place where all the local happenings are discussed. The discussions that take place in a Kandur shop or Kandur waan as it is called in Kashmiri are as varied and unique as the breads that are baked in the Kandur’s oven.
For all the breads, aroma, smell, appearance, colour, size, and overall texture are characteristics optimized by the kandurs over many years that they have spent mastering this art. The texture and quality of these breads are determined by the percentage of wheat protein, temperature and type of flour present in the bread.
Background music: The Sample Life by Jack Steadman
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