Cafe Sunlight, South Mumbai, 6am :
As a March night
folds and day breaks, three men with long family connections to a space that
has operated continuously for 90 years in South Mumbai’s Kalbadevi area – the
first 60 of them as café and store, the last 30 as a bar - opened its shutters,
unlocked its doors and walked inside just as they had every other day of their
working lives.
They were followed
minutes later by two Zoroastrian priests who quickly set to work as the doors
were closed behind them, laying out the sofreh - a white linen sheet - on the floor and populating it with fruits,
a fire urn of burning sandalwood twigs and incense, flowers, milk and water,
before reciting prayers.
Within the walls
of one of Mumbai’s now iconic Irani café spaces, this jashan
ceremony gave thanks and invoked prosperity as a new year began; a ritual with
a heritage from Sassanian times that has occurred within this neighbourhood
commercial space every Nowruz – Persian new year - since its opening almost a
century earlier.
IMAGES :
- Top and bottom : Cafe Sunlight, Kalbadevi Mumbai, March 21, 2017
- Middle : Meheraban Jamaspi Irani,
Cafe Sunlight Restaurant & Stores, circa 1970
Cafe Sunlight Restaurant & Stores, circa 1970
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