irani chai,mumbai

An upcoming exhibition : January 14 to 20

2012-01-10T18:38:00.037+11:00

Mumbai artist Gautam Benegal - whose work on Irani Cafes was featured here back in 2008 - will be exhibiting his work at COOL CHEF CAFE, Worli Village, from January 14 to 20. Here Gautam shares with Irani Chai, Mumbai the mainspring behind his work on Irani cafes.

I am currently working on a series of painting on the Irani cafes of Bombay. The Irani restaurants some of them well over seventy years old represent the quintessential nature of cosmopolitan Bombay and were the first eating houses where people from all classes, castes and persuasions were welcome. The old world interior of an irani restaurant was unique and irreplaceable.

These were the places where a migrant worker could get the cheapest non vegetarian meal in the city. And he would often be rubbing shoulders with poets painters student leaders and journalists for whom the corner Irani was a common meeting point. With time these restaurants are shutting down and currently there are hardly 26 restaurants in all of Bombay.

Their spaces are taken up by multinational banks and garment franchises and very soon there will be none left. I understand that transience is a natural condition of human existence. And though resignedly accept it, I still feel a pang of remorse as familiar faces and architecture melts away around me and that which was considered commonplace and taken for granted by us only a few years ago, now becomes unattainable and priceless as bits and pieces of living history are lost forever.

I try to capture the transient face of Bombay , now forcibly and jingoistically stamped Mumbai, that within the space of a hundred blinks reinvents itself a thousand-fold, as builders, land sharks and estate agents savage it and parcel it out over and over. I need anchors and mnemonics that mark the moments of my life, the places I have been to and the faces I have seen at end of day, for those are the things that make up my living soul.

For when all is said and done, and vision obscured, tastebuds dulled, and flesh demeaned by age, we are but the sum total of our memories. There is no greater sadness than the collective Alzheimer's of a callous populace that does not recognize its own treasures, that cannot cry at the corruption of its ancient rivers or the demise of a simple cup of Irani chai.
GAUTAM BENEGAL, 2012

2010-08-22T13:30:00.003+10:00

Irani Chai, Mumbai is taking a break for a while to work on other projects. But we will be back!

BC

Metamorphosis 2 : Leopold Cafe, Colaba

2010-02-28T18:55:00.031+11:00

My name is Farzadh Sheriar Jahani. I was born in Bombay and grew up in Fountain. Flora Fountain area. That’s where, you know, most of the Parsis and Parsi communities were living back then. We lived in a five storey building, on one floor was an Iranian family that was living there, working for the Iranian consulate and there was a Punjabi living on the first floor. The rest of the flats were all occupied by Zoroastrians, Iranis.

My fathers name was Sheriar Framroze Jehani. My mothers name is Gulche Sheriar Jehani and they were both born in

Iran

. My father came down to

India

at the age of 15 or 16 with no money in his pocket. He had his brother and sister that he had to look after, and his parents. He was the oldest. So he had to come down to

India

to work, make a living and send some money back home for the family. They are from Yazd in

Iran

, actually just close by Yazd, a village called Taft.

My father got work in Irani restaurants, got the experience then like so many other Iranis, he took a share in several Irani joints. He ended up a partner in five restaurants in Bombay. One was called New York Restaurant which was on Hughes Road and he was a partner in Pyrkes Restaurant which was at Flora Fountain, he was a partner in Café Paris which was again at Flora Fountain. He was a partner in Moranaz and Company again very close to, ahhh, in the area of Fountain, and here at Leopold’s, that’s where my father was also. In fact, he was most of the time over here in Leopold’s and all the others were run by my father’s brother, his sister’s husband and other family.

Mr Rustom was a partner with my father here at Leopold’s and the building belonged to him That’s why the building is called Rustom Manzil. Also Aspandiar Ferhandaz Irani was a partner, Sheriar Framroze Jehani was a partner and Framroze Irani was also a partner – he was Aspandiar’s brother. These were the four partners that were in Leopold’s. During that time it was only my father who was running the show. All the other partners were you know doing something else. Rustom was coming and going. Aspi had a travel agent called Asiatic Travel Service which was near VT station, right opposite New Empire Cinema. The other gentleman was Framroze, he was living in Iran. So it was left to my father to run it daily. And it was in 1980, in the 80s, early 80s that I was in the 8^th grade and I told my father I had an interest in learning the business.

It was more of an old type Irani café and store back then, they were selling confectionary items like…all kinds of things, they were selling biscuits and cakes and they were selling toothpaste, soaps, ah, you know medicines that didn’t require licences, such as Aspirin. They were selling cigarettes, cigars, and oh, um, khari biscuits and wafers and samosas and pattice and there were more sales of meals like English chicken roast and cutlet with soup, sandwiches, puddings and custards. There were a few Parsi dishes such as dhansak on the menu but not many. Today we have 140-odd items on our menu card. The changes came in the late 80s like in ’86, ’87 we introduced Chinese food into our restaurant, because we realised that people are now going for Chinese food and so we did too.

I remember my father telling me the 60s was the time of the hippies into the 70s, then the 80s was the time of the Arabs – the phases of Leopold I am talking about- then came the backpackers and now we have the expats. And a lot of Indians too as Indians have a lot more money these days than they used to.

When I was in my teens I used to meet people that were coming from Afghanistan, fleeing Afghanistan because the Russians had invaded. And we had a lot of, as I said, tourists, foreigners that were hanging around Colaba. So I have seen all kinds of crowd here. During the Iran-Iraq war we had people that had fled from Iran, young people that didn’t want to go to the war. I have seen people that were helping Iranians get out of the country illegally, but none of these transactions would take place in the premises for the respect of the owners, for the respect of the place and everybody had a good relationship.

And we had the Zoroastrian Parsis who would come here every Sunday morning, those were the cyclists. They used to have tournaments, races from Bombay to Pune and back, those kinds of things. There were a lot of young Parsis who would come basically on a Sunday – on a holiday. But not the rest of the week.

There used to be times when I would go with my Dad to Crawford market; because he would get up at 530 in the morning and by 6 o’clock he used to be in the market. At that time we had to go over there, we had to buy things like mutton, chicken, vegetables everything had to be hand picked and then we had a guy who used to be a cart-puller – he’d load onto the cart and deliver it to the restaurant over here.

My father used to have his Italian Fiat 1959 model which he used to get in and come back to Leopold’s in. Sometimes if his car was spoilt I might come with him and we would get a bus ride, early in the morning, on the BEST as we call them and I’d come with him, spend the day. Since my house was close – just 1, 2 kilometres from Leopold’s I could walk back home but no I would wait for my father , until he had finished, and then leave with him.

The world is different to what it was back then. People themselves have changed, those that wanted to move on in life have moved on in life. What we did was we moved with the times. Today my older brother Farhang and I manage Leopold’s. We have changed with the times and that’s why we have survived. I have seen so many an Irani joint either shut down, or sell out because they didn’t move with the times, they didn’t change.

I would say I am thankful to my Dad for having confidence in me and my brother, to let us make some changes while he was alive, while I was growing up still. He realised it was for the betterment of the business. You see people in those days – the elderly generation- were not having so much trust in their children, to let them bring in the changes. Have you heard about the crab in the basket? Sometimes I feel our community can be like that. If one is climbing up to get out of it, the other one is pulling that one down. Why? Success in a community should be accepted open heartedly. In fact, ask that person to guide you. Learn from that person. Educate yourself. Open your, your vision. Go and learn, don’t pull that person down.

I am really grateful to Gregory David Roberts for putting down what he had to in his book Shantaram. He himself is a great person. He has put us on the map of the world, it’s like ‘OK this is where Leopold’s is’. I have met so many foreign tourists, rich people who have read this book that would stay at Taj, came over here, and they say ‘we never thought of coming down to Bombay or to India or to Leopold, but after reading this book it pulled us to your place. And here we are eating, enjoying the food that’s been cooked here’.

The Iranis who started these places in Bombay, look, they have taken pain, they have sacrificed. Today I am sitting here, I have enjoyed, I have travelled, I have done all kinds of things my father didn’t do. My father and mother sacrificed so that I got this and I am enjoying this today because of their sacrifices. Today, I am not sacrificing in the same way to give life to my children, but I still protect them so that they get the best. Hard work and sacrifice is what they gave.

On 26/11/2008 two guys were standing by our door between 940 and 945pm talking on their cell phones. After that communication they were standing and talking to each other, maybe doing their prayers or what not and then one person, from his haversack, removes a hand grenade and hurls it into the restaurant. Soon after there was gun fire from an AK47. We lost several loyal staff and guests and others were injured. There was blood all over the place. It knocked all of us over.

It does not make any sense. Why kill innocent people? What have the people that you have killed done to anybody? They are sitting as human beings as you were once – they are no more human beings – eating their food with their family and friends. You have your differences with whoever, but why innocent people? I don’t understand. They basically came to kill foreigners. But we don’t let them win. We opened up after a few days and we stay open, we won’t let the fear and hate take over, we will work hard so that we then sleep. And time helps. I think my father would be proud of all of us.

From an interview with Farzadh Sheriar Jahani, Mumbai, March 2009

IMAGES, top to bottom:

-Farzadh S. Jahani, Mumbai 2009

-Rand McNally map of Asia, 1892

-Advertisement for Leopold & Co., in Hormusji Dhunjishaw Darukhanawala,

Parsi Lustre on Indian Soil, Claridge, Bombay, 1939

-Man smoking at Leopold's 2004, photographer Apoorva Guptay, copyright

-Wall mural, Leopold's Cafe, artist unknown

-Frahang Jahani, Leopold's Cafe 2009, photographer Jason Motlagh, copyright

-Leopold's Colaba Causeway 1980s, photographer Marellaluca, copyright

-Leopold's Colaba Causeway 2009

-Wall mural remembering 26/11 Mumbai bombings, Mumbai 2009

Metamorphosis 1 : Cafe Universal, Fort

2010-01-10T20:16:00.022+11:00

For those of us who have been able to change with the times, the future of our businesses is bright

GUSTAD DEHMIRI

My name is Gustad Dehmiri. I was born in Yazd, Iran in 1944. My fathers name was Framroze and my mothers name Keshwa, and we are four girls and two boys in our family. All of my sisters are living in Canada, one of my sisters was here, she has expired now.

I came to India 1985, my father was a partner in Leopold in Colaba for a long time. He was young when he start working in Leopold, maybe 20 years old. I still have a share in Leopold, and this place here, Café Universal I bought some time back. It was a simple beer bar and chai and bun maska place only. I renovated the place, totally changed it to beer bar and full restaurant.

The owner of Café Universal was Behram Radmanesh, today he is 75, 80 years old, all his family is in America, so he has gone, he go to the States and stay there, once a year he comes back here for a holiday, then goes back because nobody is here to look after him.

Leopold was started in 1871 – first it was a drug store, then it changed to a wine market, wine shop, then my father and my uncle started it for a restaurant about 100 years ago, in 1907 I think.

So Leopold’s was started by our family, my father, my wife’s father and two other partners – one by the name Rustam. And one by the name of Sheriar, they were co-partners, running that place, and now they expired, and today Sheriar’s sons Farhang and Farzadh and myself, my brother and my wife Thrity we are the partners of Leopold’s today. Farhang and Farzadh manage Leopold’s day to day though.

Leopold’s, like this place Café Universal, was just chai, bun maska – just a typical old Iranian restaurant. Yeah, that is the story of these old Iranian restaurants; chai, bun maska, khari biscuit, pattice and all that. After that when the beer was more freely available in Bombay people realised aelling beer is much better profit than selling just chai!

Leopold actually, the Leopold was the name of the King of Belgium, ok, the King of Belgium was named Leopold and from that, in the British time it is named by them, Leopold Restaurant, a lot of people liked royalty in those days! Times change.

So when I came to India in ’85, we changed the food, this, that and people started coming, as a tourist centre. Everybody coming from abroad directly from airport to Leopold and they know their friends are going to be there, and from that Leopold became well known. It is written the name of Leopold in guidebooks, the whole world, everywhere, in Canada, in US, India wherever you go you open the book and Leopold’s name is there, that’s why it became so famous.

Café Universal was old and run down by the time I bought it; they were a different kind of customer. They were working on the docks, most of them. But now these docks are closed here, they shut down. They went to New Bombay.
Iranis have been hardworking people, only the thing is that the young generation, they didn’t want to go after their fathers, like in restaurants, because they study so they say ‘why should I come and work in a chai restaurant with dad?’
They maybe wanted to change the model, change the design, because still you see there are a few of that old type of Irani restaurant, old chairs and tables, and I told some people “why are you not interested in remodelling the place?” They say ‘no, if we make better the tax man will come and say “oh, from where have you got this money?”’
But for those of us who have been able to change with the times, the future of our businesses is bright.
From an interview with Gustad and Thrity Dehmiri, Mumbai, April 2008
IMAGES, top to bottom:
-Gustad and Thrity Dehmiri, Mumbai, April 2008
-Cafe Universal, Shahid Bhagat Singh Road, Fort, Mumbai April 2008
-Gustad Dehmiri and Behram Radmanesh at Cafe Universal before renovations, ca 2004
-Advertisement for Leopold & Co., in Hormusji Dhunjishaw Darukhanawala, Parsi Lustre on Indian Soil, Claridge, Bombay, 1939.
-Leopold's, Colaba Causeway ca 1990 courtesy Brian J McMorrow
-Cafe Universal, Shahid Bhagat Singh Road, Fort, Mumbai December 2009

Live from Koolar & Co., Matunga!

2010-01-10T17:10:00.008+11:00

Ali and Aamir Irani's landmark Matunga cafe Koolar & Co. was packed to the rafters last Friday night, January 8th as Purani Jeans - the radio show that celebrates the best of Hindi retro music went out live from the cafe. "The show rocked, and I hope in our own little way we highlighted the magic of Mumbai's fast disappearing Irani cafes, too" says Radio Mirchi's head of programming Indira Rangarajan.

IMAGES: Courtesy Radio Mirchi

Hindi retro sounds - live from Koolar & Co., Matunga!

2010-01-08T14:07:00.009+11:00

Tune-in to Radio Mirchi on Mumbai 98.3FM from 9pm Friday January 8th when Purani Jeans – the radio show that celebrates cool Hindi retro sounds - goes out live from Ali Irani’s King’s Circle, Matunga landmark café Koolar and Company.

“We wanted to put a spotlight on the disappearing Iranis in Mumbai. As the show that revived retro music in Mumbai, it seemed only fitting that we celebrated our 1st Anniversary on air by broadcasting from a classic Irani café - highlighting the disappearance of some of Mumbai’s old time landmarks” says Radio Mirchi’s head of programming Indira Rangarajan.

IMAGES:
Koolar & Co., Matunga
Interior image courtesy Zeeble

19 minutes, 57 seconds : Inheritance of Loss {2009}

2009-12-21T17:39:00.016+11:00

Mumbai born and raised filmmaker Saloni Shukla has studied cinematography in Mumbai, New York and Singapore. Her latest documentary Inheritance of Loss, to be launched at Mumbai’s Kala Ghoda Arts Festival this coming February, looks at the demise of her home town’s Irani cafes. Here is what Saloni has to say about the project.

As Mumbaikars in the 21st century it’s not uncommon to ask ‘where are we heading? What will the future hold for this city we are living in?’ Mumbai seems to be a city that gets a new facelift every few years. And yes, it has come a long way from being a group of quaint little Portuguese islands to being a global megacity. Our home is a city that was made by expatriates of different communities. At different stages in her history we have seen the her rise, and fall. Yet our love for her remains constant.

Mumbai's Irani cafes have been the familiar abode of wealthy businessmen, lawyers, struggling rickshaw pullers in need of a quick refreshment to whole families for whom the local Irani could be a place for lovely lunches or dinners. For the hooker who worked the street it was a place of refuge, too. Under the roof of the local Irani anyone could be, and has. Anyone, irrespective of religion, caste or creed could wander in and find comfort in the energy of the place.

A place where friends would chill, couples would court, business deals were signed and reforms were made by the great leaders of the past. A place where artists would get inspired, writers would find their characters and your old uncle could just sit back, drink a cup of Irani chai and read the Sunday Times. A place where kids would lie to their parents and go eat brun maska jam and hang out with their mates. A place where stories began. Now, these places that have survived in our city for well over 100 years are close to the lines of extinction.

I sometimes wonder, are we moving on so quickly that we might be forgetting what our city was all about? Sure, franchised cafes and and expensive restaurants have their place but to me – as a Mumbaikar- they lack the character that any Irani cafe had. Is face value everything? Well if it is then why are these cafes going extinct considering they have had one of the most charming faces of them all?

In under 30 minutes my new documentary Inheritance of Loss asks Mumbaikars of all persuasions these questions. And finds some fascinating answers.

IMAGES top to bottom:

- Saloni Shukla at work with Britannia Cafe's Boman Kohinoor

- Kyani & Co., Dhobi Talao

- Promo poster for Inheritance of Loss showing infamous 'instructions' board at the former Bastani Cafe, Dhobi Talao

19 minutes, 52 seconds : Aur Irani Chai {2001}

2009-07-23T23:42:00.002+10:00

CROWN BAKERY, STORES and RESTAURANT, Mahim. .

2009-04-13T21:56:00.017+10:00

We heard just yesterday that a little bit of local charm has dissapeared from LJ Road, Mahim.

Landmark Irani CROWN BAKERY STORES & RESTAURANT closed this week - the adjacent bakery is still operating but is not expected to last for too much longer.

We were fortunate to grab a chai and bun maska at CROWN just last month - here are a few photos we took that afternoon.

We'll miss taking a chai while enjoying the simple pleasure of watching the fish flutter, dive and dart in CROWN'S small back wall aquarium.

IMAGES:
Crown Bakery, Restaurant and Stores, Mahim. March 2009.
COPYRIGHT.

the Irani restaurant sings to me. .

2008-11-09T11:48:00.017+11:00

George Grosz had his Berlin cafes, Toulouse Lautrec his Moulin Rouge – and what the hell – I had my Bombay Irani.

There's this thing about the Irani café that draws me like a magnet. Especially the downmarket ones. Carelessly scattered and heaped ashtrays, half empty beer bottles , chipped tea cups, sullen tired waiters and a customer base that encompasses all denominations of this brave struggling species known as Mumbaikars. If asked to quickly pick three random images from my consciousness to define this city I'd pick the Irani, the Bombay Fiat taxi and the stock exchange building – in that order. And if anything symbolizes the cosmopolitan nature of this city, it is the corner Irani. My first tryst with bun-maskapao-keema-chai destiny took place in 1987, shortly after coming to Bombay to seek my (still elusive) fortune. It was an Irani called Fairdeal Restaurant on Linking Road in Bandra (W) and I was looking for a place to have breakfast.

I had just taken up a paying guest accommodation at Pali Hill with a Sindhi family the night before and had very little money on me. The first impression I got on entering the cool dark interior after my eyes had adjusted from the blazing heat outside, was of absolute disorder. There were cartons everywhere – on the tables, in the corners of the restaurant which was not a restaurant but a store which also sold food and therefore also was a restaurant…and there were egg racks nestling close to Bisleri bottles which snuck up comfortably with stacks of pao. Yellow Amul butter blocks cut up into little pieces lay in the open on the sideboard invitingly for flies…and a thin dyspeptic looking chap was slicing pao with a long thin knife that looked more like a tape measure.

But what is indelibly printed in my memory is the owner. He had skin like parchment and piercing eyes and a monumental nose. He had bright orange hair. And a cigarette jutted out of his mouth like it was an extension of him, cousin to the nose as it were. Great plumes of evil cheap smoke wreathed themselves around this striking personality as I waited for my order, and looking around me at this ramshackle scene lit up inadequately by the dim tube lights, I knew. I knew I had to paint these people, that owner sitting behind his ancient phone, the dyspeptic chappie with the knife, the lazy bulbous fans hanging down from the ceiling and the porcine broker trying to con the old couple in the table next to me. I saw the dust mites riding the rays of sunlight that were sheared three ways through the exhaust fan and watched them settling gently on the Amul butter with fascination. What could be more beautiful? George Grosz had his Berlin cafes, Toulouse Lautrec his Moulin Rouge – and what the hell – I had my Bombay Irani.

No matter how dauntingly expensive a city may be, no matter how hopelessly out of reach those grails of success that we have each of us pledged to pursue would seem, every civilized place has its respite. A place where you can say time out and rest your feet. Every bonecrushing system has its cracks where an ant in the world of giants may exist in grace for a while. In 1987, a fellow who had just left the safety of his family and hometown with no great job to speak of could still eat his fill in an Irani for 15 bucks. Today, even with inflation it's only 30 bucks.

When I see the patrons of the Irani tables, I am reminded of that fact. Very few of them go to admire the Belgian mirrors or the quaint furniture or the architecture. When I paint, it is not the mirror but the faces the mirror has seen over a hundred years that I paint. The migrants, the dispossessed, the students, small businessmen that bring colour and life to this city. That is the lifeblood of my cavas. Most of them have moved on and would not feel the slightest pang if they heard an Irani had been torn down and a branded retail outlet had come up in its place.

But there was an Irani hotel for them when they had needed it. There had been in their past the grace of an exquisitely crafted cupboard with inscriptions at the top and the respite of a 2 rupee cup of tea. There had been a marbletop table to sit at while worrying about whether there was enough money to take the Virar local back home.

When I paint the patrons of an Irani I also know that many of them have not taken that giant step forward. I can see it in the hunch of their backs and the hollows of their eyes. But there is place for them in Mumbai too - as there must be in every civilization worth its name. At least I hope so. If every chawl and wadi in Mumbai is torn down, and every green street corner squared away with chrome and steel and everything available inside a tinted glass fronted box at high prices, where do they go?

As we paper over the cracks and leave no rough edges or untidyness that may embarrass us, we also leach out the colors of diversity, and disavow our past. Art does not sit well with gentrification and uniformity. If you hang up Van Gogh's Potato Eaters on your pristine walls or Ramkinkar Beij's wild landscapes, should we not spare a thought for the source?

The Irani restaurant in its dying throes sings to me of much more than what is inside it. Beyond its check patterned floor is the dull concrete that inches closer every day.
I must paint quickly before it encroaches my canvas too.

GAUTAM BENEGAL
WORDS and IMAGES COPYRIGHT GAUTAM BENEGAL, 2008. All rights reserved.

1 minute, 32 seconds : Yazdani Restaurant & Bakery, Fort {2008}

2008-07-20T16:39:00.006+10:00

Irani cafes and I. . .

2008-06-04T19:05:00.027+10:00

Right from my childhood at 233 Khetwadi Main Road in South Mumbai to this moment, Irani Cafes have been a part and parcel (takeaway?) of my life. At least three of them from those good ol’ days are extant just a five- minute walk away from my childhood home which unfortunately is extinct.

The closest to the now non-existent centre of my erstwhile existence, New Yazdani Restaurant, diagonally across Dreamland Cinema is now a liquor bar. This restaurant used to be a regular first port of call whenever I accompanied my father to the nearby Grant Road market, usually on a Sunday morning. I used to coax at least a rupee worth of boiled sweets out of him every time. A minute away from New Yazdani is Café Mazda Restaurant at the corner of Pauwala (literally unleavened bread maker) Lane and New Charni Road (now Raja Ram Mohan Roy Marg). I don’t remember ever stepping into this eatery as a child or as a grown-up, come to think of it.

In the opposite direction on the same road at about the same distance is Cosmopolitan Restaurant & Stores at the junction of New Charni Road and Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Road (earlier known as Sandhurst Road). We used to sometimes do emergency shopping there: eggs, butter, loaves of pau (unleavened bread) supposedly a Bombay specialty, khara (salted) biscuits and stuff like that.

Its next door neighbour is Famous Pharmacy under the same Irani management. The distinguishing mark Cosmopolitan and Famous shared was Mr Muchchad (Rustom Khodabux Irani), the unsmiling but jovial man with a gargantuan moustache who worked behind the counter at both the places. We used to rib him about his proud possession. He took it in his stride unsmilingly.

The Irani Café we Mankars occasionally went to on weekends was Café Darayush, quite close to the Central Cinema. Now it is a liquor bar, restaurant, bakery, pastry shop, all-in-one. In those days (I’m talking 1940s), they used to serve home-made ice cream made in a hand-cranked ice cream maker. Darayush then used to have “family rooms” with swinging half doors allowing a measure of privacy to courting couples. Marathi short stories of that era have quite a few references to this feature of the Irani Café. Later in the 70s, an eatery much favoured by courting couples as well as Blitz’s Rusi Karanjia was the open-air one storied Café Naaz on top of the Malabar Hill. Commanding an awe-inspiring panoramic view of the Queen’s Necklace, it used to serve piping hot mutton samosas to die for and even beer. Naaz closed just at the fag end of the last millennium

Going back a few decades, though, guess what scuttlebutt of yore offered as the inside secret of the refreshing Irani chai? Opium lacing, believe it or not. About as convincing as the use of pau to pollute well water and convert those who drank it to Christianity, what? That brings me to the all-time favourite Irani Café of mine. Café Excelsior opposite the New Excelsior Cinema near the Victoria Terminus (now Chatrapati Shivaji Terminus). Although they serve decent Mughlai and Chinese fare, my favourite dish there is the simple Mutton Sandwich which I take away often enough even now. My other favourite takeaway Irani café is Sassanian for mutton and chicken puffs and garlic bread. I started frequenting it after the closure of Bastani opposite Kyani at Dhobi Talao.

If you’ve been wondering why this Bombay bloke has not mentioned even once brun pau (hard brown bread) smothered in maska (butter), the Bambaiya fad food for slumming preferred by the denizens of Page 3, the answer is he simply doesn’t fancy it. But somebody close to him does. Yes, whenever our son Ashutosh, who lives and works in New Jersey, drops in to see us, one of his must-visit spots is Sunshine Café at the junction of Babasaheb Jayakar Marg (Old Thakurdwar Road) and Jagannath Shankarseth Marg (Girgaum Road). That’s very close to where we live now. This restaurant with an attached beer bar also sells bread, eggs, butter, cheese, milk, pastry and so on. We shop there occasionally.

And, if you haven’t still had had your fill of my geographically, chronologically and palatably mapped memories, here is the parting shot. About eight months after I joined an advertising company in 1976 that was situated in Kitab Mahal above Café Excelsior, I fell ill. During convalescence, I grew a beard which is extant even today albeit in an abridged avatar. This is what came out of a close encounter of the real kind in an Irani café immediately after the said beard’s debut:

a case of mistaken identity
summarily dismissed

i met a woman
with gaps in her grin
mad enough to mistake
me for saint francis

my bald pate and beard
were the clues
she said

i soon showed her
the error of her ways
by refusing to grant
her the boon of a measly
cup of tea

surely i argued
saint francis’s munificence
cannot stoop
so low

P.S.: Famous last words supposedly heard in a Mumbai Irani café: “Khaya piyaa kuchch nahin. Sirf galas todaa. Barah anna” [Ate-drank nothing. Only broke a glass. Collect 12 annas].

DEEPAK MANKAR
Copyright © 2008 by Deepak Mankar. All rights reserved.

IMAGES, top to bottom:
- Deepak Mankar with sister Malini, Bombay ca 1938
- Cosmopolitan Restaurant and Stores & Famous Pharmacy, cnr. New Charni Road & S V Patel Road, ca 1980
- Rustom Khodabux Irani, Cosmopolitan Restaurant and Stores, ca 1950
- Detail from Map of Bombay, Imperial Gazetteer of India, 1909
- Advertisement for Cafe Naaz, ca 1965
- Bastani, Dhobi Talao, ca 1980

Brabourne Restaurant, Dhobi Talao

2008-05-12T23:49:00.028+10:00

They contributed in their own little way to the growth of Bombay, a city which has completely changed character.
RASHID IRANI

My name is Rashid Irani, though our family name is actually Bahmani. But a lot of Iranis in Bombay have kept, and I am one of them, the surname Irani. Actually, I only found out I had a family surname when I tried to get an Iranian passport. Til then I didn’t even know that I had another surname. I always thought it was just Irani. Funny, really.

My very first years, maybe four or five years, my parents used to live in kind of sprawling chawl, which is a huge kind of, you know, a number of flats, a number of families occupying those flats, and this was at Fort Market, very close to Flora Fountain. It was predominantly Parsi and Catholic at that point of time. Later, we moved over here to Dhobi Talao.

Dhobi Talao was mainly Catholic and Zoroastrian then; Catholics for the reason that in those days Goa was not connected by air from Bombay, and the majority of the Goans were, and still are, employed on ships, in all categories, so whenever they would sign off from a ship they would land up in Dhobi Talao, and this was the place where there were various Goan clubs- living quarters with one huge room where a lot of people slept. What would happen is the moment they would sign off the ship they would temporarily stay here til they made arrangements to go to Goa. And of course at that time there were plenty of Zoroastrians - Parsis and Iranis - living around here too.

My father Rustom Aspandiar Bahmani emigrated from Iran in the late 1920s and like most Zoroastrian Iranians who came to Bombay at that time he came from the main centre, being Yazd, villages in and around Yazd. It was quite an arduous journey coming to India via Pakistan, and they got into a few difficulties along the way, but finally made it to Bombay and they started these restaurants, these tea shops and provision stores, and they succeeded in business beyond, I am sure, their wildest ambitions. Brabourne opened in about 1932, and my father started working here in 1934. The place was originally a stable for horses.

I'd say Iranis did well because they had the knack of melding into the surroundings quite comfortably, I guess because of the shop. I think that is one of the best things about running a business like this - you come into contact with a wide spectrum of people on a daily basis, so you have to, per se, interact with them, otherwise you'd have no hope of succeeding!

The Iranis of course they were very, very hard working, and despite not having education in the formal sense, they had tremendous business acumen;they were hard working and practical, despite the fact that we'd get called junglees - which basically means rough, stupid, idiots. I sometimes feel Iranis get tired of being seen that way, it's so inaccurate.

A really vivid memory for me goes back to my days at St Xaviers - the local Jesuit school, and I had this teacher, I still remember his name, he was fearsome, but he was also, well, I actually grew fond of him, and one day, the very first day of class, when he was reading out the roll, he came to my name, stopped, looked up and asked me ‘what do your parents do?’ so I said “my father runs a tea shop”.

From that time on, he would invariably in class refer to me as ‘chaiwalla’ – a chaiwalla being someone who makes and sells tea. You know, at first I was really riled, especially since some of the other students, I mean my class mates also, started teasing me and continued to call me ‘chaiwalla’. I was angry at him, and since he was the teacher I couldn’t do anything. It was only much later that I realised this was his way of addressing all Iranis; a couple of my Irani friends who were 1 year senior said ‘why are you getting so upset?'

But I just didn't understand why it was so funny to be a chaiwalla's son, for Iranis like my parents slogged all their lives. The shop was their be all and end all – they would spend maybe 16 to 18 hours, 7 days a week, 365 days a year at work, but one of the things of course happening in those days was that each of these restaurants, they were rarely singularly owned, there were no single proprietors; there would normally be a partnership between 3 Iranians, or more.

Which meant that once a year maybe, or once every two years, one of the partners would take a long break – an extended vacation of a month, or two months. My father and mother invariably took my three brothers and myself for a holiday during our school vacation, mainly to this lovely place called Devlali which is an army cantonment about four hours away, and I have very, very fond memories of that place - for it was at a little cinema there called the Cathay I first fell in love with film.

I think what distinguished these Irani cafes was you could sit on a table with just one cup of tea and read the newspaper for hours on end, and you could be sure that you would never be asked to leave – that was one of the great things, so they became a kind of meeting point for a lot of people - there'd be innocuous debates to the more kind of intellectual discourses, everything took place within the confines of the Irani café.

Brabourne for me is, I think, a great institution. It has in its own way, and going back to the chaiwalla thing, you know one of the things I always feel, is that I am grateful for my father and his partners who started this place, for contributing, if only as chaiwallas, to the city. It is amazing that they contributed in their own little way to the growth of Bombay, a city which has completely changed character; it really no longer exists as it once did.

Today Dhobi Talao is increasingly a commercial hub. Earlier it was predominantly a residential area, today it is commercial. Within a decade I can see a whole slew of malls dotting the skyline around here. We are next in line, I suppose.

From an interview with RASHID IRANI, April 20, 2007

BRABOURNE CLOSED AFTER 76 YEARS ON APRIL 26, 2008

IMAGES: top to bottom:

RASHID IRANI, Brabourne Restaurant, Dhobi Talao, ca1990, photographer Raghubir Singh, copyright Raghubir Singh

BRABOURNE RESTAURANT, Dhobi Talao, 2008
ADVERTISEMENT for BRABOURNE RESTAURANT from Hormusji Dhunjishaw Darukhanawala, Parsi Lustre on Indian Soil, published by Claridge, Bombay, 1939
BRABOURNE RESTAURANT, Dhobi Talao, 2007

BRABOURNE RESTAURANT, Dhobi Talao, 2008

wheat & pomegranate / chai & omelet : Cosmopolitan Restaurant and Stores, Prarthana Samaj

2008-03-17T00:34:00.041+11:00

My father Khodabux Merwan Irani came to Bombay in about 1920, he was 18. When he came to India, not a single word of Hindi did he know, but still he learnt Hindi, Gujarati, everything, on his own. He had a very tough, tough, tough time. They were from Iran - Kerman, near Kerman, a small place called Jupar. They were farmers -wheat, and we had an orchard also, and in that orchard was watermelon, pomegranate, apricots, and mulberry.

The very starting of the Cosmopolitan, it was I think in 1932, my father was running the Good Luck restaurant on what is V.P. Road now. He started at Café Cecil, another Irani café now gone. He asked them if he could work, for nothing, to get experience you see. He went to Café Cecil and said 'can I work over here?' First they said no, and he said 'I don't want anything from you, but let me work, let me learn something', so they allowed him to work.

I remember when we started making biscuits, about 1956, we had no experience whatsoever, for three months, believe me, we used to prepare biscuits, and they were like wood! We actually threw the first batches into the sea! But one day at closing time, 11o'clock at night, I said I must keep trying - I prepared khari biscuits, and by God's grace they started to turn out beautifully. So then we began doing cakes - plum cake, currant cake, I just taught myself! We still prepare Christmas cakes here in December, and people just love them.

The success of these places, on the street corners? Look, Iranis mostly, in the old times, they did not care what the Indian people said about them - they do what they had to do. For instance I will tell you, my great grandfather, he had a donkey, and that donkey wouldn't pass over the bridge. The river was full and there was too much water there and the donkey doesn't want to go because he is afraid, so my grandfather, he carried the donkey on his shoulders and passed across..that is what the mentality was..they always found a solution to any problem, and made things work. Resourceful people; very, very, very practical.

My wife Freny, by God's grace, she has helped so much with this business, especially since my father died in 1976. Her father was a baker, she knows hard work. We met in 1967, and married in 1969. Our son Humin was born in 1970. Today he works here also.

I am Iranian, no doubt. I have an Indian passport, but I am Iranian, although really I am just a man living on the surface of this earth, and soon it could be time for me to make a move. In this area there was Yazdani Restaurant, Original Persian Restaurant, Hardings Restaurant and Stores, Café Shirin; they are all gone now. Original Persian had a very, very, very good name. We have lasted longer, but who knows for how long; I think the future for the Irani restaurants still left in Bombay is bleak.
RUSTOM KHODABUX IRANI
From an interview with Rustom F Irani, Mumbai, November 2007

IMAGES, top to bottom:
-Rustom K Irani, Mumbai, 2007
-Advertisement featuring Rustom Khodabux Irani and Cosmopolitan Restaurant and Stores, ca 1950

- Sheryar Kavyani, ca 1960
-Cosmopolitan Restaurant and Stores, Prathana Samaj, Mumbai, 2007
-Rustom K Irani with son Humin, right, and Irani tourist, ca 1990
-Freny and Humin Irani, 2007

"places time forgot". . .

2008-01-12T19:30:00.001+11:00

"Mumbai's Irani cafes", says photojournalist JEWELLA C. MIRANDA, "... are the places time forgot. Little pockets of nostalgia dotting unlikely corners of the city, swathed in sepia, staring out as the world outside moves just a little faster every year".

Jimmy Boy, Horniman Circle, Fort

Cafe Military, Fort

Kyani & Co., Dhobi Talao

New Country Liquor Bar, Fort

Britannia, Ballard Estate

ALL IMAGES COPYRIGHT: Jewella C. Miranda

BOMBAY TO SONAPUR HAI* 3: Kyani & Co., Dhobi Talao

2008-01-11T15:49:00.000+11:00

Kyani is now 103 years old; we are supposed to be the oldest Irani cafe still operating.
AFLATOON SHOKRIYE

My name is Aflatoon Khodadad Shokriye. Khodadad is my fathers name, Shokriye is our family name. Aflatoon Khodadad Shokriye. I came to Bombay from the city of Yazd in Iran in 1948. My father was here, he sent me a visa, student visa to study here. At that time I was 18 years old.

Image: Passenger docks, Karachi Port, ca 1940

The trip was during monsoon, up to Quetta it was OK- we went from Yazd to Kerman, Kerman to Zahedan, Zahedan to Quetta. From Quetta again we came to Karachi, from Karachi we came by steamer to Mumbai. I was along with some three, four people from Yazd. One was aged like my father, and he was our neighbour in Yazd, his son was there and another fellow was there of my age. It was a journey I will never forget. Ever. More tham one week of travelling.

Image: Kyani & Co., Dhobi Talao, 2007

So it was monsoon, and in Bombay it was raining, and raining, so many things which I was not used to! Day and night it was raining. That is why I was repenting! And the food! Indian food it is, what you call, hot food. But in our own restaurants we used to make the Iranian type of food.

When I arrived in Bombay I was repenting why I came - the Britishers had left and even at that time the hygienic conditions were not good. I thought Iran was better. I was new, I did not know language, no friends and all so I did not like it. Slowly, slowly I changed. The local people were friendly, good people. When they knew that I did not know the language, they used to talk more to me, and I picked up the language.

Image: Kyani & Co., Dhobi Talao, ca 1980

My father was here at Kyani, my son is the third generation that are running this restaurant, so this is a kind of family restaurant, established 1904 by my father Khodadad and his brother Khodamorad. Here then it was all Iranis working here. It was an institution, like Iranis, what you call it, it was like a training college!;they used to come and learn business, how to prepare, how to do business, and other things, and they used to go and make partnership with others and start their own business, set up their own Irani café.

In 1948 in Dhobi Talao Parsis were everywhere, Parsis and Christians. But, uh, slowly, slowly Parsis have migrated out of India, many of them died, many of them they did not get married, the population came down.

Image: Kyani & Co., Dhobi Talao, ca 1980

My father told me that the Iranis when they came here, they were working in the Parsi's houses, they were employed and worked in there, and uh, in the morning they used to meet, they would gather and discuss about life and things, so one fellow started preparing tea for the rest, but he used to charge them. So the idea of making tea came to the mind of the Iranis, so they started this tea business and all. By 1948, when I arrived, at every junction almost there was an Irani. They all selected those junctions, those street corners. Because the junctions are one, two, three sides of the road. Anything that was available they used to take.

Falooda - "..a gift from the Iranis to the people of India" says Aflatoon

Today our customers are a cosmopolitan mix - all types of people. Formerly it was mainly Christians and Parsis, the majority. But now, it is cosmopolitan. You cannot stop anybody entering your restaurant. It is a rule of the government, law. In those days you see, the customer was a different type of culture. Tie, coat and all. Hindus of high standard also used to come here. But majority were Parsis and Christians.

In years past Bombay was very safe and we used stop sometimes at 12 o’clock (midnight), but slowly, slowly we have reduced. Because at night people are in a different category in Bombay, they are different. People sometimes make trouble at night. So now we are closing it at 9 o’clock.

I think our regulars appreciate that we have stayed open, offering this type of service- we get people coming who were our customers some ten years back, fifteen years back, they have gone to America, or UK, Canada, then ten years later they come to Kyani, and they are so happy to see us, that we have maintained the same type of restaurant. I tell you, one year I went to America - there was a gathering - all Parsis, Iranis, and as soon as they saw me they said “ohh, Kyani, he has come from Kyani in Bombay”. I couldn’t believe it. Incredible how many people remembered Kyani.

Image: Badam, Butterscotch, Khari, Coconut Jam,Ginger, Cheese Wafers... - Kyani & Co., 2007

Changes? In about 1952 an Irani had a café, and this man used to put kus-kus (poppy) in the tea. And believe it or not, the taxiwallahs who were running the taxi, they used to go there and take their tea always, otherwise they were not happy with their tea. Then one by one, all the cafes started kus-kus tea, we had it here at Kyani, finally the Municipality came to know about it and they stopped it. It is prohibited. The Municipality will take your license and you have to go behind the bar if you tried that now. When Britishers were here, they were foreigners, we Iranis were also foreigners, we got friendly treatment when we went to the government departments; they knew that we were new here, we were also foreigners, so they said “you have to stop putting that in the tea”, and we did.

Image: Kyani & Co, 2007

In the past, people from offices, from Fountain, from Colaba, they used to come to Dhobi Talao, because there were two big shops selling confectionary – Bastani and Kyani - across the road from each other. Now there is only Kyani, so they go wherever they like to buy their requirements. Bastani closing has affected our business, you see. The nature of the business at Bastani was the same as Kyani. When it was there it was better. The movement of the people is now restricted. When Bastani was still there lots of people used to come from outside – they would maybe buy their sweets at one place, and just walk across the road and have their tea at the other.

Image: Bastani, Dhobi Talao, ca 1980

Kyani is now 103 years old, we are supposed to be the oldest Irani café still operating. We had to make my sons Farookh and Farad partners in the business; I am old now, any moment I may leave to go.

FROM an interview with Aflatoon Shokriye, Dhobi Talao, Mumbai, April 2007.

*Bombay to sonapur hai - Bombay is the city of gold.

Cafe De La Paix, Girgaum

2007-12-18T01:21:00.000+11:00

Bun maska and chai at much more affordable rates than its Paris namesake

Did you know that we have a little Irani café at Girgaum whose name was inspired by the famous 1862 opened Café De La Paix (pronounced – pay) located at Place de l'Opéra in Paris and designed by architect Charles Garnier? The story goes that when the owner, Mr. Irani, opened this Girgaum café in 1932, the landlord of his building had just been to Paris and had been greatly impressed by the Café De La Paix there.

So he requested him to give this name to the Irani café he was opening. It is located at the corner of Avantikabai Gokhale Road, which has the bustling auto spare parts market. And don’t worry; our Café De La Paix will serve you bun maska and chai at much more affordable rates than its Paris namesake.

Abodh Aras

IMAGES, top to bottom:
Cafe De La Paix, Avantikabai Gokhale Road, Girgaum, 2007 - courtesy Abodh Aras
Cup of chai - courtesy Sandeep Paradkar

My B. MERWAN diary. .

2007-12-16T18:51:00.001+11:00

My feet slowed down. My eyes went around. And everything for the next one hour happened in slow motion. It was as if I had walked through the doors of a time-machine. Straight into 1914.

It was a godforsaken overcast day in 2002. That was my second year in Bombay. Before that I had been writing for Gentleman magazine of the Indian Express newspaper. Through Gentleman I had known another writer/contributor and aspiring screenwriter, Rohit Gupta.

Rohit used to live in Grant Road in a rat infested rickety building in those days. And used to spend whole day at a place nearby that was his hangout joint and muse too. The place was B. Merwan. He said the name while we were walking to B. Merwan. The name gave me an impression that we were going to a persons house.

A few minutes later we entered B. Merwan.

My feet slowed down. My eyes went around. And everything for the next one hour happened in slow motion. It was as if I had walked through the doors of a time-machine. Straight into 1914 - the year B. Merwan was established. The feel. The ambience. I felt a sense of deja-vu. As if I was searching for a place like this all my life. As time went by I visited B. Merwan more and more, but alone. It was like falling in love with Rohit's beloved. So I had an affair with B. Merwan behind Rohit'a back. And B. Merwan loved me back with all that it had to offer. I sat there for hours - writing, thinking or just soaking in the place with my eyes.

For a long while it didn’t occur to me that there might be other Irani cafes around. There indeed were. In the years to come I ended up visiting a lot of them – Kyani, the late Café Johnson, Britannia, Regal Stores, Sassanian, Military, Oval, Leopold, Stadium, Lord Irwin, Brabourne, Mondegar, Universal. But B. Merwan remained my first love. Brabourne and Oval became close seconds.

On 3rd November 2005 armed with one handycam and two assistants I shot a short documentary on B.Merwan titled 'Brun.' On that day, while I was taking a break from the shoot Sourosh Nausheed Irani, one of the owners of B. Merwan told me this:

"I came here is 1984 from Iran. My grandfather and my father had opened this cafe in 1914. Till 1984 I was working in Iran - most of my youth days. I was there during Shah's time, then Khomeini's time. When the war broke out the family here got worried and called me back. Since then I am running this cafe with my elder cousin Bomi Irani.

We are the third generation running this cafe and fighting hard to keep the same old tradition going. The menu at the cafe has been same for 91 years while most of the other Irani cafes have given way to Chinese food or fast food etc. The chairs in this cafe are from Czechoslovakia and the marble top tables are from Italy. You don't get these at stores anymore.

We are trying very hard but we are growing old. We don't have a fourth generation to run this cafe. Both of us have daughters and it's not that we have anything against women running the place. It's just that after their marriage they have lives of their own."

Atul Sabharwal

IMAGES, top to bottom:
B. MERWAN, Grant Road, 2007
B.MERWAN - courtesy Atul Sabharwal
B.MERWAN signage - courtesy Atul Sabharwal
B.MERWAN, 2007

Gutli pao : YAZDANI Restaurant and Bakery, Fort

2007-12-06T18:32:00.000+11:00

In the old days Irani bakers used to slice the loaf by hand - now that’s an art!; to cut parallel slices in a uniform size.
Zend Merwan Zend

Is there anything as delicious as a fresh, hard crusted gutlipao, perhaps, soaked in the gravy of a spicy curry? Gutlis, pao and a variety of other breads are made in large batches daily by the many bakeries scattered around Mumbai. These oven baked European breads made their appearance in Indian cuisine about three centuries ago. The very word pao, in fact, comes to us from the Portuguese, though there is a mistaken belief that the word derives from the feet (pao) that knead the dough!

To learn more, we sniffed the delectable aroma of fresh-baked bread that permeates Flora Fountain area and followed our noses till we reached Yazdani Bakery on Cowasji Patel Marg. We spent an enjoyable hour with the incredibly jovial Zend Merwan Zend, chatting about the history and traditions of bread in the city.

We learned that Zend’s grandfather, Zend Merwan

Abadan, came to Bombay at the turn of the century and set up a bakery near the Alexander cinema. “My grandmother Jerbanoo would get up at 3 o’clock in the morning to knead the dough with the khamir”, recounts Zend. “Khamir is the basic yeast ferment and the technique was brought from Iran where bread was made by the sour dough process and not with readymade yeast as is done today; a lump of the dough would be kept for fermenting the next day’s dough. The Iranis and Parsees knew how to leaven dough but they learned the technique of pan bread from the Portuguese who also taught us the use of hops in baking”.

“They probably used hops in bread because it prevents unwanted bacteria from impregnating the dough and spoiling it”, Zend surmises. “Nowhere in Europe do they use hops for bread making, so I don’t know

when and how they were introduced here. We had to boil two spoons of hops in water and we added it to the ferment when cool. When the bread was taken out of the oven, the whole area was filled with the sweet-sour smell of that bread which remained for days together without getting spoilt - it dried up but it was still edible.”

After his own father’s death, Zend’s father joined one of the oldest city bakeries at the age of eleven. This was the Rising Sun bakery at Golpitha presently owned by Shah Behram Sheriyar Irani. “They were famous”, says Zend. “Anton Pereira was their old Goan baker and they used to make seven-tiered cakes which were sent by P&O liners to Singapore and the Far East.”

“The bakery used to supply cakes and pastries from Colaba Military camp to Chembur Naka in a bullock cart. The bullock knew the journey so well that even if father fell asleep, the cart carried on and the bullock would stop near the shops where deliveries were to be made. My father knew each and every lane and all the bakers in Bombay. If the bullock collapsed, my father would pull the cart himself for some distance with the tired animal tied at the back!”

Today, at the bakery established by his father almost 50 years ago, Zend produces a wide variety of breads to cater to changing demands. The kneading process begins at 3 o’clock in the morning and the baking starts at 6 a.m. We sample some of his fresh, delicious and nutritious seven-grain bread, made from whole-wheat,barley maize, jowar,bajra, rye, andnachli or kang. He also bakes an array of cheese and garlic buns, chocolate bread, Swiss rolls, brown bread, whole-grain bread, pizza bread, sesame buns, hot dogs and of course, sliced sandwich bread and the ever-popular gutli and pao.

“The so-called ‘American’ bread that some people like these days contains at least five to seven different types of chemicals to make it soft and white and have a longer shelf life. How can you expect that bio-chemical mass to be digested by your system?”, he asks with disdain. “Bread must have a bite to it. In India we need bread which will maintain its structure when you dip it into gravies and sauces. Soft bread dipped in daal or tea would simply flop or disintegrate.”

We speak of flavour and aroma: “Because of the high demand for bread, modern bakeries do not ferment the dough by a bio-chemical process; the gluten matures with intense machinisation of the dough, whereas in our process of hand-kneading and slow machine kneading, the gluten takes at least 3 hours to mature and gets a chance of evolving alcohol and carbon dioxide, so the bread develops that typical sweet-sour flavour. Also, the skin of our bread is harder because we bake it for a longer time.”

Unsold bread at the end of the day is baked into toast. “The only people who appreciate this toast are Zoroastrian Iranis” says Zend with a smile. “During the days of persecution in Iran, they couldn’t afford to throw away anything and they broke up this dry noon (naan) or dry toast into small pieces, put them in a large bowl with salted curd, chopped onions and mint and pepper and it made a delicious breakfast. Today the toast is crumbled into papeta-ma-gosht and of course it’s excellent with tea.”

Sandwich bread: “In the old days Irani bakers used to slice the loaf by hand - that’s an art, to cut parallel slices in a uniform size.” Zend tells us aboutZend tells us about Kaikhushroo Irani of the Old Parisian Restaurant in Bruce Street who at the age of 65 can still expertly slice a loaf thinner than any machine. “He learned his trade at the age of 11 from Gustasp Irani of Naaz who introduced free-style wrestling to Bombay”.

“Most people today want sandwich bread”, says Zend, “but they don’t realise that you can make excellent sandwiches out of pao; cut it along the equator, spread it with butter, a bit of cheese or ham, close it up and bake it again, and have it with a cold beer. It’s simply heaven on earth!”

Sharada Dwivedi

This is an abridged version of an article originally published by Times of India, reproduced here courtesy of Sharada Dwivedi. With thanks, Sharada!

IMAGES, top to bottom:

Yazdani Restaurant and Bakery, Fort, 2007

Cup and bun, image courtesy Sandeep Paradkar

Bun Maska image courtesy Abodh Aras

1947: Iranis A to K

2007-12-03T22:34:00.000+11:00

We have surveyed the 1947 Times of India Bombay Street Directory and have located scores of establishments we believe were Irani restaurants, most now gone. This list covers streets (with their 1947 street names) beginning A-K. Do you have information on any of these?

ABDUL REHMAN STREET (Bombay No 4)
Karvas Nivas
Light of Bombay Restaurant

ANNIE BESANT ROAD (Bombay No )
Café City Restaurant

APOLLO PIER ROAD (Bombay No 1)
Readymoney Building
Naval and Military Restaurant and Stores

APOLLO STREET (Bombay No 1)
No.107 Apollo House
Apollo Restaurant

Botawalla Building
Imperial Restaurant

East and West Building
Morning Post Restaurant

132 Great Western Building
Royal Navy Restaurant

No.28 George Restaurant

ARTHUR BUNDER ROAD (Bombay No 4)
Grant’s Building
New Light of Asia Restaurant

ASH LANE (Bombay No 1)
SOUTH SIDE
Café Health

BABULA TANK ROAD (Bombay No 9)
SOUTH SIDE
Princess Building
Western Restaurant

Abdulla Building
New National Restaurant and Stores

BAKEHOUSE LANE (Bombay No 1)
WEST SIDE
Shining Sun Restaurant

BALLARD ROAD (Bombay No 4)
Laxmi Building
Café Ballard Restaurant

BASTION ROAD (Bombay No 1)
EAST SIDE
Kitab Mahal
Café Excelsior

BAZAR GATE STREET (Fort Street to Elphinstone Circle)
EAST SIDE
Kagdy Manzil
Café Kohinoor

No.225 New Bombay Restaurant

No.275 Edward Restaurant

No.306 Town Hall Restaurant

Union Restaurant

BELL LANE (Bombay No 1)
SOUTH SIDE
Maneckjee Wadia Building
Union Restaurant

BELASSIS ROAD (Bombay No 8)
SOUTH SIDE
Café National

Liaqat Manzil
King George Bakery

New Alexandria Restaurant

Club Restaurant

BHAJIPALA STREET (Bombay No 3)
SOUTH SIDE

Firdusi Restaurant

Nadri Restaurant

SIR BHALCHANDRA ROAD (Bombay No 4)
WEST SIDE
Café Colony

BOMANJI PETIT ROAD (Bombay No )
WEST SIDE
Lord Wellington Restaurant

BORAH BAZAR STREET (Bombay No 1)
EAST SIDE
Dhankore Nivas
OK Restaurant

CADELL ROAD (Bombay No 14)
Cadell Court
Café Cadell

Good Luck Restaurant

Sayed House
Star Restaurant and Bakery

Hardings Restaurant

Welcome Restaurant

CARNAC ROAD/LOKMANYA TILAK (Bombay No 2)
Lilly Stores and Restaurant

Khoda E Noor

Café Milan

Tyabji Building
Lucky Star Restaurant

CAWASJI PATEL STREET (Bombay No 1)
No.58 Sukhia Building
Daver Restaurant

Merwan Building
Western Stores Restaurant

EAST SIDE
No.19A Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank Building
Yazdani Restaurant & Bakery

Sheri House
Star of Asia Restaurant

CHARNI ROAD (Bombay No 4)
Nehmani Building
Café Broadway and Stores

Cosmopolitan Restaurant

Wassiamal Building
Kohinoor Restaurant and Stores

Shirin Restaurant

Good Luck Restaurant

Ramachandra Building
Golden Star Restaurant

CHAUPATI SEA FACE (Bombay No 7)
Lily Cottage
Café Wilson

Fulchand Nivas
Café Ideal

Café General

CHINCH BUNDER 1^st ROAD (Bombay No 9 & 3)
New Lucky Star Restaurant

CHURCHGATE STREET (Bombay No 1)
Industrial Assurance Building
Asiatic Soda Fountain and Restaurant

NORTH SIDE
Deepak Mahal
Ferry Stores and Restaurant

Lalji Naranji Memorial Building (IMC offices)
Stadium Restaurant

Marina Restaurant

Rehman Building
Hollywood Stores and Restaurant

COLABA CAUSEWAY (Bombay No 1)
Royal Best Restaurant

Habib Court
Edward Stores and Restaurant/King Edward 8^th Restaurant

Atlantic Stores and Restaurant

Awabai Mansion
Royal Restaurant

Donald House
Piccadilly Restaurant

Merwan House
Union Jack Restaurant

23 Causeway House
Alexandra Stores and Restaurant

Leopold & Co.

Café Mondegar

COLABA ROAD (Bombay No 1)
Prince Albert Restaurant

Colaba Chambers
Duke of York Restaurant and Stores

Fatma Manzil
Regaud Restaurant and Stores

Cosmopolitan Restaurant

Colaba House
Novros Pehlavi Restaurant

Ruby Terrace
Colaba Restaurant

CUSTOM HOUSE ROAD (Bombay No 1)
WEST SIDE
Imperial Restaurant

Prince Aly Khan Building
James Restaurant

No.80 Apollo Restaurant

DADAR MAIN ROAD (Bombay No 14)
Modern Times Restaurant

Jaya Terrace
Moonstar Restaurant

Jenabai Building
British Empire Restaurant

Shapoor Cold Drink House

WEST SIDE
Dadar Bar Refreshment and Billiards

Kamal Building
Kamal Restaurant

DELISLE ROAD (Bombay No 6)
Bombay Good Luck Restaurant

Havewalla Building
New Byculla Stores

Golden Star Restaurant

Meher Restaurant

Shanti Bhavan
Marshal Restaurant

DONGRI STREET (Bombay No 9)
WEST SIDE
Akbari Restaurant

Banatwalla Building
New Lucky Restaurant

Hashambhoy Building
Good Luck Restaurant

DR D’SILVA ROAD (Bombay No 14)
Ghamat Terrace
Railway View Stores and Restaurant

ELPHINSTONE ROAD (Bombay No 12)
NORTH SIDE
Silverstar Restaurant

Wakani Building
Popular Restaurant and Stores

New Ideal Restaurant

FERGUSSON ROAD (Bombay No 13)
Shah Shivaji Restaurant

New Worli Restaurant

Worli Restaurant

FORBES STREET (Bombay No 1)
No.56 Café Zaer

FORJETT STREET (from Gowalia Tank Road)
New Tehran Restaurant

FORT STREET (Bombay No 1)
No.52 King George Restaurant

Royal Marine Restaurant

No.1 Davierwalla Building
Premier Restaurant

Dilkhoosh Restaurant

No.51 International Restaurant

Guishan Restaurant

Khotari Building
No.107 Kohnioor Restaurant

Goculdas House
New Edward Restaurant

FRENCH ROAD (Bombay No 7)
Tyebji House
Café Wilson

Parmanand Building
Star of Italy Restaurant

FRERE ROAD (Bombay No 9)
Jivanbhai Mansion
Nadir Restaurant

Persian Restaurant

Marshall’s Building
Paris Restaurant

No.21 Prospect Building
Café Angelia

No.28 Welcome Restaurant

Good Luck Restaurant

Café Universal

Café London

New King of Persia Restaurant

New Alexandra Restaurant

Aria Building
G.P.O. Restaurant

FULLER ROAD (Fort, Bombay No 1)
Esplanade Mansions
Army Restaurant

GAMDEVI ROAD (Bombay No 7)
Iswardas Mansions
New Heros Restaurant and Bakery

GELL STREET (Bombay No 11)
Brijmohan Banwarilal Building
Café Nelson

GIRGAUM ROAD (Bombay No 2 & 4)

Kyani and Company Bakers and Confectioners

Lord Irwin Restaurant

Iran Restaurant

Patel Building
Café Majestic

Villa Bellevue
Café De La Paix

Sandhurst Building
Allies Restaurant

Navelkar Building
Kennedy Restaurant

New Regal Restaurant

Fateh Manzil
Opera Restaurant

Viceroy of India Restaurant

Dominic House
India Restaurant

Dhoota Papeshwar Building
Emperor of India Restaurant

Soorya Mahal
Morning Sun Restaurant

Sunshine Restaurant

Rahim Chambers
Café Victory Restaurant

Bhatia Nivas
Café Sassania

Hirjeebhoy Seth Building
Café Yazdan and Stores

XL Restaurant

Cavarana Mansion
Alfred Restaurant

Brabourne Restaurant

Bastani & Co. Provision Merchants

GHOKALE ROAD (NORTH) (Dadar, Bombay No 14)
New Shapoor Restaurant

Rawji Sojpal Building
New Coronation Restaurant

Darbar Lucky Restaurant

No.68 New High Class Restaurant

No.30 Corner View
Morning Post Restaurant

No.26 Manjrekar Building
Capitol Restaurant

GOVERNMENT GATE ROAD (Parel, Bombay No 12)
Café Yazdan

Saifi Mahal
Lal Baug Restaurant and Stores

GOVINDJI KENI ROAD (Bombay No 12)
Kismet Building
Modern Times restaurant

GOWALIA TANK ROAD (Bombay No 7)
Oriental Stores & Restaurant

Chinoy Mansion
Lord Willingdon Restaurant

Hillal House
New Gentleman Restaurant

Dholsani Building
Tehran Restaurant

Motiwalla Mansion
New Ideal Restaurant

Shri Hari Nivas
Union Jack Restaurant

GRAHAM ROAD (Ballard Estate, Bombay No 1)
Laxmi Building
Café Ballard

GRANT ROAD (Bombay No 3)
Persian Restaurant

Adi Mansion
Express Restaurant

Hamidya Restaurant

Falooda Cold Drink House

Novelty Restaurant

Regal Stores

Wassiamull Buildings
Kohinoor Restaurant

Bombay Restaurant and Stores

Big Ben Restaurant

Grand Oriental Restaurant, Bakery and Hotel (cnr. Grant Rd and Falkland Road)

GRANT ROAD BRIDGE
Bombay A1 Restaurant

GREEN STREET (Fort, Bombay No 1)
Café India

James Restaurant

GUNBOW STREET (Fort, Bombay No 1)
Nanabhai Chambers
Welcome Restaurant

Harding Restaurant

HAINES ROAD (Bombay No 18)
Stone Chawl
Bombay Good Luck Restaurant

HARVEY ROAD (Bombay No 7)
National Restaurant

Cecil Restaurant

New York Restaurant

HOME STREET (Fort, Bombay No 1)
H. Boostani Restaurant

HOMJI STREET (Fort, Bombay No 1)
Buona Casa Building
Royal Stores Restaurant

HORNBY ROAD (Fort, Bombay No 1)
No.1 Crawford Market
Empire Stores and Restaurant

B Block Sitaram Buildings
Civil Restaurant
D Block Sitaram Buildings
Yazdani & Company Ltd.

167 Gokuldas House
New Edward Restaurant

Lotus Building
Café Civil

Powvala Building
Original Light of Asia Restaurant

337 Alice Buildings
Ideal Restaurant

WEST SIDE
Capitol Stores and Restaurant

204 National Insurance Building
Café Hornby

New Excelsior

HOSPITAL AVENUE ROAD (Parel, Bombay No 12)
Parel House
King Edward Memorial Restaurant

Bachooally Terrace
Anglo-Persian Co., Stores and Restaurant

HUGHES ROAD (Bombay Nos 7 & 26)
Cecil Stores and Restaurant (at junction of Hughes Rd and Harvey Rd)

Umarkant Mansion
New York Restaurant

IBRAHIM RAHIMTOOLA ROAD (Bombay No 3)
Syed Manzil
Zam Zam Restaurant

New Lucky Restaurant

Mohd Ali Building, block no. A
Star of India Restaurant

E.C. Madha Bros. Mansion
Wazir Restaurant

Princess Building
Western Restaurant

JACOBS CIRCLE (Bombay No 11)
Vithal Nivas
Western India Stores and Restaurant

Shirin Building
New York Restaurant

JANJIKAR STREET (Bombay Nos 2 & 3)
Jamal Building
Central Restaurant

KALBADEVI ROAD (Bombay Nos 2 & 3)
Ravindra House
Sunlight Restaurant and Stores
Botawalla Building
Bombay General Restaurant

ADVERTISEMENTS from-
Hormusji Dhunjishaw Darukhanawala, Parsi Lustre on Indian Soil, published by Claridge, Bombay, 1939.

IMAGES top to bottom:
Kyani & Co., Dhobi Talao, c1980 - photographer unknown
Cafe Kohinoor, Fort, 2007
Yazdani Restaurant and Bakery, Fort, 2007
Kyani & Co., Dhobi Talao, 2007
Cafe de la Paix, Girgaum, 2007 - photographer Abodh Aras
Bastani & Co, Dhobi Talao, c1980 - photographer unknown

1924 - the Irani in Bombay : Indispensible!

2007-11-25T21:13:00.000+11:00

From the Times of India, August 7, 1924 - click to enlarge. .

COURTESY:
Times of India Archives, with thanks to Mr Deepak Rao.

BOMBAY TO SONAPUR HAI* 2: Britannia & Co, Ballard Estate

2007-11-05T21:57:00.000+11:00

Many cafes have closed; in the 40s, 50s and 60s we had about three to four hundred Irani restaurants, bakeries, stores in Bombay.

Britannia Café was established by my father Rashid in the year 1923 and it happened to be the birth year, the year, I was born in this year, now nearly 84 years. The Zoroastrians who remained in Iran were under attack, so they had to carry on their life in villages, and most of them became farmers, and, uh, slowly there came to be short supply of water, actually they came from Yazd, my family. And Yazd was…water was very hard to get. Slowly there was no rainfall, and the water they were getting from the mountains also was drying up. So, they abandoned the villages and go for greener pastures. So, the Parsis of India, they told the Zoroastrians of Iran if they would come to Mumbai, to Bombay, they would support them and that is why they came to India.

Not being educated my father could not do any other work except the Parsis told him to start with some tea business, to prepare and serve tea, and uh, the Parsis helped them in the business and slowly they prospered.Actually, they gave them help to set up their stalls, and slowly the stalls gave way to small cafes, and then to restaurants and bakeries.

The Parsis had come 1 075 years ago, and they had adopted the Indian culture, and they were very loyal to the British when they were here during the time of Raj. The Parsis of India, they mixed with the Indians and during British time they attended schools, got educated, they became engineers, lawyers, but the Iranis coming later did not get themselves educated, but they adopted this Parsi culture because our religion is same. Parsis, originally, they themselves being very cultured, they mixed with the British people, very well, the British also gave them support and help. Well, the British did that maybe for a political purpose, they did so because they themselves were foreigners here, they could mix better with the Parsis than with some of the Indians.

Many cafes have closed; in the 40s, 50s and 60s we had about three to four hundred Irani restaurants, bakeries, stores in Bombay, but slowly they are diminishing, and now they are on the verge of vanishing. I think only about twenty, thirty Irani restaurants are left today. Eating habits have changed, in the sense that formerly in the British time our restaurant was serving continental type food, bland food, and the Europeans and high society type of people were not eating spicy food, but now, after independence, we had to change, we had to cook food according to Indian tastes – with spices, and masala and all those things. So, biriyani has become popular, pilau has become popular, and mutton, and gravy, gravy cutlets have become more popular than during the past. We used to have beef steak, what they call chops, fish and chips, all those things, but now they are not a part of our menu at all.

Gandhiji came in power and he became a political father figure of India, then they brought about independence, he said all of us are children of God, why should there be this difference? All restaurants to be open for all castes and communities. That forced us to put up a board, saying there was no restriction for any caste or colour.

When Iranis started coming to India, especially to Mumbai, there were a lot of vacant premises, and most of the corner premises were vacant, this may be superstitious, but the Hindus would not take the corner, saying that it was very unlucky for them, so the Iranis were coming, and they would find the corners better for business, and so they started renting them. My grandfather started Kohinoor Restaurant, just near Bombay GPO. It was one of the first Irani restaurants in the city, about 1890,'95, around that time.

From an interview with Boman Kohinoor,
Ballard Estate, Mumbai, April 2007

*Bombay to sonapur hai - Bombay is the city of gold.

IMAGES top to bottom:

BOMAN KOHINOOR WITH SONS AFSHIN, left, and ROMIN, right
-a portrait of Boman's father RASHID hangs above, 2007
BRITANNIA & Co., Ballard Estate, 2007
KOHINOOOR RESTAURANT, Fort, 2007

BOMBAY TO SONAPUR HAI* 1: Sasanian, Dhobi Talao

2007-11-04T22:59:00.001+11:00

As I take care of my wife, I take care of my place also. I love this place, this place is just like a temple to me.

My father was from a village called Arestan. In Iran. My mother was also from Arestan. My fathers father was an agriculturist…he used to grow fruits and other things – pomegranate, apples. My father arrived in Bombay in 1920. After the death of his mother, uh, he was sent to Bombay by father and then he started working in a restaurant. First he worked in Goodman Restaurant which was an original Persian bakery which later on closed down and now there is a footwear shop over there. After that my father worked at Kyani, he started over there as a waiter, then he became a cashier over there, he has worked as a baker also over there; until 1945 he was working over there.

In 1947 he took up Sasanian which was started in 1913 by the Yazdabadi family, Mr Rustom K. Yazdabadi. He was the one who started Sasanian and I think so, but not sure, ahhh, in the end of the 1800s, Kyani had come up and that was started by his elder brother, Yazdabadi’s elder brother. And at first there was Kyani restaurant at the corner, then there was Brabourne Restaurant, which is still there, and in this lane, Second Marine Street, there was a Café Wellington which was an Irani restaurant in the late 1800s. This was, I think, the first Irani in Mumbai. It is not an Irani restaurant now.

They used to say “Bombay to sonapur hai”– many people used to come from Iran for prosperity. They used to come on donkey’s back from Iran, half the way they used to come on donkey’s back*.

The high time of the Irani cafes were I think during the British rule. There were a lot of Irani cafes and at that time, even after that, still Udipi restaurants didn’t come (yet) to Mumbai. Irani restaurants were there, and the main reason Irani restaurants were on the corner of every street, and why the Irani restaurants were prosperous I can say, you see, an Irani restaurant, once it opened at 5 in the morning, it had the newspapers, people could read, papers used to come at that time, by 430, quarter to 5, and you could feel the warmness of the paper, that it had come directly from the press.

Another thing is, each and every Irani restaurant, though it gave tea, bun maska, omelette and some also had food a little bit, they had other necessities of life which people wanted - toothpaste, soap, hair oil, all the necessities, needs, even envelopes were kept. Even cigarettes were kept. Just like a small convenience store.

In the beginning, there was no food here, only bun maska, chai and omelette. Eating habits have changed in the city because, see, people are … every people has a want to change, they do not want to eat bread and butter every day , they want idli sambar, and to try other things, Chinese and all that. So after Irani cafes then (came) Udipi places, ahhh in 1990s Chinese food became popular, all these different foods started coming and all have stayed. But still people love Irani tea. And they love to come and eat bun maska, chai, some of the modern generation they love to come over here. In 2000 we changed the menu, and started serving Parsi and continental dishes. Our dhansak is probably the most dish popular on the menu.

See basically the principle of me and my dad is whatever you serve should be good, and should be value for money. Because in an Irani restaurant a poor person comes, a rich person comes, a middle class person comes. As I take care of my wife, I take care of my place also. I love this place, this place is just like a temple to me, where I serve people, and I would like to see my each and every customer happy with what they have eaten.

And one more thing. The fire in the bakery here has never stopped since 1913. Though the bakery was once repaired, still we kept the fire, as we Zoroastrians worship with fire, I think my success is due to that also. Because we believe (in fire) and that has helped us to prosper.

From an interview with Meheraban Khodadad Kola
Dhobi Talao, Mumbai, April 2007

*Bombay to sonapur hai - Bombay is the city of gold.

IMAGES top to bottom:
MEHERABAN KHODADAD KOLA, Dhobi Talao, 2007
CAFE WELLINGTON, Dhobi Talao, 2007
Advertisement, K.R. SASANIAN, 1939

Khush Amadid!*. .

2007-10-29T22:55:00.000+11:00

“Quintessential, unassuming catering, poised between East and West, the Irani tea-shops are peculiar to Bombay; oases of musty tranquillity in the city’s frenetic life”
Gillian Tindall, City Of Gold The Biography of Bombay

Irani Chai, Mumbai exists to remember and document, through words and visuals, the Irani cafes of Mumbai. Unique to the city, and set up by enterprising Irani migrants who arrived between the late 1800s and 1950s, the departure of these once everyday small businesses from Mumbai’s landscape is being noted. Tabloid journalists craft articles celebrating these Mumbai institutions. They grieve, and reminisce.

Older Mumbaikars lament what is being lost as they witness another café close, or watch it morph into something vastly different. Some hanker for the days when, they say, hour upon hour could be sweetly passed at the local Irani - bun maska and chai a satisfying, and economical, accompaniment to spirited conversation with friends and family.

In recent years film and urban studies students, braced with the same sense of impending loss, have rushed to capture the corner Irani; “Sometimes I feel it is fashion now for young students to say they are studying the Irani cafes” quipped one proprietor of a long-established Irani recently.

And with great affection many recall the ‘classic’ physical features of the city’s Iranis – marble-topped tables, bentwood chairs (some say from Poland, others insist Czechoslovakia), mirrored walls, signage announcing "all are welcome, whatever caste" and those exquisite painted-glass images of Zoroaster, Jesus Christ and others.

Yet what sits behind the nostalgia for these distinctly Mumbai social spaces? What are the stories of the families who started them, and what are your recollections of time spent at your favourite Irani? Beyond the fading allure of bentwood chairs and marble tabletops lay a multitude of memories.

Irani Chai, Mumbai invites you to share yours.

“A strange, dignified charm cocooned these restaurants which sprang up at every street corner, from Colaba to Bombay Central. Later, smaller Iranis were to spread to the rest of the city, deep into the suburbs, standing sentinels on little known streets”
MG Moinuddin, Bombay magazine, Dec. 7 1986

IMAGES top to bottom:
YAZDAN RESTAURANT & STORES, Dadar, c1920
KYANI & CO, Dhobi Talao, c1980
B.MERWAN, Grant Road, c1980
MARINE RESTAURANT, Dhobi Talao, 2007
Advertisement, CIRCLE RESTAURANT, Fort, 1939
REGAL RESTAURANT & STORES, Byculla, 2007

* Khush Amadid - welcome in Dari and Farsi