Showing posts with label Dhobi Talao. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dhobi Talao. Show all posts

5.1.18

"I still shiver" : Dongri : Cafe Johnson and the riots of '92/'93


Twenty five years have passed since the Bombay riots of late 1992 and early 1993. Media coverage today saw us reflecting on this and remembering an interview we did with Hormaz Irani whose father Aspandiar and uncle Behram opened Café Johnson bang next to Sandhurst Road railway station in 1937.

For Hormaz, the closure of his café for weeks during the riots of ’92 and ’93 brought home what he had quietly known for some time - the impending final closure of the family business was nearer than farther.


I told my wife at that time that it wouldn’t be long, not much longer. When I sent the staffs back home to their native place I didn’t even know if we would reopen the shop. Very bad time. I had to shut down my restaurant, or else, eh, see my staff were all Muslim. They were pretty close of being killed also. For maybe a month the restaurant was shut and my shop servants used to come to my house, I, my wife used to cook food and give them. 

For 3 or 4 days  when everything was normal then I could return to the railway station, I bought their tickets, and put them in the train, and told them from here now God is with you, you can go back to your village. They’re all from Kerala.

I still shiver when I think of those days. Very bad. I just praying to God that I should be successful in saving, I had ten people. Ten people who were working in my restaurant by God’s grace I saved them and then I sent them back to their village.

Things were getting pretty bad, very bad to the extent that, instead of earning something out of it, I had to put money from here [a refrigeration business he still operates] over there [the café]. What I was earning here I had to put it over there to maintain that, that’s all.

While he did reopen Café Johnson, the death of his father in 2000 gave him license to lease the shopfront to an emerging supermarket chain which he was able to do in 2006.


I was happy as well as sad. Sad in the sense that er, I had to close down my Dad’s business and happy in the sense now I had to do it for good because the future generation also has to survive. I was happy that way. 

No hope of survival at all with respect to the menu what we had, unless you specialise, like the, the other cafes which are based in very good areas like Colaba and Chowpatty and all.

 If you have those kinds of menus and those class of people and come and pay and buy those high quality stuff, then you can survive. Dhansak and liquor and beer and all that. Yes. Then, only then, can you sell that but in the old menu we were having you can’t survive.

The supermarket chain that leased the site from Hormaz when he closed in 2006 didn’t stay and the site has seen several different businesses come and go in recent years.



From an interview with Hormaz Irani, Dongri, Mumbai, 2008.

IMAGES, top to bottom  :
- Cafe Johnson, Dongri, circa 2005 by Atul Sabharwal, used with permission
- Subhiksha supermarket on the site of Cafe Johnson, 2008
- News reportage on the riots featuring Brarbourne Restaurant, Dhobi Talao, December 1992

4.4.15

Ritesh Batra and Poetic License embrace Mumbai's Irani cafes

Ritesh Batra, director of hit flick Lunchbox says he is out to save Mumbai’s Irani cafes. Those that are still left, anyhow.



To that end his production company – known as Poetic License – will be hosting events at Irani cafes from time to time. The first event was held at Ali and Aamir Irani’s landmark Café Koolar at Kings Circle. Events at Kyani in Dhobi Talao and Café Excelsior in Fort followed soon after. 

More info here :

http://mybs.in/2RuYQp0

IMAGE : Ritesh Batra with Radhika Apte and Kharat Kataria upstairs at Kyani, Dhobi Talao. Courtesy K. Ahswin of IndianShowBiz.com

21.12.09

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


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

12.5.08

Brabourne Restaurant, Dhobi Talao




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

11.1.08

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



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.

4.11.07

BOMBAY TO SONAPUR HAI* 1: Sasanian, Dhobi Talao


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