Bring in the Persian New Year with these sumptuous stories of some of the unheralded Irani cafes in the city
(From left) Girish Samant with Sabar, Firoza and Firdause Irani at Persian Bakery in Goregaon. Pic/Shadab Khan
Imagine scalding the feet, running over hot coals to collect birthday cake fresh from your favourite oven. Girish Samant did so as a Goregaon child. Sprinting with unwise excitement, across the rail tracks skirting his home, to reach Persian Bakery.
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Though the city’s first Zoroastrian Irani tea shop reportedly opened in early 19th century-Dhobi Talao, the 1870s Iran drought brought a major wave of famine-fled immigrants docking at Bombay shores. That influx birthed several small corner shops stocking food, toiletries and basic “sardi-khaasi ni goli”.
At Persian, lawyer Firdause Irani narrates how his father, Shapur, arrived as a seven-year-old with his father from Khoramshar in the mid-1930s. Twenty years later, he introduced Goregaon to soft mawa cake and crisp nankhatai. A superbly spry 92, Firdause’s mother, Sabar, still sits at the counter daily.
Goregaon resident Girish Samant with Sabar, Firoza and Firdause Irani at Persian Bakery. Pic/Shadab Khan
Some suburbs south, Khar visitors catch the noisy flutter of pigeons winging around the Kabutar Khana that sprang up in the 1990s. Right across, Prince of Wales Restaurant rose at Sherkat Manzil in 1950. Old-timers remember relishing its 10-paise chai in the 1970s. This was Bombay buff and police historian Deepak Rao’s first brush with Irani joints. “My dad and I enjoyed omelette pao, but the eyes popped greedily wide on seeing big glass barnis stuffed to the lids with lollipops. Ordering two, we got a third generously thrown in.”
If that suburban corner acknowledged colonial power, Rezashah Co. (subsequently Golden Goose Bar) facing Grant Road station presented a more rooted shopfront. Numismatist Rointon Andhyarujina’s father Hormajshah procured the premises in Union Building from the proprietor of a local pickle brand called Bhonsle cha Loncha.
Hormajshah came to name his venture interestingly. The year he added a medical store on Sleater Road – after the grocery, egg market, dairy farm, vermicelli outlet, kerosene depot and sandalwood shop – 1941, marked the ascension of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi to the throne as Shah of Iran.
“My Udwada-bred dad initially spoke only four English words: ‘Yes. No. Sorry. Thank you’. But he ended up proficient enough with the language to help Congressman and former Governor of Sikkim, Homi Taleyarkhan, script sharp political campaigns,” says Rointon.
Hormajshah Andhyarujina with son Rointon and Girdharlal Mehtaji at Rezashah Co., Grant Road, in 1975
A hop away at Persian Restaurant, Abodh Aras was a regular with his grandfather. “Working for Welfare of Stray Dogs, I experienced the kindness these spaces extended towards street animals. Welcoming them, proprietors phoned us for their treatment, in Bastani, Britannia, Brabourne, Mondegar, Ideal Corner, B Merwan, Majestic and Paradise.”
The community’s strong sense of enterprise propelled 18-year-old Khodabux Merwan Nasrabadi, from a fruit farming clan in Jupar near Kerman, to set up Cosmopolitan Restaurant and Stores at Prarthna Samaj, after acquiring Good Luck Restaurant and Famous Pharmacy nearby. Before his astonished eyes, without a worry in the 1930s calorie-unconscious world, Cosmopolitan customers dunked Polson-buttered buns in condensed milk till each heavy tin was scraped empty.
Khodabux’s son Rustom has offered an account of the years of slog in iranichaimumbai.com: “We baked biscuits in 1956 with no experience. For three months, batches prepared were like wood and we threw them in the sea! At closing time, 11 o’clock one night, I thought I must keep trying. By God’s grace the kharis turned out beautifully. We then began doing plum cakes and currant cakes. I just taught myself.
Abodh Aras of WSD with Kaluram in Cafe de la Paix, Girgaum
“The success of these places on street corners? Look, Iranis mostly didn’t care what Indians said [Hindu businessmen considered corner plots “panvati”, inauspicious], they did what they had to. For instance, my great-grandfather had a donkey which wouldn’t pass over a bridge, afraid the river was too full of water. Grandfather carried the donkey on his shoulders. That was the mentality. They always found solutions to any problem. Resourceful people and very, very practical.”
Made practical if not born so. As young Ghulam Hussein from Yazd — who went on to establish Light of Bharat, Shivaji Park’s sole Irani cafe — discovered on losing his father at the age of 16. When he expressed a wish to study in the city of dreams, an uncle slapped him hard. “His Mama put him to work immediately. That’s why, throughout his life, in small ways, he supported kids wanting to learn,” explains Reza Irani, whose father Mohammad Jawad Saqi is Ghulam Hussein’s son. “An engineering student from UP, eventually doing well for himself, lived in paying guest accommodation opposite our restaurant. He told us Ghulam Hussein took care of all his meals during exams. Grandpa was happy with the interaction and love a simple Irani man like him received in the middle of this educated Maharash-trian neighbourhood.”
Among a fistful of cafes serving Sultani Kepsa, rich biryani derived from the Saudi Arabian dish Kabsa, Light of Bharat sells the double mutton raan thaal as a popular Navroze order. Its everyday fare fuses flavours of Sulaimani mint-lemon brews, Surti green chilli eggs, garam masala-spiced Hyderabadi omelettes and Szechwan omelettes. The atmospheric interior, with a cabinet of vintage cameras and teacups arranged in artful pyramids, have attracted film shoots including the Amitabh Bachchan-Akshay Kumar starrer Aankhen.
When not yet quite Big B, Bachchan’s Kemp’s Corner hangout was Allah Beli restaurant, currently the Gangar Opticians showroom. Here, he and good friend Anwar Ali, comedian Mehmood’s brother, cracked corny jokes over frugal plates of plain brun maska in their days as struggler buddies. Paid a few hundred bucks for eyeblink roles, as boys singing and drinking in the 1970 Merchant-Ivory production, Bombay Talkie, they celebrated with a classic. Kheema pao washed down with paani kam chai.
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