Friday, March 27, 2009

KOOLAR THAN THOU...

This article appeared originally in Mumbai Mirror, of the Times Of India group.

HISTORY AROUND A CORNER
This cafe has since the early 1900s hosted history it refuses to
hoist, but reeks of...

Rishi Majumder

Approach King's Circle which has been renamed Maheshwari Udyan. Look
for St Vincent's Road, which is now called Dr. B R Ambedkar Marg. And
waving a hello from a protruding street corner, with road on either
side, will be a self effacing King George the 4th which, since 1932,
has been re-christened Koolar, Since 1932. "It was an Irani joint even
before that, but my father and his brothers re-named it after they
took over," informs the raspy voice belonging to Amir Irani , one of
the current managers and owners of this family run remnant of
authenticity. The Irani's were originally Koolar Zade (hence, the
restaurant's name), till the British relegated them a more general
sir-name. Funny, how history hides behind pseudonyms.
Irani's father, one of many who "came into India on a ship or oil
tanker" worked in the restaurant for a good ten years before he and
his brothers pooled finances to buy it. "It served only Paw (bread)
and chai then, before moving on to cakes, omelettes (including the
must-try Wrestler Omelette, made of eight eggs) and keema," recounts
Irani from amidst the restaurants near antiquated dark
Burma-teak-and-multiple-mirrors interiors. "But even Hindus, who were
wary of sampling bread back then, bought our ware rather than that of
other Catholic bakeries." He claims that the fact that they had their
own religious culinary don'ts made Hindus trust them never to let non
vegetarian oils seep into their bread. Also, "the fact that we didn't
sell beef." The looming high ceiling-ed triangular eatery with a
chequered stone floor and large colonial doors thrust open on three
sides hasn't digressed any from it's initial design: "All Irani
restaurants are based on the model of the traditional Italian
drugstore cafeterias." Even the imported Thornet bent wood chairs
colloquially baptized 'welcome' chairs, because of the word being
stitched across it's seat cushion, were bought back in the 30's – "for
a pittance of 10 rupees." Amusingly, the corner location was
considered inauspicious back then. "But the sunlight that streamed in
from all sides and the fact that every passerby would bump into it,"
made it ideal for an Irani café's famed 'Mehmaan Nawaazi':
"Indiscriminately serving food to people of every caste, class and
community who were forbidden from entering other meal places." Now
however, with a New Yorker on the next corner, a Café Madras some
blocks down and a secular Constitution firmly in place, this is one
patent Koolar has had to surrender.
"But the crowds come in as much as in those days," defends the owner
of a restaurant which proudly flags it's identity at the doorstep,
with a Persian lady holding a tea cup painted on the old peeling sign
board. And while the current crop of college students and generation
next office goers may have prompted the largish star posters hung on
the walls, even these half-hearted compromises with contemporariness
are decidedly retro. And so Marilyn Monroe holding down her famed
billowing skirt in black and white, tough guy Charles Bronson staring
steely in technicolor, a French Avant Garde movie poster with leather
jacketed dude, rouged up babe and Harley Davidson and the classic
'Shit!' poster with a train crashing through the window of a building
to land on the pavement, warn you not to push the timeline. For the
timeline preserves in memoriam many distinguished knocks on the old
teak wood door. Morarji Desai who with his fellow partymen sought
shelter from a post independence riot, Buta Singh who loved the Sekanj
Been, Shashi Kapoor who's still an occasional visitor, Mithun
Chakraborthy who spent his struggler days on Koolar kheema omelette,
or even Iqbal Mirchi and Bheema Dada, feared underworld elements who
did much plotting and planning on endless cups of Irani Chai. The
current who's who patron's list includes politician Ramdas Atwal,
filmmaker Mahesh Manjrekar and Raj Thackeray, whom parcels are
delivered to at regular intervals. But even lesser known mortals have
sown their share of memory seeds. Banker Shanu Khuraana, for instance,
who's Khalsa college days in the café have raised it to the position
of his "second home" even after he started working. Or engineer Deepak
Shah, who's family the café had sheltered during the Hindu Muslim
riots, when he was a child.
But making this timeline tedious to tarry with is competition from
diverse fast-food centres mushrooming in the same area. Giving way to
concessions like the Seven Up hoardings lining the humble heritage
walls with monstrosities like 'In between hot gossips have Seven Up Ke
cold sips'. "In between profits had gone down, and we had to put these
up to survive," explains Irani, a tad defensively. Befitting. Survival
is one synonym history always hides behind.

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