Vicky, you are looking funny
today.
Why Sir? These are such fine
clothes I am wearing.
Yes, it is quite unlike you. You
are usually wearing jeans and a loose shirt but today you’re in all white.
Looks like you are going to play some cricket at the Azad Maidaan today except
that you are also wearing a chocolate-coloured makhmal topi and
smart boots.
Jokes apart, Sir, this is the traditional
Parsi clothing for men. It is Navroze in a couple of days from now, the Parsi
New Year and I wish to pay my respects to the community that has done so much
for the country.
But I always thought the Parsi
New Year fell sometime in the middle of August each year and at times when
working for the Tata’s, we got a day off.
Let me explain, Sir. In Iran,
they celebrate Navroze each year on 20th of March and in India we do
it on the 21st of March. This marks the Spring Equinox. Since Parsis
also have their origin in Persia, they too celebrate Navroze and do what they
do best, khao, piyo, maze karo. The Parsis in India celebrate their new
year in August, as you have rightly said.
Thanks Vicky, for this useful
information. I will remember to send out messages to my Parsi brothers and
sisters on that day.
Forget it Sir. They will be too
busy celebrating to see your boring cliché messages…Navroze Mubarak. Let us,
instead, celebrate the big day of this community by doing a hopping tour of
some cafes that serve Irani food and beverages.
What an idea, Vicky ji. Let’s do
it…we have done pub hopping at night, now let us do bakery hopping during the
day!
Sir, let me give you some more
trivia about the Parsis in India who came from Persia fearing religious persecution
and landed at Sajan on the Gujarat coast. They sought refuge from the King Jadi
Rana. The King was initially hesitant to grant them permission to settle on his
land. To express his concern about overpopulation and the strain on local
resources, Jadi Rana sent the Zoroastrians a glass full of milk. The
Zoroastrian priest stirred a spoonful of sugar into the milk without spilling a
drop and returned the glass to the King. This gesture symbolised that the
Parsis would blend into the local community, sweetening it without causing any
disturbance or displacement. The King granted them permission to settle in his
kingdom.
The Parsis were great traders and,
at one time, were among the most prominent businessmen in India. Some of them
like Tatas, Godrej and Wadias dominated the economic map of India. Today, the
population of Parsis is fast dwindling and as per the census of 2011, there are
only 57,000 of them remaining in India. Their birthrates are the lowest and
their literacy at 99.1% is the highest in the land.
The Iranian community, made up of
Zoroastrians and Muslim Shias, have been a recognisable part of Mumbai since
the late 19th century for the Irani cafes they set up. At one
time there were about 350 of these cafes in Mumbai, however, today there are less
than 35 left. The origin of these Irani cafes once again is in traditional Iran
which had Qahva-Kanas which were used to supply opium for
smoking, and drinking coffee and black tea. Here in India, of course it was tea
with milk and sugar and zero opium.
You have done full research on
the Parsis, Vicky. I think you should be given a good name befitting your looks
and knowledge. What about Bomsi Manasjee? Sounds good, eh! Before we start our
chai shop hops, tell me why the Parsis are often called Bawas?
Bawa is the colloquial of Baba or
father figure. Because of their habitual interjections, Arre Bawa at all
conversations, which simply means Arrey Baba, they are referred to as
Bawas. Now let us start our tour in the right spiritual way by going to Bhikha Behram Well which is celebrating three hundred years. Sitting adjacent to the
Churchgate station, this well, erected by Bhikhaji Behramji Panday, is sacred to
the Parsis. Even though the place was very close to the sea, the well springs
sweet water till this day. Three hundred years ago, a Parsi gentleman was aware
of the need of fresh water, don’t you think we should make him a champion for
water conservation in our times? The future of mankind is in danger unless we
act on this grave crisis now.
Do you know the difference
between bun and brun, Sir?
I did not even know there existed
anything called brun.
Ha ha…the brun is the same bun or
pao you have but with a very thick crust on top. You might dislodge your
remaining teeth if you were to take a bite directly. The locals enjoy the brun
by dipping it in the chai or have it with some dish with gravy. The brun and
buns or pao evolved into the Irani cafes due to the fact that the first of
these started around Dhobi Talao, a place dominated by Goan Christians who were
the bakery pioneers.
Irani restaurants are best known
for their no-frills ambience and menu. The traditional restaurants have
mirrored walls that act as ‘closed circuit TVs’ for their owners, European
chairs, marble-topped tables and chequered flooring. The fare is limited, yet
satisfying. Irani cafes serve bun maska (bread and butter) or brun-maska (hard
buttered croissants), and paani kam chai, or khari chai, mutton samosas, and
kheema pav, akuri (scrambled eggs and vegetables), berry pulao, mutton/chicken
dhansak (a spiced lentil dish with meat and vegetables) and biryani, caramel
custard and Duke's Raspberry drink.
Sassanian
 |
Sassanian and Gol Masjid |
While we have tasted the soft
maska pav of the oldest surviving Irani café of Kyani’s on an earlier tour, we
decided to start the tour by going to Vicky’s favourite joint from college
days, Sassanian Boulangerie & Restaurant which started in 1913 by Rustom K.
Yazdabadi and is situated in Dhobi Talao near the Gol Masjid. Sassanian is
famous for its dhansak, salli chicken and roasted chicken. Its mawa and plum
cakes along with chicken puffs are the most sold items. Several famous
celebrities, including film stars, politicians and academicians, swear by the
food but our Bomsi Saheb ordered chicken mayonnaise roll. This was something
very new to me…chunks of cold chicken between hotdog buns and generous
droppings of mayonnaise dripping from all sides, making the roll taste delicious
with a tinge of sweetness.
 |
Chicken Roll and Brun |
Sassanian continues to attract
huge crowd even today despite not advertising. The old timers always drop in
and then there is the word of mouth that brings in newer customers. The
unwritten rule that prevails here is “to always serve good food and take the
blessings of people.” The old Bawa who runs the place always had a very bad
mouth and Vicky had many an anecdote to share. We went to the bakery side where
the old man was sitting. We started taking pictures of the bakery items kept
there and were asked, “Why are you taking pictures?” We said we wished
to write about the place and beat a hasty exit.
B. Merwan & Co.

Established in 1914, B. Merwan &
Co. is one of the iconic places in Mumbai, situated right outside the Grant
Road Station. The cafe was founded by Boman Merwan and now his grandsons
run the establishment. The cafe is famous for its mawa cakes that sell quicker
than you can imagine. On some days, the mawa cakes are sold out in less than an
hour. Since we reached at 5.30pm, they had already started pulling down the
shutters. Somehow, we requested for a quick bite and all we managed were
bun-muska with chai. The place has this colonial British era touch with high
ceilings, wooden chairs from Czechoslovakia and the marble top tables are from
Italy. The walls are not painted; instead Irani cafes make use of glass on the
walls that creates a feeling of larger space. The waiters here do not have any
uniform. You get a glass of water before you place your order. Your order taker
is your waiter. So, the quicker you place your order the quicker you can get
your meal. If the item you order is not available, he will let you know. Most
of the staff here are daily wage earners but have been working here for at
least 2-3 decades or more. No wonder, they started wrapping up the place while
we were sipping the Irani chai and then they went on to turn off the fans, just
to make sure we did not hang around for long. The manager there was a pleasant
fellow who explained that they do not have any branches and the Merwan’s cake shops
you see around the city have nothing to do with the original B. Merwan’s. But rememeber the old saying that at Merwan's, only the early birds gets the mawa cake!
 |
Bun-Muska and the Tables & Chairs |
Yazdani
 |
Yazdani and the fine art of selling Mawa Cake |
Having missed the cake at
Merwan’s, we rushed to another old Irani café called Yazdani. This shop too was
almost shut but the man at the counter offered to sell us mawa cakes. He had a
peculiar style of cutting a small portion of the silver foil at the bottom end
of the packing and handing it over to customers who could enjoy the cake right away
without wasting time in opening. Yazdani Bakery was opened in 1950 by Meherwan
Zend. Known for its brun-maska, this cafe used to take pride in baking bread.
Yazdani was possibly the first bakery in Mumbai to “go beyond Bun, Brun, Laadi
Pav and Sliced Bread”. We enjoyed two mawa cakes each and also packed some for
home while the Bawa kept smiling and singing…Enjoy the day, enjoy, for
tomorrow you may die…
 |
Yezdi, Yazdani & Mawa Cake |
Jimmy Boy
We thought of first having dinner
at Universal Café near Old Customs House but being a Sunday, the place was
full. We tried our luck at The Military Café but the Bawa here does not work on
this day of the week. Finally, we landed at Jimmy Boy near the Bombay Stock
Exchange (wonder why they have not changed the name to Mumbai Stock Exchange so
far). This is a family restaurant that started in 1925 and was spruced up in
1999. With all that had gone into our tummies since evening, all we could order
was salli-boti, pao and lagan nu custard. Before the food reached our table,
Vicky drowned a bottle of Duke’s Raspberry and I took a bottle of Jeera Masala
drink. The food here is very good and we were quite enamoured by what others
were ordering…keema pao, chicken farcha and patrani machhi. In typical Parsi
style, the owners here want you to eat and drink to your heart’s content while
enjoying the warm Parsi hospitality. In short, Jamva chalo ji...or come,
let’s eat.
 |
Salli-Boti Pao and Lagan nu Custard |
Parsi Dairy
Our Bomsi Saheb was very adamant
that we visit the renovated Parsi Dairy. This dairy-cum-sweet shop was
established in 1916 and is possibly India’s oldest operational dairy. They
started door to door delivery of milk in 1920s and used the coupon system to
perfect the order taking and deliveries. Today, the place has been totally
renovated and looks like a chic place that can put any top end shop to shame. We
were too full to eat any of the mouth-watering sweets on display and so we packed
the special masala paneer for our homes.
Khada Parsi
While a lot is spoken about the
philanthropy and goodness of Parsis, they are also known for their
eccentricities and today my friend Bomsi Manasjee displayed one such trait. For
the entire evening we spent at the various Irani Cafes, Vicky kept standing.
The people at the cafes and waiters were laughing seeing him eat while
standing. I kept requesting him to sit down but he wouldn’t budge. Finally, he
declared that he had resolved to stand the whole day in respect of a Parsi
gentleman who has been standing near the Byculla flyover for over 160
years. This is the magnificent
cast-iron, 40-foot statue of the Parsi atop a Corinthian pillar, reputedly one
of the only two in the world, the other is the statue of Cires in Chile. This Khada
Parsi memorial was built by a son for Seth Cursetjee Manockjee who championed
women’s education by starting an English school, The Alexandra Girls’ English
Institution in 1859.
Finally, Vicky let me tell you a
story about a Parsi, I admire the most. This was around 2008, when as the head
of the Mumbai office for my company, I would ask my people to stay away from
accepting any business from Parsi individuals. The reason was very simple, for
any issue relating to policy, premium or claim, they would threaten…main
Ratan (Tata) se baat karega…Working in a Tata company I was petrified of
them. However, one day, one octogenarian Parsi, six-and-a half-feet-tall with
broad shoulders, came to the office to meet me and he sat down before me. I
offered him water but he insisted on having a cola. I sent my office boy to
fetch a bottle of Coke for him and then he asked for ice. The boy went rushing
again to get ice and the man now seemed pleased. Next, he insisted on seeing
his car that he wanted to be insured. I went along and saw a red coloured
sports model Mercedes standing at the building porch where no vehicles were
permitted. We insured his car and he came again next year. This time he wanted
me to see his chopper. Off I went again and he sat on his 350cc bike and turned
on the engine and on the display, it read…Welcome back Bomsi. My
friendship with this remarkable man grew over the years and I learnt that he
was a big man, not just in size alone, he was a legend. He was a Professor
Emeritus and a famed surgeon with over 400 patents in Obstetrics and
Gynaecology. He had done the London-Sydney car rally twice and represented
India in international Bridge Championships. What I loved most about him was
his zest for life. Each year he would buy a fancy car and give away his old
ones to his nieces and nephews. And that is why I named you today after this
Parsi Superman, Dr. Bomsi Wadia.
Navroze Mubarak!
Vicky & SS