Khana Kahan

Of the 500 Irani restaurants with their straight-backed chairs and brun maskas that were an integral part of the city’s tapestry for over a century, fewer than 100 remain.

The history of the Irani cafés is interesting. The search for a better livelihood brought Zoro-astrian Iranians to India in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Aflatoon Shokriy, partner in the landmark Kyani & Co at Dhobi Talao, recounts a community legend which the local Iranians believe led to the birth to these eateries. "When the Iranians first reached Mumbai, they had no money. Many worked at Parsi homes as domestic help. In the evenings, these Iranis would meet up and talk about the life they had left behind for a new life in a stange country. Refreshments would be served at these meet-ings and chai was a staple. To reimburse the host for the service, a small amount was paid for those refreshments. Gradually other people started frequenting the place and this developed into the traditional Irani café."

Most Irani restaurants are on street corners, where two roads intersect. This is because the Hin-du business community deemed the corner locations unlucky. The Iranians grabbed these locations for a low price.

Initially, the chai at Irani rest-aurants was served in cups that varied according to the religion of the customer – pink cups for Christians and Zoroastrians, floral cups for Hindus and white cups for Muslims. Mahatma Gandhi made them discontinue the discriminatory practice.

Each Irani restaurant has a list of don’ts that instructs customers not to comb their hair, discuss horse-racing or other forms of gambling, sit longer than necess-ary, order two saucers with one cup of tea (this is done when two customers wish to share a cup of tea!), etc. None of these instruc-tions are obeyed or even expected to be obeyed.

Seating arrangements are very liberal at Irani restaurants. If a chair is vacant at an occupied table, it is common to see some-one else take that seat. Most rest-aurants also have what are known as family rooms. These are a row of tables with screens around each individual table. Here, on Sundays, you may go with your family. Only customers accom-panied by women are allowed in family rooms. Outside the swing door, a little board informs others whether the room is engaged or vacant. Waiters are not supposed to enter until summoned.

"Ek brun muska aur ek cutting," is the most common order at an Irani restaurant in the morning. The brun is hard-crusted Irani bread (so hard that one has to dunk it in tea in order to be able to eat it), to which the waiter applies butter, or maska.

A ‘cutting’ is a cup of tea which is cut in half. What is generally a five-inch cup is now merely filled up to two-and-half inches and it costs half the price – three rupees.

A "fifty-fifty" is when the cup of tea comes with a small dish. The tea is divided into two, one person has it from the cup, the other from the dish and they split the cost.

Maara maari is half-coffee, half- tea, but the taste of coffee is dominant.

Apart from its usual mava cakes, mutton pattice, sweet buns, khari biscuits and fruit cakes, an Irani joint also offers plum cakes.

According to restaurant owner Farhad Ostavari, the raisins are soaked for a whole month before being used in the cakes. "The richness of the taste says it all."

The transformation of South Mumbai by Irani restaurants was documented by a group of Wil-son College students in a docu-mentary Aur Irani Chai. Irani cafés have played a role in films like Ram aur Shyam and Tezaab. Who can forget Dilip Kumar stuffing his face with delicacies without a single paisa in his pocket!

But the future is uncertain for these century-old eateries. "The younger generation is not inter-ested in managing restaurants. They either migrate or look for jobs." says Shokriy.

Thus they choose the alterna-tive of migration to Canada or Australia, leaving the quaintly-named restaurants – Union Jack, Coronation, Café BBC – to fade from the map of Mumbai.