Paris has Café Les Deux Magots, Vienna has Café Central and Bombay had Café Samovar ‒ watering holes for their city's creative and intellectual types. For 50 years, Samovar, located in the Jehangir Art Gallery in the Kala Ghoda precinct, remained true to its mission: to provide wholesome food at affordable prices and act as an island of unhurried leisure while the world outside continued at its frenetic pace.
Now Samovar is closing down. On March 31, it will serve its final cup of mint tea and its last plate of its famous boti roti roll. Ironically, Samovar is not winding up because it has fallen prey to rising real-state prices, as is the case with many other establishments, but because the trustees of the Jehangir Art Gallery want it out. A lengthy legal battle, which began almost three decades ago, finally culminated in an agreement in 2010 allowing the café five more years in order to reach its golden jubilee. Now that deadline is over.
The café, modeled on the bistros of the West, was the brainchild of Usha Khanna, a one-time communist activist along with her husband Rajbans Khanna, a filmmaker. “It was begun on a prayer for a lark, with nothing going for it except fresh air and hope,” she recalled. The idea was to provide a place to eat home-style food for out-of-towners, students and other indigent Bombayites. Parathas, dahi vadas, simple vegetarian and non-vegetarian dishes, samosas, pakodas and mint tea ‒ the menu has essentially remained the same over the years. No Chinese noodles, pan-Asian or nouvelle cuisine ever entered the restaurant. Mrs Khanna, as she was always referred to, wouldn’t have it.
Artistic haunt
In time, thanks to its location and ambience, the café became a haunt of artists, well known and upcoming, wannabe film makers with big ideas but no money, journalists, writers, young lawyers from the courts nearby, students from Elphinstone college across and young couples ‒ for all of them, the unhurried pace and the opportunity to linger on for hours without anyone hustling you out was a Godsend.
Irani restaurants, which at one time were places to hang out over glasses of tea, were slowly losing their charm and Samovar was a perfect replacement.
“I remember my mother commuting from Juhu to Churchgate every day and then walking to Samovar,” recalled Devika Bhojwani, Mrs Khanna’s daughter. “She used to come home really tired and wait for a call to tell her the day’s sales and whether there was going to be any money left over to start the next day.”
My own memories of the place go back to the 1970s when it was quite common to see some of the biggest names in Indian art sitting and talking animatedly or even drawing. Ara was a regular, Husain dropped in from time to time and Anjali Ela Menon would be found there whenever she came down from Delhi. Those were the pre-boom days of Indian art and most of them showed their works at the Jehangir (today the artists are seen more in the galleries of Amsterdam and Barcelona than in Bombay). Over the years, celebrities ranging from Dilip Kumar to Amitabh Bachchan to his then date, a young Jaya Bhaduri could be spotted in the place.
Blooming romances
For a young, poorly paid journalist, Samovar was the perfect place to sit for long stretches and do some people watching. Often, a perfect stranger could be sitting across on a table and no one minded. Many romances began, bloomed and culminated in that long corridor. The cane chairs remained the same, but the décor changed subtly through the years ‒ it was chiefly made of bric-à-brac and handicrafts picked up by the family and the wall hangings reflected the seasons.
The café made it to popular culture when a scene from the movie Choti Si Baat was shot there, with Asrani trying to impress Vidya Sinha by asking for his favourite waiter Bahadur. A Bahadur did exist, and he regaled old-timers with this story. At that time, the restaurant was presided over by the formidable Mrs D’Lima who was known to stop beer from reaching a table if she felt that the nice boys (and girls) had had too many drinks.
Unknown to its patrons, the café was embroiled in a legal battle with the trustees of Jehangir, who wanted to oust it from the property. The owners resisted and petitions were signed, but in the end, the legal battle was lost. The trustees did not buy the argument that the restaurant served a very important purpose and was a part of not just the gallery’s but the city’s culture. And now, one more part of Bombay is gone.
In a fast changing metropolis, some things should remain constant ‒they provide a sense of continuity and history. How often has one heard in Samovar, “I came here with my boyfriend, then husband, then children and now grandchildren.” Will we ever be able to say this about the numerous coffee shops that dot the city?
MF Husain was a regular visitor.
Writer Girish Karnad having a conversation.
Artist Anjolie Ela Menon and theatre person Dolly Thakore with the owner, Mrs Khanna.
Now Samovar is closing down. On March 31, it will serve its final cup of mint tea and its last plate of its famous boti roti roll. Ironically, Samovar is not winding up because it has fallen prey to rising real-state prices, as is the case with many other establishments, but because the trustees of the Jehangir Art Gallery want it out. A lengthy legal battle, which began almost three decades ago, finally culminated in an agreement in 2010 allowing the café five more years in order to reach its golden jubilee. Now that deadline is over.
The café, modeled on the bistros of the West, was the brainchild of Usha Khanna, a one-time communist activist along with her husband Rajbans Khanna, a filmmaker. “It was begun on a prayer for a lark, with nothing going for it except fresh air and hope,” she recalled. The idea was to provide a place to eat home-style food for out-of-towners, students and other indigent Bombayites. Parathas, dahi vadas, simple vegetarian and non-vegetarian dishes, samosas, pakodas and mint tea ‒ the menu has essentially remained the same over the years. No Chinese noodles, pan-Asian or nouvelle cuisine ever entered the restaurant. Mrs Khanna, as she was always referred to, wouldn’t have it.
Artistic haunt
In time, thanks to its location and ambience, the café became a haunt of artists, well known and upcoming, wannabe film makers with big ideas but no money, journalists, writers, young lawyers from the courts nearby, students from Elphinstone college across and young couples ‒ for all of them, the unhurried pace and the opportunity to linger on for hours without anyone hustling you out was a Godsend.
Irani restaurants, which at one time were places to hang out over glasses of tea, were slowly losing their charm and Samovar was a perfect replacement.
“I remember my mother commuting from Juhu to Churchgate every day and then walking to Samovar,” recalled Devika Bhojwani, Mrs Khanna’s daughter. “She used to come home really tired and wait for a call to tell her the day’s sales and whether there was going to be any money left over to start the next day.”
My own memories of the place go back to the 1970s when it was quite common to see some of the biggest names in Indian art sitting and talking animatedly or even drawing. Ara was a regular, Husain dropped in from time to time and Anjali Ela Menon would be found there whenever she came down from Delhi. Those were the pre-boom days of Indian art and most of them showed their works at the Jehangir (today the artists are seen more in the galleries of Amsterdam and Barcelona than in Bombay). Over the years, celebrities ranging from Dilip Kumar to Amitabh Bachchan to his then date, a young Jaya Bhaduri could be spotted in the place.
Blooming romances
For a young, poorly paid journalist, Samovar was the perfect place to sit for long stretches and do some people watching. Often, a perfect stranger could be sitting across on a table and no one minded. Many romances began, bloomed and culminated in that long corridor. The cane chairs remained the same, but the décor changed subtly through the years ‒ it was chiefly made of bric-à-brac and handicrafts picked up by the family and the wall hangings reflected the seasons.
The café made it to popular culture when a scene from the movie Choti Si Baat was shot there, with Asrani trying to impress Vidya Sinha by asking for his favourite waiter Bahadur. A Bahadur did exist, and he regaled old-timers with this story. At that time, the restaurant was presided over by the formidable Mrs D’Lima who was known to stop beer from reaching a table if she felt that the nice boys (and girls) had had too many drinks.
Unknown to its patrons, the café was embroiled in a legal battle with the trustees of Jehangir, who wanted to oust it from the property. The owners resisted and petitions were signed, but in the end, the legal battle was lost. The trustees did not buy the argument that the restaurant served a very important purpose and was a part of not just the gallery’s but the city’s culture. And now, one more part of Bombay is gone.
In a fast changing metropolis, some things should remain constant ‒they provide a sense of continuity and history. How often has one heard in Samovar, “I came here with my boyfriend, then husband, then children and now grandchildren.” Will we ever be able to say this about the numerous coffee shops that dot the city?
MF Husain was a regular visitor.
Writer Girish Karnad having a conversation.
Artist Anjolie Ela Menon and theatre person Dolly Thakore with the owner, Mrs Khanna.
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