It all started with a few old chairs, a stove and a cup of tea, and went on to become a metaphor for an entire generation of artists, writers, journalists, film persons and college students. Usha Khanna’s cafe at Kalaghoda, Samovar, is steeped in nostalgia, and her newly launched book The Making of Samovar affirms this.
Relaxing in her bright, green-cushioned chair, enjoying the sea-breeze at her Warden Road apartment, Khanna remembers the first day of Samovar.
“I got the stove from home and the gallery provided me some chairs and tables. I made tea in the verandah. No one came in for a long time so I and some friends sat down to have tea. Slowly people started pouring in and asked us to get up and make place for them. I made Rs 19 that day,” says Khanna.
“I didn’t even know how much to charge. I just said 50 paise a cup off-hand to one of the artists and he paid me,” she adds.
It was Soli Batliwala, then secretary of Jehangir Art Gallery, who encouraged her to start the café. “I had gone to the gallery to see an exhibition.
I told Solibhai, during a casual conversation, that what this place needed was a café, picturing the cafes in Paris. And he asked me to start one. All my kids were under 11 and I had no clue about running a restaurant. But that didn’tstop me,” says Khanna.
That was 43 years ago. Now, at 80, Khanna has just documented her story and the birth of Samovar. “If I had not started Samovar I would have become a writer.
I used to observe the people who came to Samovar and had managed to collect a heap of notes I had written then. The idea of the book came during the court proceedings to shut down Samovar — I thought it would be a good way to let the world know about the love of my life, my café,” she says.
It was around the same time when Samovar faced the threat of being shut down (the Prince of Wales Musuem and Jehangir Art Gallery lobby had filed a petition saying that it was illegal to have a café on the premises of a heritage structure) that Khanna realised how much love and support she and Samovar had accumulated over the years from its patrons.
Artists like Anjolie Ela Menon rallied around writing heartfelt testimonies, scribbling doodles and donating paintings. “The signature campaign was stunning. People said things like we’ll lie down in the aisle if need be, some said they’ll go hungry, others said that Kalaghoda was incomplete without Samovar. I was overwhelmed,” she says.
Samovar has been the home to strugglers from Mumabi’s art fraternity and its patrons were now giving back Khanna some of the love and warmth they had experienced there.
Khanna can rattle off all the names of the people who have had their fill at Samovar —Farzana Contractor, Dina Vakil, RK Laxman, Amitabh and Jaya, Dilip Kumar, Kekoo Gandhi, Shyam Benegal, artists like Mohan Samant, Tayeb Mehta, Akbar Padamsee. The list is endless.
“They all became my friends over the years.” The fact that Samovar seems to stand still in time is what takes them back again and again. “There are so many stories and so many memories.
The best thing about running Samovar for these 43 long years has been observing first-hand the birth of arts in Mumbai and meeting all my eccentric, lovable and creative customers,” says Khanna.
“People who scribbled poems on napkins, planned their award-winning films, and dreamt their next masterpiece canvas over cups of chai and aloo parathas — I observed it all and now, here’s this book,” says Khanna.
She then points to the painting on the wall of her living room. “That painting was made by MF Hussain on one of the tables at Samovar. People started gathering around the table every day to take a look. So I took it off the table and hung it on my wall before someone could steal the table!”
“I remember how RK Laxman and Shyamlal (then editor of a leading newspaper) sat for long hours discussing news and cartoons for the next day’s paper. They wouldn’t leave even when it started raining heavily and water started falling on their tables. They would open up their umbrellas and continue with their discussions.”
What drew people like Laxman to Samovar was the warmth, the affordable prices, the fact that you could lounge around for hours without being asked to leave and last, but not the least, the food. Khanna says the recipes came to Samovar straight from her own kitchen.
“The kheema kebab rolls were something that I gave my children in their lunch box. The recipe for the whole range of parathas too came from home. And the best part is that the most expensive food item in the menu never crossed Rs100,” says Khanna.
Samovar’s staff has remained the same over the years except for a few here and there. “My staff has always stood by me. I can never forget the two people I consider to be backbones of the café — Anchan, my sad-eyed cook and Narhari, my handyman.
Anchan had always nurtured the ambition to be a paan-wallah so he always added a little bit of this and that to every dish he prepared. Narhari always came to our rescue whether it was for a clogged drain or buying extra provisions.”
So what was life like before Samovar? “Very eventful,” says Khanna. That would be anunderstatement. Khanna had been a part of the Communist Party, she was a rebel and walked out of her engagement with the rich man from Rawalpindi to marry Rajbans.
“Rajbans could not be kept away from nationalism and I became involved too. Later we had to run to Delhi since the police wanted us for our party activities. Those were extraordinary days,” says Khanna. Life was smoother once Rajbans got a job in Mumbai. “Our first house in Mumbai was a PG with an Anglo-Indian lady in Bandra. We enjoyed life as a couple in Mumbai.
I often met Rajbans after work at his Grant Road office. We would see a movie and have ice-cream at Chowpatty. It was here that I tasted the khatta meetha chutneys that would become a staple of Samovar years later.”
You want to ask her more about life before Samovar, but then you realise that the conversation will always veers back to the cafe. It is evident that the restaurant has been more than a mere business venture for Khanna. “I didn’t start Samovar to run a business but to create an aura,” she says.
The Making Of Samovar
Published by Spenta Multimedia,
Rs 950, available at all leading booskstores.
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