Sunday Snippets
By Venkatesh Raghavan
This occurred during the turn of close to the millennium year. Those were the days when I used to spend my morning hours in the Irani restaurant, putting in regular efforts to hone my writing skills, as a preparatory work for penning novels, with story ideas in mind. Many times I used to be seated with Amir who was a music lover.
Those days, Gulzar’s “Chhaiya Chhaiya” and Ram Gopal Verma’s “Goli Maro Bheje Pe” were the popular Bollywood numbers that used to keep playing from the juke box located in the rear of the Irani. At times, it used to be Amir seated with a cup of green tea, sharing my table as I focused on my writing effort and at other times, it used to be a group of students from the neighbouring GN Khalsa College, who used to share my table. On many occasions, some kid used to ask me, “What are you writing Uncle?” Though I was just into my mid-thirties, I qualified to be tagged “uncle” by these kids.
Those were the days when there was no bar on smoking inside restaurants. At times, the kids sitting on my table felt happy when I consented to share my cigarettes with them. Though I myself rarely advertised that I was in the journalistic profession, the man seated at the counter, manager Ali Akbar used to perform the honours of introducing me to the student crowd: “Ye Venkat Bhai hai. Sub ko kalam se maarta hai.” (Translated in English, it reads, “This is Don Venkat. He kills people with his pen.”)
It was around the time our state of Maharashtra was poll bound. Interestingly, the then All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazagham (AIADMK) supremo, late J Jayalalithaa, had decided to field candidates for the assembly elections in Mumbai city from two predominant Tamil populated constituencies, one in centrally located Matunga and the other in eastern suburbs of Chembur.
Following my chief reporter Raju Vernekar’s call to keep a tab on the AIADMK candidates fielded in Mumbai for the assembly polls, I finished an early morning visit to the candidate’s house and entered the Irani restaurant with diary in hand to catch up with my morning routine, that of writing my observations in analytical style.
Now, unlike the younger lot, I had never watched MTV and was unable to recognize Cyrus Broacha who later on became a popular anchor in the television spoof “The Week That Was”. I ordered tea with brun maska. Cyrus came to my table with a cup of black coffee. He also placed a bun instead of the brun I asked for. I got mad and screamed at Ali Akbar, “Aga dheko, ye kya laya hai? Isko training nahi diya kya?” (Just see what your waiter has done? Have you not trained him?”) Cyrus then went back and brought me milked coffee. After a sip, I again screamed, “Isko kahaan se leke aaya?” (Where have you brought this guy from?) My screaming and his repeatedly serving me things I had not asked for went on for some time.
Finally, Cyrus smiled and shouted, “Music, Music.” I quickly learnt that I had become Cyrus Brocha’s first MTV ‘Bakra’ from the Irani restaurant. Cyrus was ably supported by Amir from the kitchen in performing the pranks.
