Rice Plate and Masala Dosa and a glass of ice-cold water

The 21st Road at Chembur - Nothing's changed... since the 60s and 70s

It was sometime in the early 70s, maybe 1970 in fact. We were staying at 21^st Road, Chembur, Mumbai, in those years. A one-room kitchen 2^nd floor flat with a balcony. I still remember the house as quite comfortable and large, especially the balcony. It was really spacious, enough for me to hide in, away from my parents, and to rummage in my adventures, most of them within my mind. The ‘hall’, as we called the single-room, had three sections in it. One was the bedroom section, where the two foldable metal cots were placed with the cotton-filled lumpy and yet, comfortable, mattresses. The other was the cupboards section, where we had our single steel wardrobe, ‘almirah’ – it was called. The third section was the ‘study-room’, near the front window, where my study table was placed.

My study table, because my sister rarely studied. She just went to school and returned home to go to school again, to return home. My father would read the morning ‘Times of India’ while reclined on the cot, and my mother was usually in the kitchen, when she returned from her teaching job at the High School. I sat at the table, and played at studying, most of the time. It was fun to read up all the chapters in the textbooks, and purposefully read the chapters that were not being taught as yet. I felt that it was really intelligent of me, to have read up the chapters before the teachers taught them in school. It felt like we knew more than the teachers knew, for did they not read them only in the classroom?

From my study table, and out of the second floor window, I could see through the 21^st Road, Chembur, to the main road that ran from Diamond Garden to Chembur Railway Station. The 8 No. BEST buses had their last bus-stand just beyond where the 21^st Road got over, while meeting the main road. The railway station was about 150 metres beyond, and my father and grandfather returned from their workplaces by train, alighting at Chembur, and walking up to the house. I could see them, by the clock, accurate to the time, turn into 21^st Road, from the Station-to-Diamond Garden Road. My father would turn into the 21^st Road at 6 pm, exactly to the dot, while my grandfather would turn into the Road at 6.40 pm.

The turning into the 21st Road

My father’s brother, my uncle, would return by the 8 No. BEST bus, and would never get back straightaway to the house. He would go wandering about in the vegetable markets and book stalls and snack bazaars near the Chembur railway station between 7.30 pm to 8.30 pm. I returned home from school, with my sister and mother, by school bus, because the three of us went to the same school. We would return by 5 pm, for the school bell rang at 4 pm, 14 kms away, south, at Wadala, and the bus returned well in time. There wasn’t much traffic on the creek road between Chembur and Wadala during those days.

At the end of the 21^st Road, where it met the Diamond Garden Road, was a newly opened Udupi Restaurant, do not remember the name correctly now, that served vegetarian snacks during the day and rice plate at night. I could see the restaurant from my study window, and if I stared at it properly for a long time, I could almost smell the smells inside it. I could visualise the food stuffs being served inside, for it was all very different from the food that we used to make in those days. Our idlis were not like the idlis served in that restaurant, and our dosas were certainly much more thicker and fluffier than the ones in that place. Today, I feel that the thicker and fluffier dosas made in our house are certainly better, healthier and tastier, but in those days, as a child, that Udupi Restaurant was an entirely different place.

Geetha Bhavan - I went back to get the photograph.

Remember, this was a day and age when there were no video games, no TV or VCD-DVD, no internet or cellphones etc. The radio usually always belonged to the father, the lord and master of the house, and he would decide that he would listen to Vividh Bharati at a certain time, the All India Radio at a specific hour and the BBC World News at a very specific time. At other times, the radio would be shut, for it could definitely, most definitely, corrupt the children by its very bad programming of film songs and film songs. There were no games that were played by children in the apartment complexes or colonies during those days. We did not play cricket properly on the streets in Chembur until 1973. Street cricket was only played by those ‘urchins’ as elders called them in the inner streets of Matunga and Dadar. If only they knew that those ‘urchins’ were the forerunners of Sunil Gavaskar and Ashok Mankad and others after them.

Our house during 1961 to 1974 - Flat No. 17, Narulla Building

My evening was well set. Catch the school bus at 4 pm at Wadala, return home by 5 pm. Have a large steel tumbler-full of hot bournvita or horlicks or ovaltine and sit down to study. My mother would be the ‘master’ of the ‘Hall’ until my father returned, so she would be bossing my sister and me during that time, complaining to us that we did not study well, because the schoolteachers had been complaining to her about us. Since they were her colleagues, she naturally presumed that she should believe them. I would complete my homework in the ride in the school bus from Wadala to Chembur, but I still had to pretend that I had a lot of homework to do, in front of my mother. My sister usually had all her textbooks and notebooks in a bad mess inside her schoolbag, and would get a tremendous beating from my mother, and the two of them would then sit down for 10 to 15 minutes to unravel the puzzle of her school bag.

At 6 pm, my father would turn in from the Diamond-Garden road. He was a treat to watch. Very stylish, handsome in his own way, broad shouldered, with a full-sleeve white shirt tucked in, pleated trousers, black shoes with black socks, and both sleeves folded back to the elbows. Stylish glares, slim ones and a white steel-buckled wristwatch. I could see him turn in at the end of the 21^st Road, and he would be like a film hero, entering the street to fight bad villains and others, in my mind. I had just then begun to read “Into the valley of death” by Tennyson, and I could imagine him to be one of the warriors going in. Except, my father was definitely more stylish.

The 21st Road, Chembur - turning in from the main street

He would walk smartly and fast, and would come straight to the house, and would open the door by himself with his set of housekeys. You could hardly hear the key go in, and you would never hear the door open. He would shut the door very soundlessly, if that were a phrase. I believe that my father could be the reason for many phrases of that manner, such as “hear the house key not making any noise”, or, “shut the door so that you can hear the quiet sound of the shut door” among others. We knew his tread on the passage outside the door, and my mother, sister and me would rush at him and he would smile, in his welcome way, and it would always be a welcome moment in our lives, during those years, when we were all by ourselves. We were indeed happy, the three of us, me, my mother and my sister, to welcome my father, day after day, at the same time, just so that he would set our day, the same way, day after day after day after day.

He would have made a list of groceries and vegetables to be purchased, in his head and inside his memory bank, during the train journey back from his office. Somedays, he would have written the list on some sheet of paper, and on other days, he would consult with my mother, and they would draw up a list. It was usually a very short list. Those were the days of meagre wages and salary, and we always purchased groceries and stuff for the very day, or a couple of days. There was no refrigerator and nobody purchased stuff more than they would consume in 1-2 days. He would give me a 5 Rupee note and a 2 Rupee note, and would explain that the 5 Rupee note was for groceries and vegetables, and the 2 Rupee note was for purchase of bread, bananas and flowers for prayers.

He knew that there would be a few paise left over, about 50-60 paise. So, he would say that I could take 25 paise and my sister could take 25 paise, but we had to bring back the rest of the money to return to him. That was great loot, for us, for 25 paise could purchase tremendous stuff in those days. A plate of bhelpuri, that comes for 40 Rs now in a good bhelpuri shop, in 2012, was available for about 10 paise for half-plate, and 15 paise for full-plate. We could still have money left over. My sister had her own strategy for using up the money and I had a different strategy. And, my strategy had a well-thought out plan. My plan included my grandfather, who would be turning in to the 21^st Road at 6.40 pm. My plan required split-second timing and proper execution.

Each moment that my father would give me the money for the day’s purchases, and remark that the 25 paise was mine, I could immediately smell the interiors of the Udupi Restaurant, and I could see inside my mind, a hot tasty plate of Masala Dosa, which for me in 1970, was the ultimate thingee to splurge on, and to save pocket money for. Because you could get every other small snack dish on the hawking carts near the school and the railway stations, but in those days, you could get the Masala Dosa only in the Udupi Restaurants. The magic of the potato-stuffing, the smell of the half-cooked onions inside the potato-stuffing, the strange semi-green and semi-yellow colour of the vegetable and the manner of hiding it inside the dosa was like a very mysterious dish for the uninitiated kid of Chembur, in those days. We knew the “Sada Dosa”, but we had not been introduced to the “Masala Dosa” until then. And even if we were in a restaurant, my mother deemed it as “too costly” and “totally unnecessary”. Usually. 


My strategy focused on my grandfather who would be returning home from work and would be entering the 21^st Road at 6.40 pm. Having received the money and purchases list from my father, I would run down the stairs and walk up the 21^st Road to be on time at the street corner when my grandfather would be walking from the railway station. I continue to be surprised by the memories and the independence of judgement that most parents gave their children during those days. I was about 8 years old, and my father would entrust me with money to purchase groceries and food, on 2-3 days in a month, with money for purchase of rations in the ration-shop, and sometimes with old oil cans to go to the oil mill and purchase oil, including vegetable oil for cooking and coconut oil for use as hair oil. In those days, we had to purchase oil from the oil mill, and middle-class families could not afford to purchase branded oil and usually did not trust the quality. Fresh oil-mill grounded oil was most trustworthy, but that is another story.

At the corner of 21st Road, Chembur - Exactly as it was in 1960s and 1970s.

On reaching the corner of 21^st Road and the Diamond Garden Road, I would wait. My father could see me from the 2^nd floor window of our house, and I knew that he would be watching. My grandfather usually carried a small cloth bag, and would have made some purchases at the vegetable market near Chembur railway station. He would purchase small itty-bitty stuff that he thought was interesting and SHOULD go into his food, and it would usually be stuff like freshly sliced coconut, coriander, curry leaves, ginger, bananas, half-packet of ‘Modern’ bread, drumsticks and spinach – ‘paalak’. This was his staple diet, for he had given up on most non-vegetarian food over many many years. He was 71 years old in 1970, having been born in 1899, and would continue to work in vague locations and loved commuting in Mumbai, by changing over from buses to trains and sometimes taxi-cabs. Mumbai was a beautiful place during those years, when the autorickshaw had not been discovered, I guess.

I would walk back with my grandfather, holding his hand, something that he hated. He felt that we should all be independent and should be able to walk alone, and walk silently. He had a dislike for perfunctory or mundane conversation, a viral that infected my father and his brother, and similarly infected my cousin, and me in later years. There was simply no chatter or gossip amongst the men in our families, and I guess, that was how most middle-class commuting families led their lives in Mumbai, busy, tired, living within meagre means, and yet, proud, happy and independent.

My grandfather would never allow me to carry his cloth bag of vegetables and other purchases. I would keep talking to him, and would tell him about my school, about homework, and about my father’s return to the house and my responsibility for the day, of having to purchase groceries and food. And then, I would spring my master move, and would tell him that my father was allowing me to retain only 25 paise from all the grocery money, and how I loved the Masala Dosa at the Udupi restaurant, and I could not possibly get to eat it, because it was 40 paise, and I still needed 15 paise. This was our daily discussion, the same strategy repeated every day, and I would keep waiting for that magical moment of suspense, when I could convince my grandfather to part with the 15 paise that I needed.

That was not to be. He was a clever man, every day. He would give me 50 paise, every day, and would give me a different bit of advice each day. On one day, he would say that the Masala Dosa was not to be eated on a daily basis, and that I should promise him that I would save the money today. I would. I always obeyed him. Because I had to show that I deposited the 50 paise that day, in front of him, in a Mickey Mouse coin-hole savings box given for all child-bank-accounts at Syndicate Bank in those years. On another day, he would say that I should purchase a Masala Dosa and a Sada Dosa and bring it home to share with my sister. This was something that I hated, because she got to enjoy sharing both the Dosa dishes without having made any effort or thinking out the strategy that I had to convince my grandfather.

The road from Diamond Garden to Chembur - a total delight

On some days, this was something I totally loved, he would turn back, with me, and this time, he would grasp my hand tightly, and would walk back on the 21^st Road, and cross over on the Diamond Garden Road, and we would enter the Udupi Restaurant. I would look back at the 2^nd floor window, and would easily spot my father and mother watching us both, and I knew that it was a tremendous victory, for now I could eat an entire Masala Dosa, all by myself, and my grandfather would sit with me and pay for the food. The serving assistants, ‘waiters’ as we called them, knew me, and knew and respected my grandfather, because of his immaculate dress-sense, and clean clothes, sharply creased, even at 7 pm for a 70 year old. They would talk to him in Kannada or Tamil, and he would reply with some short phrases. It was home. 


My grandfather would allow me to place the order, because, I guess, he knew that I loved doing that. However, I loved hearing the waiters recite the menu though they had given the printed card to my grandfather. So, I would ask, “Yenna Special?” (= What special?) and they would reply in a sing-song accent, “Idli sambar, vada sambar, Idli vada, masala vada, bonda, sada dosa, masala dosa, uttapam”. And they would end the sing-song menu, with a flourish and emphasis on the word, “uttapam”, which would almost sound like “pummmm”. After all these years, I can remember vividly the flourish and the final emphasis and the 2-3 waiters who would surround us during the rendition. They knew my selection even before I would choose, for I would almost select the same dish each time I visited. It was ‘Masala Dosa’, unless my parents were with me, and then, it would be Uttapam, because it would be more filling, or it would be ‘Idli Vada’, dunked in sambar, because as my father would remark, “it has both and it will fill the stomach.”

My grandfather would sit alongside and have a quick cup of coffee that they would serve in a twin-steel-tumbler style, with the lower larger one used to mix the decoction and milk and sugar with the inner smaller steel tumbler. It was a standard south Indian design for drinking tea or coffee. I would never get any, because I was too young, and it was only horlicks, viva or bournvita or ovaltine for me. The coffee was always strong south Indian Philips filter coffee. Instant coffee had not arrived as yet to corrupt the world of its coffee drinking choices. The situation was too good, and I can as yet remember the sounds, smell and surroundings. They had a glass cabinet to display sweets and savouries, and the fresh trays of hot hot steaming sweets would be kept above. The smell would fill up the restaurant and flood everyone with temptation.

But, even the strong smell of sweets and savouries was not enough to drown the smell of filter coffee being mixed at your table, and the fresh smell of crisp dosa, fried in white clarified butter, with hot sambar. Most of you, reading this, will immediately know what I am writing about. Those who have not experienced it, are unfortunate, for these hotels have moved on and the smells and sounds are not the same. Today, most restaurants are suffocating and the savouries are usually outsourced like a poorly performing BPO and the resultant tragic mix is kept for display. Most restaurants that are not true south Indian ones usually offer instant coffee in very thick milk and extra sugar, which tastes almost like purgatory. My memories of my grandfather are of the strong grasp he had, very painful, when he would pull me about to go across the road, and of the smell of filter coffee that he would drink at the restaurant while he would chat with the Kannadiga and Tamilian waiters. 


An important transfer of technology took place, sometime in late 60s and in 1970, it began to spread in India’s urban suburbia. This was the water cooler. I am not mentioning it in jest. I am serious. Today it is an accepted and easily recognisable essential utility in most corporate, academic and commercial establishments. In those years, getting an ice-cold glass of water without having to dunk unsanitary chunks of ice was an impossibility. The easiest way to stomach disasters and other evolved forms of bacterial infestation was to drink cold liquids with ice cubes or shredded ice. The manner of ice preparation has surprisingly not changed in commercial terms over these many decades, and ice-manufacturers in inner cities in India continue to offer employment guarantee schemes to the millions of medical graduates of the nation.

Most houses, as previously mentioned, did not possess a refrigerator in those years. It was not as unbearably hot as Mumbai is nowadays, but it would have been a welcome aspect to be able to get a glass of ice-cold water. Restaurants did not have water coolers. The Coca Cola establishment was prominent with ice-boxes, but the ice was from the vendor who would go around in a bullock-cart or donkey-cart or cycle-rickshaw, and sell the most polluted ice-slabs that one could ever obtain. But, it was a different age and time, during those years, and for kids, the most fascinating adventure was to keep running behind these bullock-carts or donkey-carts and keep begging the urchin-assistant on the cart to shave off some ice chips. The urchin would usually oblige, and the bullock-cart owner would shout some of the choicest of phrases at the boy, and for a moment, everyone would retreat. The next corner would have a different group of boys who would go chasing after the cart, of course.

The ice-slabs were covered in sawdust and kept cool by pouring some water from a rusty 5-litre oil can that must have seen much better days for some years. It’s a wonder that the medical profession did not ask Indians to take tetanus shots if we had cold drinks, for I am sure that the rate of infection must have been quite high in most suburbia, and nobody would have been the wiser for it. There was another vendor, a vehicle that would rate nowadays as a WMD (= Weapon of Mass Destruction). This was a real goon of a guy, who would bring 15-20 ice slabs on a buffalo cart, taller one with tractor-trailer rubber tyres, and a real massive buffalo, who would amble slowly, and yet gain much distance. When the vehicle would come to a halt, the buffalo would come to a real complete halt. Nothing could move it, not even if there were double-decker BEST buses threatening it front on.

Usually, most restaurants in Chembur and in Mumbai’s suburbia would be serviced by these ice-slab vendors and the ice would be kept inside in a cool-corner, covered with ages-old sawdust, sogged down by water that would have collected in that corner for many months or years. The ice-slab would be brought out when required, to the thrill of all the local kids, with a huge clamp, and would be slid down the restaurant eating area, with the sawdust spreading all over. The ice-slab would be chiselled out into shreds and pieces and these would be placed inside the Coca Cola ice-chest. For iced-water, if you wanted a glass of it, some ice pieces would be stored in stainless steel vessels inside old non-working ice-cream chests, and you could get yourself an ice-cold glass of water, if the establishment knew you as a regular customer.

Most families would usually beg or plead for a glass of ice-cold water for their kids, and it would be thrilling to see the water drops form on the outside, and it would be more fun to draw upon the condensation and show off. Some aunts would comment that their kids were known to draw much better sketches on ice-cold glasses of water than what I could do, and that was that. It was indeed a very rare occasion when my father would be happy enough on us to go out of his way to purchase an ice-cold bottle of Coca Cola. That was a real treat, and I guess, much safer. He must have been smart, for he would never allow us to ask for a glass of ice-cold water, but would rather get us the sealed bottle of the iced-drink. He would insist that he would open the bottle at the table, and would make a flourish and clean the bottle-opener, and then upon opening the bottle, would clean the rim and pour out the bottle into four shares and the four of us would have ourselves a good treat.