75 yrs behind it, Madras Coffee House guards legacy fiercely
Shreya Roy Chowdhury | TNN
New Delhi: Volga, one of the oldest restaurant-bars of Connaught Place,
downed its shutters last week. But Madras Coffee House, another CP landmark,
turns 75 this year. The restaurant looks its age. As one of the last
vestiges of ‘Old CP’, it’s doggedly fighting all the forces conspiring to
turn it into a burger-flipping, pizza-tossing fastfood joint.
But it’s not off everyone’s radar either. Shiney Ahuja’s Vikram invites
Chitrangada Singh’s Gita to it in Hazaaron Khwaishen Aisi and Irrfan Khan
was there for a commercial. And old-timers still recall that everyone from
Indira Gandhi to Dharmendra has tried its filter coffee.
In the early 1930s, when his family — zamindars and cotton merchants —
went bankrupt, founder Hem Chand Jain moved from Ferozpur, Punjab, to Delhi.
‘‘It’s a Hindi-movie story,” says Gauri Shankar Nanda, Jain’s son-in-law who
now runs it. Initially, Jain made ends meet by selling ice-cream. Then, in
1935, he started the Shanghai Restaurant and Bar on the outer circle for
British soldiers in the cantonment. So emphatically British was the joint
that despite its *‘native*’ owner, says Nanda, it had a board outside with
the legend ‘‘Indians and dogs not allowed” inscribed upon it.
Inside, British soldiers danced with their lady friends to music by an
eight-piece band, ate Chinese food and sipped cocktails. Post Independence,
Jain changed it to Respo Milk Bar, made it shuddh shakahari and banished
alcohol — the bar now serves as a crockery cabinet. Indians were welcome.
Even now, the telephone number and electricity meter are registered in that
name.
But Jain wished to keep things moving. The milk bar became Madras Coffee
House in the early 50s — ‘‘when India became a Republic” and there was a
‘‘craze for south Indian food,” says Nanda. Then, after about 15 years
of near-constant reinvention, it stopped changing. Jain steered it till his
death in December 1977; Nanda, who gave up his export business to take up
the reins in 1998, wants only to keep things as they were.
‘‘Everything is undisturbed here,” says Nanda. The gloomy interior with
relics from its long, rich past, has its own charm. Customers — youngsters
out shopping, middle-aged professionals and the odd foreigner — use the same
chairs and red-top tables as the 40’s crowd; the water cooler (‘‘as old as
the restaurant”) is still there, even if it is not functional; a rickety
staircase to the first floor is the original one.
Wood peeps out through tears in the engraved metal on the wall-panels;
plastic flowers decorate the windows. It’s hard to imagine pride in such
decrepitude but Nanda wouldn’t replace any of it. ‘‘This place is not run
for money,” he declares, ‘‘It’s a legacy. We may be called conservative but
that’s also being rock-steady.”
With someone less unyielding at the helm, the eatery would’ve
disappeared. Nanda gets offers from food chains every second day. He’s
polite but inflexible. Madras Hotel, which closed some years back, was a
rival. ‘‘We enjoyed healthy competition for 50 years. We miss them.”
He ushered the restaurant into the 21st century with light touches — an
ice-cream parlour in 2002 that later fell out of use; a music system playing
numbers compiled by his school-going son, in 2006; and a new layer of
patterned floor tiles in 2003. The transition from South Indian-only to
‘‘Indian, Chinese, South Indian,” that year must’ve seemed like a tectonic
shift.
It has managed to weather even the slowdown. ‘‘You must keep costs under
control,” says Nanda. He makes do with eight men, and depends on state
security, such as it is, for safety. ‘‘This is an alcohol-free family place,
no criminals here. The 2008 blast happened close by. We’ve never been
affected, touch wood,” he says piously touching the table before him. For
the joint’s 75th anniversary, he has modest plans: he hopes it will be
considered a heritage site by visitors and the vintage cooler will be
functional once again.
FROZEN IN TIME: Political leaders to celebrities have been patrons of this
joint
