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On getting my smile and mojo back at Bohri Mohalla.


It has been a long time since I have written here

As you might know, I had Covid and that led to a spike in my blood sugar and herpes zoster

I was forced to focus on healing first. I changed my diet as guided by my dietician Dr Ria Ankola. With my diabetologist and friend, Dr Manisha Talim, overseeing my medication. The sugar levels came under control but I had to of course continue the new journey I had embarked on. 

I enjoyed what I was eating and began to share about it through a series of self shot videos and Instagram reels that I called #EatBetter

The effect of Zoster (shingles) was very painful and even after rashes dried up and the fever went, it was impossible to sit at my laptop and write as the nerve pain would get activated the moment I typed. Plus covid had left me fatigued in a way I had never been.

Nursing me back to good health. One plate at a time.

I had to limit my writing on the laptop after I spent four finishing my article on the #HomeChefStudio for UpperCrust. That was pure hell but I stuck on till the end. Seeing my words in print later made it all worth it. Apart from that, I somehow spent an hour a day typing for 5 days for a script I was working on and that was it. 

I stayed away from the computer apart from this. I used my mobile to type out social media posts and shot and edited reels too. For the blog though, I prefer to type on my laptop. Hence, my absence here. I had to even take a break from my #foodocracyforher podcast for the first time since I started it. There was no way I could sit and interview someone for an hour and then post it!

I was uneasy about this forced break. Restless. Impatient.

Then realisation dawned on me when I spoke to a senior in faith from my Soka Buddhist group. I realised that in the current context, rest was nothing but ‘action’. That resting was the only way that I could eventually get back to normal and create value. 

That put me at ease. I read. Fiction. Nothing to do with food or work. I played with the cats. Chatted with K when she was free from a hectic work schedule. Through the first couple of weeks, and a bit more, she had to literally nurse me as even when I got better, even lifting my plates after a meal would lead to pain. I was pampered like never before but then the last time I was so ill was perhaps in 2003 when I had malaria. Yet, I was not miserable. I felt loved. And had hope.

Change in medication for the herpes treatment, after I went to a dermat, and the impact of clean eating (I have lost around 7 kilos so far), finally led to the pain reducing, the fatigue reducing. 

I was ready to get back to the old normal. Taking baby steps.

We stepped out for a couple of lunches and breakfasts. To places in Bandra we were comfortable with. Smokehouse Deli, Perch, Candies of course, and for meetings cum breakfasts to SaltWater Cafe and the ‘Red Chillies Starbucks’. Guided by Dr Ria on what to eat.

A number of hotel PRs were in touch with me and a few home chefs too, but they were all gracious enough to let me heal and that is something I will never forget. This is how relations are built. The pushy folks, I blocked.

Then came an invite from a PR agency on behalf of the SBUT, Saifee Burhani Upliftment Trust who have undertaken the redevelopment of Bohri Mohalla near Bhendi Bazar. They had created a temporary site for the old food stalls to operate out of and wanted to invite me along with some others to see the change.

If you have been a Finely Chopped reader long enough, you would know how close Bohri Mohalla and its people are to my heart. I was first introduced to Bohri Mohalla by Dr Kurush Dalal. ‘This is where those who know their food go to eat during Ramzan. Not Mohammed Ali Road,’ he said.

The latter being the crowded patch that I, like everyone, else would head to during Ramzan . ‘The beauty of the Mohalla,’ continued Kurush, ‘is that the shops here are open through the year. The locals patronise these. Therefore quality is assured, unlike in the crazed melee that is Md Ali Road.’

I used his training to conduct the first Finely Chopped Food Walk, when there were no food walks of note in the city, in Bohri Mohalla and did many since then. Both during Ramzan and otherwise too. I shot there for TLC US and then for my own YouTube channel with Ping. I wrote about it in my book, The Travelling Belly. I reduced my visits to Bohri Mohalla after Instagram discovered the place a few years back. I went back and shot a Ramzan food walk for Zee Zest in 2019. I saw that development work had begun. At that time the old food stalls looked forlorn, standing scattered among the debris. Then came the pandemic and there were no public Iftar festivities for 2 years.

All food stalls,  Bohra and non Bohra, which were displaced by the work going on, have now been given space at the back of the Al Sadah building. They will remain there I am told till the commercial blocks are ready in about 5 years time. During Ramzan a food court like setting was created to accommodate the bigger crowds. In case you feel it is too hot for you to go now, you can go anytime in the year to eat. Bohri Mohalla and its food maestros will be right there waiting for you.

It was as if I was visiting a new world when I returned to Bohri Mohalla this time. A large building called Al Sadah has come up at the entrance to the Mohalla. The lane leading in has been widened. There is a McDonalds there and you can put it in Google maps and reach easily. A far cry from when I used to write a detailed note for those coming to my food walks. “Go below JJ Flyover while heading towards CST. You will find a restaurant called Jaffri on the left and a petrol pump. Get off. Cross the road. You will see an ambulance with Saifee written on it. Go down the narrow dark lane past it and meet me at Taj ice cream.”

‘Like a food court in Singapore,’ is how food writer Antoine Lewis described it during his recent return to the Mohalla. A day before I went. I could not but agree more. I had the same first impression. Maybe  Little India.

The Mohalla felt a bit different to me no doubt. I felt that I had lost a bit of the mystical touch, that the dark and tiny roads with shops from another age offered earlier. Working out of the crumbling former HTA office in Laxmi Building in Fort, when I was at TNS, for 6 months in 2010 made me realise that heritage is much nicer if you are a bystander and not living in its midst. I am sure those who operate out of the Mohalla appreciate the changes.

All the food legends of Bohri Mohalla are still there. The food is the very same. 

Yet, it is not entirely the same. The scions of Haji Tikka and of Indian Hotel, Shabbir chacha of Tawakkal, have all passed away in the past few years. I was happy to see that their sons are taking the family legacies ahead. Some families split once the new spaces were allotted to them. Taj Ice Cream and Tawakkal Sweets for example. Vali Bhai is now outside the Mohalla. Representing bara handi in the Mohalla is Surti Bara Handi. Imam Sharbatwala remains a street corner stall though the old chacha is not there anymore. Noor Sweets, which completed 100 years this year, remains at the old location as it is located beside one of the mosques in the area. The mosques are not to be touched during the redevelopment. Firoz Farsan remains and they shut by 8pm as before. There are a number of new food food franchise based shops now selling kunafa, Turkish ice cream etc.

 I must confess that I was apprehensive when I headed to the Mohalla that evening. I had not been out of Bandra for three months. I had eaten only home food for three months. I had not eaten on the streets after the pandemic began.

All fell into place for me as it always does for me at Bohri Mohalla. When I was welcomed back with warm smiles and big hugs.


What did I eat?

PC: Roxanne Bamboat

Old favourites such as the khiri (udder) kebab and Irani buff kofta at Haji Tikka. The nihari with extra nalli at Surti. I could not say no to a jalebi at Noor Sweets could I? I did avoid my other dessert favourites such as the malpua and the sharbat though Ria was a bit peeved about my jalebi jaunt. “Most of it is just air,” I argued.

Interestingly, both Shabbir Tawakkal and Haji Tikka have expanded to add tava items and I was impressed by what I tasted…which was the gurda masala, naan sandwich and baida roti at Tawakkal.

I must really thank the SBUT, who have done a lovely job of managing the restoration, and MSL PR for reaching out and inviting me. 

Without their urging, I would not have gathered the courage to go back to my happy place. Since then, I have begun to reclaim my life a bit and have stepped out for the odd meal and meeting! Reclaiming my life, one story at a time. One bite at a time.

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