LIFESTYLE: The iconic south Mumbai café cocks a snook at terrorists
Days after terrorists fired rifle shots and lobbed grenades to kill unsuspecting diners inside it, Leopold Café is once again buzzing with activity. Backpackers from all over the world and spirited citizens of “Maximum City” can once again be seen downing beer in their favourite watering hole. There is nothing amiss at the café, except for the bullet marks on the walls and the shattered window panes.
The assault left seven dead, including two foreigners and two waiters. Still, it couldn’t provide reason enough for diehard Leopold customers to stay away. The café opened last Sunday. But such was the rush that it had to shut down temporarily. It lifted the shutters again on Monday and hasn’t downed it since.
The walls of the café are decorated with paintings of the Sydney Harbour, Agra’s Taj Mahal, the Pyramids of Egypt, Eiffel Tower and the Great Wall of China. Posters — including that of rock star Elvis Presley — procured from around the world and a Chinese painting adorns the other walls. However, at least seven marks left by the terrorists’ bullets on the walls and the doors and the shattered window panes have now become the most sought after items on display at the café.
Maege Ohiggins, a tourist from Ireland, chooses a centre table and orders a beer: “I am not afraid to come here. Leopold is a safe place and I will continue visiting it every time I am in Mumbai.” A more befitting reply to the nefarious designs of the terrorists is not possible.
For the record, it was at this café that the terrorists struck first. After firing indiscriminately here, they ran towards Taj Mahal Palace & Tower and gained entry through the service entrance. While the Taj may take up to an year to re-open, Leopold is up and running.
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“We want the terrorists to know that we are not afraid, and most importantly they have not won. The victory is ours, which is evident from the fact the place is crowded,” Farhang Jehani, a partner of the restaurant, says. Jehani runs the café with his brother Farzad and another business family — the Dehmiris — as partners.
The 137-year-old café was immortalised by Australian author Gregory David Robert in his bestseller, Shantaram. The novel — considered much similar to Henri Charrière’s classic Papillion — was set in the early 1980s and it was at Leopold that its hero, Lindsay (an escaped convict), met drug peddlers and currency forgers. The book is now being turned into a film.
“Robert and his fiancée had called expressing their concern. We have no clue why Leopold was targeted. I was upstairs watching cricket when the incident happened. When I came down, all I saw was the debris and dead bodies,” says Jehani.
The restaurant still has the round-bottom, old and wobbly ceiling fans, open seating and a rambunctious atmosphere, an ambience that is frozen in time. It serves food and liquor at reasonable prices, and most importantly without spices — this makes it a favourite of foreign tourists. It also sells memorabilia (tea cups and T-shirts with Leopold Café embossed on it). It perhaps is the only eatery in Mumbai to do so.
Not for nothing, Lonely Planet recently described it as a place where tourists are “drawn like moths to a Kingfisher flame...”
Even though the restaurant is fully functioning, the pub upstairs is yet to open. “A bullet hit the door and got dodged in its metal plate and a couple of bullets hit the window panes of the pub. No major damages,” Jehani says and adds that the pub will open in a couple of days.
The café intends to keep the bullet marks as a grim reminder of the shootout; at least for the time being. At the moment, these marks are much sought after. At least three international TV crews are filming the bullet marks, interviewing customers, waiters and managers at Leopold Café, while international photographers click pictures. The media start moving out only when some customers complain of flashbulbs coming between their drink and the evening ahead.
