When we first came to Santiniketan from Mumbai five years ago, one thing we sorely missed was the ability to go out and have a cup of tea or coffee in a clean and pleasant environment. Because the options were either to sit on the road on pink plastic chairs provided by a sweet shop or walk into any of the wannabe three star hotels and drink from chipped cups served up on pink “Sunmaica” topped tables!
We decided we had to give Santiniketan an alternative and thus was born our cafe. For staff, we thought it would be unwise to poach from either of the two categories and make them unlearn whatever restaurant etiquette they had been taught and decided to hire fresh instead. After a few trials and errors of the four guys who stuck, one was from Bihar, one a Santhali tribal and the remaining two were Bengalis from Birbhum (the district that Santiniketan belongs to).
While we taught them to brew Darjeeling tea and filter coffee, we thought we would keep the food menu simple and restrict it to items like bread, eggs, paranthas, pakoras — things we thought they would be familiar with. Also, we had to keep in mind that the power cuts, problems of low voltage etc make the refrigerator a show piece and so all cooking ingredients had to necessarily be non-perishable. Bread, eggs, atta, maida, had to be our staple. In fact we were pretty surprised when our menu was two A4 pages long!
Once the menu was done and food trials complete, we concentrated on service etiquette. We ourselves learnt a lot as we went along. That, for instance, every time we sat at a table talking to customers, we would be served first (the privilege of the malik). So of course we had to explain how the customer/guest was the actual malik.
When they had got that right we realised that, probably in the tradition of the Indian family, all male guests were being served first! So then came the reprioritising. First serve the children, then the women and lastly the men. Since Santiniketan still attracts a lot of foreign students and visitors, the boys were also learning to cope with items on the menu pronounced in American, German, Japanese, Korean and other assorted accents!
We were getting along pretty well and complimenting the boys regularly on how fast they were mastering both — the items on the menu and the correct way of serving them. But, of course, many of our guests had other ideas. Somehow, just when the omelette arrived with the hash browns and tomato slices perfectly placed on white china plates, it would act as a strange stimulus. The customer would want to know why we were not introducing new things. “Like what?’ we would ask politely.
Pasta and salad would be winners on the poll. We would look interested and try to delve deeper and soon realised there was very little that they could add. Pasta and salad were just words on the menu which would imply that we had arrived as a restaurant and they were eating at a happening place.
Customers are never to be taken lightly and we are wondering how exactly to train the Bihari, the Santhali and the Birbhumis how to cook and serve Italian fare. What would be the right crockery (since much of the rest is served on disposable, environment friendly plates made from saal leaves).
Or did it really not matter. To the new pasta aficionados just the words would do. Any compromise with the real thing would of course be justified by the other frightening fetish called “fusion”. So the next time you are passing by, you could just be served some ITC packet pasta on leaf plates with some aloo chat as the accompanying salad. Truly global. Truly fusions
