SATURDAY, MAY 18, 2024
Sujay Gupta
This has to be short. As you can see, the space for today’s
journey is limited but some debts need to be paid. For 14 years, that this
wanderer has been here, there have been changes. Hair has turned from pepper,
to salt and pepper, to now mainly salt, but his town of Panjim is still
enveloped by charm one clings to in a fast changing landscape.
But what has perhaps not and will never change are Panjim’s
mornings. Or mornings at Cafe Bhonsle. With so much of sampling, writing, and
above all revering places where people congregate, the obvious has perhaps been
missed out or not spoken of enough. What has not changed is that on almost each
morning in the fourteen years, that yours truly has been in Goa, Milind Bhonsle
has been at the entrance of Cafe Bhonsle, his ‘office’, his pride and joy, on
that chair behind the counter, welcoming Ponjekars
for their first meal of the day, over chatter and friendship. He is 45 now and
has been doing this since he was 15, spending his teen-aged years and his
passing into adult hood and the middle ages. He has seen generations of people
from Panjim and even beyond, as almost daily visitors, he has been a witness to
a changing and perhaps evolving Panjim, but holding on to the simplicity and
warmth of his Cafe.
The airy Cafe, with its doors leading to the pavement and
the central square, the small tables almost bunched together, with the
newspaper vendor a touching distance away. The combination of the morning bhaji, the special chai and the morning paper (some of you would be reading this at
Cafe Bhonsle), has been a part of the existence of the young, the not so young
and the old. It has been the first place to go to after waking, for
politicians, poets and assorted protagonists. And with street parties at
Carnival, the Red and Black dance, the Shigmo
floats, the Aartis at the Mahalaxmi
temple, the gatherings on the lane outside the masjid in the evenings during
ramzan, the Church bells heard every hour, there always is a visit to Cafe
Bhonsle thrown in.
It is truly iconic. Most cities in the world, especially
Paris, Milan or London have close century old cafes which have been vibrant
witnesses to the unfolding of civilisation.
Much like Le Select, a Parisian Cafe-brasserie with mosaic
tiles and wicker chairs, where Henry Miller, Picasso and Scott Fitzgerald took
their coffee breaks, Cafe Bhonsle is no less iconic in our warm little Panjim,
which can never be ever matched by international chain coffee stores with
unformed service boys and girls in air-conditioned settings.
The other day Milind, who for years used to party till the
wee hours of the morning and be jolted with phone calls from customers who were
waiting outside Cafe Bhonsle at the crack of dawn, spoke with a tinge of
disappointment at the falling numbers of cafe regulars. We only hope and pray
that this is a very temporary little dip and Milind will have soon have reason
to sport that big smile and laugh easily once again.
