From an experiment that started as an attempt to make the Peace Corps feel more comfortable in the city, The Only Place has grown to become a culture with Bangaloreans

Bangalore was a quiet city then, content in itself, where life ambled along in its sluggish pace. Those were the days when two-way traffic was allowed on Brigade Road, and yet, one could cross the street unhurried, un-harried. Those were the days when Haji Sulaiman Ebrahim Sait sat in his cosy little shop at the Mota Arcade site, sewing impeccable suits for the airforce and armed forces with his sons. Back then, tourists were a rare sight here, but the Peace Corps would troop into the city, and Ebrahim Sait's son, Haji Haroon Sulaiman Sait, would sit and watch them from their textiles shop. Haroon could understand that it was a bit of a struggle for the foreigners to get accustomed to the food and lodging here. For sometime, he had been feeling that the father's shop did not need so many hands, and with the Peace Corps and other foreigners (Danes, Swedes, Germans, Americans) often seen in the city, he had an idea. Haroon converted a bungalow they had on Brigade Road into a guest house, offering decent accommodation and simple English food -- omelette and toast for breakfast, stews and baked dishes for lunch and dinner -- to them.

Those are the beginnings of The Only Place, the steak house that is much loved and has become a habit with city dwellers, now nestled on Museum Road. Shoaib, Haroon's son, who heads the business now, said, "It was 1965. The guest house started and my grandmother, who was a great cook, would prepare the food for the foreigners."

Eating at the place was a communal affair, with the guests coming together for meals, and so became the cooking. Haroon would ask them about the kind of food they ate and preferred, fetch the ingredients from the market himself and often, the boarders would cook their native dishes while Haroon stood and watched. As his expertise grew, so did his menu. Shoaib said, "Iraqui soldiers also came in. They got their suits stitched at my grandfather's and had their meals at my father's. Thus, even Middle Eastern influences crept into our cooking." Steaks, pasta, spaghetti, pizzas, burgers -- names that sounded exotic and enticing were in Haroon's kitchen within a few years and in early 1970s there were cooks he was training, and city dwellers who also wanted to be a part of this new food movement.

Haroon threw his doors open to all. Shoaib, an electronics engineer by profession who has been a part of the computer revolution, also joined him in the business. "We would run on losses because my father would give food for free. Saturdays used to be barbeque days. He would roast a whole calf or sheep and feed everyone on the house. It used to be a social gathering more than anything else."

This restaurant, tucked away in a corner at the back of where now stands Mota Arcade, became a place where people would come to escape from the world, to meet and socialise. "So many love stories have begun here," said Shoaib, with a nostalgic look in his eyes. "In fact, guess who we used to see at the very beginning of his career. Prasad Bidappa would sit at the steps right in front and get the models ready with make-up there."

But on Christmas, 1987, they had to walk out of the premises -- 161, Brigade Road. The place was demolished with Mota Arcade coming up there. And suddenly, the original steak house of the city, the meeting place of people, was lost. But the many for whom The Only Place was exactly what it's name suggests, would not have it that way.

And back it came, on Museum Road yes, but with the old benches and tables (which used to be black and white because "paint was too expensive to afford) and tiled roof for that old world charm.

They still hand roll their pasta and pizza like in the olden days. Shoaib still has the pizza bases he had to get made from scratch from sheet aluminium, and the menu still has old favourites like steak and eggs (from Haroon's kitchen) and Shoaib's touches like the Whopper. In fact, they still have their forty-year-old menu card too, except that it is no longer Rs 5 for a steak.

We lost Haroon recently, but his legacy lives on, in Shoaib, in the great food and in the tradition he has left the city with.

[This was one of my articles for the space we call 'Down Memory Lane' in Expresso, The New Indian Express, Bangalore] Posted by Iksha

A bungalow on Cunningham Road still retains memories of the British era and once housed a hat-making business
PHOTOS: K. GOPINATHAN

GLORIOUS DESIGNS: The facade as well as the interiors of Hatworks Boulevard catch one's attention.
On Cunningham Road, there exists a house that bears within it a glorious history of over 100 years and is still holding ground among the apartments and skyscrapers that surround it. Resting in a part of an area of 9,000 sq. ft., this palatial bungalow has a few untold stories of the bygone days.

We are talking about Hatworks Boulevard behind a series of ATMs near FoodWorld. Till 2003, it was popularly known as the Imperial Hat Works. 75-year-old Rashid Minocher is its proprietor. He has asked his son, Rishad Minocher, to maintain the old structure as memorabilia.

The house has an exquisite 20 ft.-high Burma teak double ceiling with charming panel doors and windows, according to Linda Rao, an employee who has been serving the Minocher family for about 30 years now. Some portion of the original Lerrazzo floor (a type of Italian floor that looks like a carpet) is still retained.

Who built the house is still an unanswered question for the family. The only thing known is that it belonged to one Bhatta. Mr. Minocher claims that the house was constructed between the 1860s and 1870s.

Mr. Rashid Minocher claims, "Earlier, this bungalow used to be the outhouse of Cubbon Gutten, the then Commissioner of Police." The senior Minocher's father-in-law, Nadir Maneckjee, had rented the house sometime between 1925-28 and bought it in 1938 from the owner.

Profitable business
It was Mr. Nadir Maneckjee who had started the business of hat-making in the bungalow in 1930-32, after being trained in the U.K. According to Mr. Minocher, "The hat-making business became profitable during World War II. We supplied most of our hats to the Armed Forces during the war."

Apart from that, the innovative Maneckjee also pioneered the pre-tied turbans and supplied them to the Maharajas including the Maharaja of Mysore.

After the death of Mr. Maneckjee, Aban, the wife of Mr. Minocher, took over the business. But the business started fading away due to factors such as lack of raw materials.

Originally, the bungalow comprised four suites with a common dinning room and wide and long corridors. Thus, a total of 16-20 rooms of the house really had a mesmerising impact. When the hat business began, each of the hall-like rooms was used for different processes of hat-making. If one room was used for designing, another was used for cutting while stitching was done in yet another room. There is a room outside the house where the wrapping and dispatching affairs were handled.

The family also resided in a part of the bungalow during that time. The present Hatworks Boulevard is quite different from the Imperial Hat Works. Though the outer structure has been preserved, many changes have been made internally. Some of its partition walls have been pulled down while a few walls have been raised to meet the needs of a shopping area. There are 10 shops.

From the entrance, we could see the corridor running through the house. It has been renovated with modern tiles and flabs of stones laid in its pathway. The corridor leads us into shops on either sides. The front part of most of the shops are made to look attractive with designer glasses. While one side of the mall is occupied by shops specialising in paintings, the other side has a beauty clinic and a decorative items' store. Towards the end of the corridor, there is restaurant too.

The Minocher family has tried hard to preserve as much as possible of the past. As we enter the bungalow, we see the beautifully arranged personal photographs as well as the appreciation letters the hat factory had received. The most prominent of the photographs is the one delineating the different types of headwears manufactured by them. The room outside the bungalow, once used as a dispatching room, is now a play school. We should wait and see how long this piece of heritage manages to maintain its majestic looks.

PRITHISH CHAKRABORTY
EMILEE KASHYAP
Copyright: 1995 - 2006 The Hindu

Those of us in the earliest PC/India groups remember him fondly for his work to launch PC in India and after we got there looking after us with great attention for our well being. Only in later years did I just begin to learn how much Dr. Houston contributed to this world as a medical doctor and an Alpinist and to better appreciate his dedicated service to country. Click here to see obituary from Washington Post.

Also Dr. Houston was interviewed by Bill Moyers in 2004. That interview will be broadcasted on PBS Television on Friday evening, 9 October 2009.

The Associated Press WASHINGTON 14 July 2009 -- President Barack Obama says he will nominate a career international development specialist to be director of the Peace Corps. Aaron Williams is the vice president for international business development with RTI International. He has helped design and manage assistance programs in Africa, Latin America, the Middle East and Asia.

Williams was a senior manager at the U.S. Agency for International Development and reached the rank of career minister in the Senior Foreign Service. If confirmed, Williams will fill a slot that has been occupied in an acting capacity by Jody K. Olsen, the Peace Corps' deputy director since 2002. Williams is a former Peace Corps volunteer, serving in the Dominican Republic in 1967-1970.