WINK

Ronnie fleetingly glanced towards Peter.

He winked at him.

It was a very reassuring WINK.

Turning 90 degrees he now turned to the seated customer Chiman and pointing to his plate addressed him

‘’Saheb — Aa to kai nahi’’

‘’Aa to Kali Elaichi che’’

(Sir — This is nothing.

This is black cardamom)

PETER BRAGANZA was a novice.

He was a waiter who had recently started working in this busy standalone restaurant in Colaba, Bombay 

His clean crisply ironed sparkling clean white shirt and black trousers highlighted his dedication to his waiting profession.

Travelling from Goa and migrating to Bombay he had been shuttling from place to place in this hustle-bustle city in search of a steady job.

It was the 1980s and cruise holidays in the USA were booming.

His ultimate goal was to work in a cruise liner where he knew he could mint money as a few of his village friends had.

He had done his homework.

The agents who were organising the jobs were charging a bomb as processing fees and then he had to put ‘down - payments’ for the visa and other formalities.

The flight ticket would be another major expense.

However, the jobs he was getting now were not steady and the money he was getting as wages and tips doing restaurant waiting jobs were not good enough to quickly build up his target goal.

He had to work hard — really hard and be in the right place at the right time.

He had to find a busy restaurant where he knew if he worked hard he could get good tips and speed up the process.

He was confident of his customer service skills and this was importantly required to make the customers happy and tip well.

Just ten days back he was given the contact of a Mr Rohinton Taraporwala and after having an informal interview with the legend had managed to impress him and get the job in the recently opened popular and busy restaurant.

He knew he could do well here and reach his monetary target at a faster pace.

       

           ——————////——————

RONNIE — Mr Rohinton Taraporwala was a legend in hospitality.

Ronnie as he was lovingly known had a lot of other nicknames to fit his persona.

Bawaji, Kekda Khao (crab eater — after his love of eating crabs) and Parsi Bawa were some of the others.

Hailing from the Parsee community he was a very caring person and had spent almost a lifetime in Bombay doing what he loved best — working in hospitality and serving his guests whom he considered his Gods.

Dialogues with his colleagues and friends were always spiced with MC’s and BC’s

It was like a torrent of friendly banter not abusing the listener so his 

‘’Chup Kar M***C*D’’

(Keep quiet M**F***R)

or 

‘’Aie Aao B**C*D — Bhejaa no dahi khem kariyo’’

(Come here you S**F***R — (yoghurt made from the brain) why are you driving me crazy with behaviour and talking)

was a part of his vocabulary and were taken laughingly.

He made sure however that this did not slip into his conversation with his guests

His colleagues and juniors loved him as he took care and always protected their backs at work and as friends.

He used to buzz around the place doing even rudimentary work side by side of his juniors and colleagues and would even be a bus boy and clear plates where need be.

There were instances where taking off his coat, rolling up his sleeves he even helped out in the dish wash and pot wash areas and never had a chip that he was a manager.

His ‘mantra ‘was to have a well oiled smooth moving operation and keep all working there happy in the process.

‘’A Happy Team was a Productive Team’’

He started professional life years back in small Irani restaurants and had worked his way up landing also in the outlets of Five Star hotels.

Bring a bachelor and having lost both his parents quite a while back he had no commitments in his simple led life.

He had the gift of the gab.

He was a smooth talker and could treat a guest as a heavenly entity and shower them with so much love and attention that customers flocked to be spoilt by his charming personality and hospitality.

They loved entertaining with him as he elevated their levels in front of their family, guests or business associates.

He had a sharp memory for names and guests choice of food, drink and seating preferences and used it to enhance the guest experience.

They specifically asked for him to be their server.

Many of them while reserving a table they asked if he was working on the day and that shift and many a time cancelled or postponed their bookings to fit in on a day that he was working.

They spent lavishly mostly leaving drink and food menu choices in his able hands.

He enjoyed what he was doing and he did it with pleasure.

Around his mid-forties, after amassing some money he had left the profession and the five-star glamour to travel and see the world.

It was his dream and he managed to start the process of globe-trotting.

After a few years of doing this and spending his money in this fashion, he had landed back in the city where his heart always belonged — Bombay.

He regaled his friends with whiskey and stories of his travel.

He recounted varying experiences he had all over the countries and continents he travelled.

Being a person who loved to taste and educate himself with different cuisines he shared stories of his experimental food tasting as well.

How much was true and how much was fiction was questionable but the fact remained that ‘Bawaji’ was a great storyteller.

His quirky street food gourmet experiences included places like :

France — Frog legs in Paris,

Seoul — Korean Beondegi (made with silkworm pupae), 

Japan —Japanese Fried cicadas, Tokyo Inago nu tsukudani (Japanese style baby grasshoppers) Hachinoka (slightly sweet Japanese snack made from bee and wasp larvae)

Phnom Penh — Cambodian fried Tarantulas, 

Saigon — Vietnam white ant egg soup, 

Wuhan — Chinese fried cockroaches and centipedes

Bangkok — Deep fried Thai bamboo worms (a popular snack in Thailand — compared to the texture of potato chips or popcorn with a spiced flavour)

So there were loads of tasting tales which may also have contained lots of ‘Udaans’

and he loved spinning them.

There were his stories which also had humour in which he recounted an incident at the restaurant he was working years back as a waiter.

The customer had ordered a Mutton Biriyani and he had served it to him forgetting to take the accompanying Raitha (yoghurt condiment)

When the customer inquired angrily 

‘Raita kidhar hai’

(Where is the yoghurt condiment)

He had very cleverly retorted with a blank face and diffused the situation

‘Dadar !!

Saheb — main Dadar mein Rehta Hoon’

‘’Aap Kidhar Rehta’’

(Dadar !!

Sir — I live in Dadar

Where do you live ?)

This always brought guffaws among his listeners.

Now in his fifty’s after all his worldly travels and running low on his cash flow he had started work again as the Manager in the newly opened standalone restaurant.

Recognising Ronnie’s capacity and talent the owners had offered him a good package with a free hand to run this place.

It was with this background that Ronnie had managed to get this restaurant up and going and prospering within a month of its opening.

Guests flocked to — DESI DARBAR - this new ‘Talk of The Town’ and just by word of mouth he managed to pack up the 80 seater place.

He was proud of his kitchen brigade and made sure to serve delicious food in a very clean, hygienic and food-safe environment.

He was still recruiting and just ten days back had roped in Peter as a waiter.

            ——————////——————

CHIMAN was a small-time scamster in Bombay.

He felt life was cruel to him.

Just a teenager he was already burdened with the feeling that he was personally selected to be deprived of luck in life’s rotating lottery machine.

So he had to grab his future and his destiny by force.

Even if it meant taking the unscrupulous route.

Cheating had become second skin to him and he had already been beaten up many a times when he had been caught doing acts of cheating the public.

He had now got thick-skinned and had luckily managed to somehow stay above the law and away from the jail bars.

He had stumbled across a scam accidentally and literally by the ‘slip of a hair’ as he was enjoying his Vada Sambar in the local Udipi restaurant.

He was almost finishing and tucking into the last bits of the sambhar soaked golden fried lentil (doughnut-shaped) Medu Vada when he noticed a hair in it.

It was a long hair strand, probably a ladies hair, and must have floated in by mistake.

He created a hue and cry with the waiter who tried to justify the incident. 

The Shetty owner who prided himself in the clean environment of his South Indian eatery intervened from his corner galla (cash counter) and was very apologetic.

Shouting at the new GOAN waiter to back off he waived the meal bill and also packed and gave Chiman an additional portion of Vada Sambar and a Masala Dosa as goodwill.

This got Chiman’s mind brewing and this was his stepping stone to a lot of free meals around the city.

Different strands of hair were his tool.

He used this modus operandi and knew it was a success plot with prized choice free meals.

He then graduated to carrying centimetre size small black hard stones with him and slipping them into restaurant meals again gaining the sympathy, apologies and generosity of the managers/ owners.

One outlet handed him a huge compensation when he claimed that he had broken his tooth due to the stone in the vegetable pulao.

Little did they know that it was a previously broken molar.

He was truly on a winning streak and had to now ‘UP’ his dishonest act.

A ‘creeping’ idea had come into his mind and he was now implementing it.

He was 100% sure that it would work.

Seated in the busy new bustling restaurant he was almost at the end of his meal.

He had ordered and downed a couple of large pegs of the choicest whiskey.

In the process of his meal, he had wiped out the expensive mixed seafood grill starter platter which had a variety of Lobster, King Prawns, Pomfret and other delicious tandoori grilled items.

He had later ordered the Prawn Biriyani and was almost to the last one-third of the pot finishing all the juicy prawns with just the long saffron-coloured basmati grains of rice blended with masala left behind.

Salivating he was also dreaming of his jackpot.

He now had to just put his ploy in action.

Digging into his pocket unseen by everyone around him he pulled out a small paper packet and he emptied an inch long black dead COCKROACH from it onto his dinner plate.

Dishing out a few spoons of masala rice from the almost empty Biriyani pot he covered the insect with this and started his drama.

Gesticulating angrily and in loud voices, he started drawing the attention of the waiter towards his plate.

Peter, his server, looked at the insect, looked at the customer and was perplexed.

Something just took him back to that strand of hair and the Udipi joint he was working in.

He gestured to his manager Ronnie who started walking to the table.

Before Peter got a chance to speak and warn Ronnie, Chiman who had gained the manager's attention was shouting and had reached a higher octave.

He was now yelling and mentioning the cockroach in his food creating a commotion and a buzz among the other guests around the few neighbouring tables.

       

        ——————////——————

Ronnie listened to Chiman shouting at him.

Due to his varied experience, in a streak, he realised that this was a scam and he was looking at a scamster in action.

(Lone customer — expensive drink bill — expensive food bill — Drama — Scam —all fell into place)

Assessing the situation Ronnie knew he had to firstly safeguard the restaurant's reputation.

He had to importantly and immediately diffuse the tension building up.

He had an idea

That’s when (without Chiman noticing him) he glanced at Peter and winked at him.

Turning 90 degrees he now turned to Chiman and pointing to his plate addressed him in his Parsee drawl — 

‘’Saheb — Aa to kahi nahi’’

‘’Aa to Kali Elaichi che’’

(Sir — This is nothing 

This is black cardamom)

In an instant, Ronnie Bawa picked up the one inch sized black COCKROACH from the plate tossed it in his mouth and crunching it gulped it down.

Unknown to the onlookers It was a sleight of hand by Ronnie and his convincing act of tossing, crunching and gulping the cockroach had tricked Chiman that he had eaten it and into total disbelief.

In reality, the evidence had disappeared neatly into the Bawaji’s pocket.

Chiman looked up in shock.

The evidence for drama was not there.

He was clean bowled.

Peter took Ronnie aside and Thanking him expressed his view that the customer Chiman could be a scamster he had encountered months ago in an Udipi restaurant.

Ronnie nodded in agreement happy that his hunch could be true.

Karma had taken a full circle and come back to hit Chiman.

The exorbitant full meal bill was presented to him,

Under the pressure that the police would be called he grudgingly paid it 

Ronnie informed his contacts at the police station of this incident and a few months later they caught Chiman red-handed in the middle of another restaurant scam.

He was sentenced to jail and spent time there under IPC section 420

He still cannot forget the day and the moment he was hood’ wink’ ed and his cockroach turned into a black cardamom and was eaten by the Parsi Manager. 

Ronnie Bawa retired a few years later and flew off travelling to new countries to experience out new adventures, gourmet cuisines and exotic insect delicacies.

Peter collected enough money to start his new ‘dream job’ sailing and working on cruise liners in Miami.

Once in a while he shares his life stories and regales his friends with the story of THE BAWAJI, THE COCKROACH, AND THE WINK !!!

He never forgot that WINK !!