Category: Fashion

Screen + Sound + Stage

Text by Prachi Sibal. Photographs by Rose Tommy.

Tina and Pratheek Thomas at their workspace in their Kochi home.

Tina and Pratheek Thomas were born on the same day, four years apart. And this is just one of the many coincidences that ties them together. Both storytellers at heart, the two first exchanged glances while furiously scribbling away in their individual notebooks on a train journey from Bengaluru to Kochi in 2010. At the time, she was writing a script for a television show, he was working on a comic book. They would get married in the following year.

By happenstance, their small venture, a comic book publishing house, was launched on February 14, 2014. They called it Studio Kokaachi, after a not-so-beloved monster that is part of Malayalam folklore — and who they were introduced to as children. Both Tina and Pratheek maintain that the kokaachi has been misrepresented in popular culture and, in reality, is not a scary monster as it is commonly believed. And they have taken it upon themselves to spread word about this little-known aspect of the imaginary monster’s personality.

The kokaachi monster forms the logo for Studio Kokaachi.

Studio Kokaachi isn’t Pratheek’s first brush with the world of comic books. A comic book fan through his childhood years, he graduated from NID (National Institute of Design), Ahmedabad and went on to work at ISKCON (International Society for Krishna Consciousness) in Bengaluru. “I was working with the design wing and was involved in a project pertaining to country-wide theme parks that were to have Krishna as a central character,” he says. An unfortunate layoff and months without a job back in 2008 led him to embrace his first love, storytelling.

Manta Ray Comics — a partnership with friend and fellow comic book nerd Dileep Cherian — was thus born, with its first book Hush coming out in January 2011. “My brother is an ad film-maker and he had an idea for a short film. I wanted to adapt it into a comic so he could pitch it to producers,” Pratheek says about the first title.

In 2012, when Tina was working at Wipro in Bengaluru, she recalls Manta Ray being “like the baby at home”. Her first comic strip appeared in The Small Picture, a weekly contribution by Manta Ray Comics in Mint, in the same year. Commenting on social and cultural issues, it ran for more than three years.

The cover of Mixtape Vol. 2 that was republished by Studio Kokaachi in 2014.

Incidentally, it was with this outing that Manta Ray first gathered acclaim; helmed by Cherian, it stood out particularly for its simplistic out-of-the box themes and artworks. In a market saturated with mythological and superhero tales, this was genre-bending.

Manta Ray published Mixtape Vol. 1 in April 2013 — it comprised four individual black-and-white graphic narratives, illustrated by a mix of upcoming and well-known artists. Each was priced at a mere 55 rupees for the digital version. Mixtape Vol. 2 — in a similar format — followed at the end of the year: the outcome was five short stories revolving around eclectic narratives; these included a man chasing a pickpocket, a biting satire on social media and a tale of love gone wrong.

But the couple soon realised that creating and publishing comic books isn’t easy money. It did, however, lead them to a different — and more lucrative — industry, one that they had never imagined trying their hand at.

Onto The Silver Screen

Left to Right: the Mixtape series; a collage of frames from the animated sequences in the 2015 Tamil film OK Kanmani and its 2017 Hindi remake OK Jaanu.

The launch of Manta Ray’s Mixtape Vol. 2 at Malayalam film-maker Aashiq Abu’s Cafe Papaya in Kochi led to an offer by Abu, who was keen on collaborating with the duo for his 2014 Malayalam film Gangster. Calling themselves Studio Kokaachi now, their first steps into the world of films led to a whopping 11 minutes of animation that covered the prologue and the climax.

“Aashiq Abu also wanted us to write screenplays for a new project. It didn’t end up happening but we had already moved to Kochi from Bengaluru, to work with Abu,” recalls Tina. Studio Kokaachi’s first comic Mixtape Vol. 3 would only be published in October 2016. This would be followed by An Autobiografly, an autobiography of a housefly, and the accordion-style Matchbox Comix Vol. 2. The large gaps between releases is attributed to their ventures being self-funded.

For Mani Ratnam’s Tamil film OK Kanmani (2015), Studio Kokaachi created both 2D and 3D animated game sequences that supported the protagonist’s — a gamer — character arc as well as the 2D end credits. For the Hindi remake OK Jaanu (2017) the 3D sequences were done in collaboration with Splat Studio, and the 2D sequences with Dreamcatcher Studios, while the opening credit sequences were created in collaboration with Plexus Motion.

A work in progress: pages from Sound Of Her Silence, one of the stories in the yet-to-be-released Mixtape Vol. 4.

Soon after, actor Neil Bhoopalam discovered Mixtape Vol. 1 at a cafe in Goa. He showed it to director Akshat Verma, who was interested in making a graphic novel based on their upcoming film, Kaalakaandi (2018), also starring Saif Ali Khan, as publicity material for it. Although it did not materialise, Studio Kokaachi was roped in for the film’s title sequence in 2017.

Breaking Into OTT

Gully Boy (2019, on Vimeo): the opening titles by Studio Kokaachi

Tina and Pratheek stepped into the OTT title credits space with Lust Stories, the 2018 Netflix anthology produced by Ronnie Screwvala’s RSVP Movies and Ashi Dua’s Flying Unicorn Entertainment. Since then they have created the title credits for six more productions for Netflix — the Tamil limited-edition anthology film Paava Kadhaigal (2020), the Hindi-Telugu bilingual Pitta Kathalu (2021) and the Hindi-language productions, Ghost Stories (2020), Ankahi Kahaniya (2021), Ajeeb Dastaans (2021) and the recently released Lust Stories 2. “For both the Lust Stories, we used elements from the various films and stitched a narrative for the title credits. We tried to evoke the mood — the world and the characters are what we can play around with. Paava Kadhaigal comprises four short films about honour killing and the title credits give you a glimpse of the mood that lies ahead. The films were very dark. The opening credits feature the journey of a woman from birth to motherhood. We connected all the illustrations using the colour red. Red plays an important part in a girl’s life — from menstrual blood to sindoor and the wedding sari,” says Tina.

Film-maker Zoya Akhtar initially reached out to them to animate the logo for Tiger Baby Films, her production house that was launched in 2019 with Gully Boy, and then asked if they would do the title sequence for the film as well. “When we got called for Gully Boy we did not realise how big it was,” says Tina.

Left to Right: a shortlist of title fonts for Gully Boy; the ideation notebook for the film’s title sequence.

From animated sequences in OK Kanmani and Abu’s Gangster to animated typography in Gully Boy, their repertoire was steadily expanding. Gangster had a graphic novel-inspired style. OK Kanmani has stylised, game sequence-like animation. Lust Stories has a minimal design style. They’ve also done the animated logo for a Hollywood studio that hasn’t been released yet.

Despite the increase in the scope and quantity of their work, Studio Kokaachi is still just made up of Tina and Pratheek. Graphic designers, illustrators, artists and animators come on board based on the demands of the projects they take on. Their office premises have remained shut since the pandemic. The couple now works out of their home where they live with their four rescue dogs. “Both of us are writers and storytellers, we are not illustrators or animators. We conceptualise, write and provide the necessary direction to the projects, and collaborate with animators and artists for the rest of our needs,” says Pratheek, adding that they have gone from working with animation studios to now also handpicking freelance artists for specific projects now. “We work with studios or freelancers based on the volume of work. OK Kanmani and Gangster were exceptions where we were going beyond our mainstay — title credits — and creating longer animation sequences. We needed studio support to render them within our three-month deadline.”

Tina with sketches for A Thousand Years, an upcoming comic book.

Standing Out In The Clutter

Cracking a concept for a film or series remains their biggest challenge and can take weeks. Not everyone wants animation in the title sequence or is willing to share footage from the film for the same. “For The Empire, the Disney + Hotstar web series, we presented 10 concepts, and all of them were rejected by the makers. We had run out of ideas and then at midnight, I wrote down the word “Empire” on a blackboard. The word has six letters and there were six Mughal emperors. It was like an epiphany,” says Pratheek about the credit sequence where silhouettes of the faces of six Mughal emperors turn to reveal the title of the series.

Studio Kokaachi hopes to veer in a new creative direction with every project, but they choose to steer clear of live action. The credits for the Indian Modern Love anthologies, which premiered on Amazon Prime in 2022, played with stock images, while those for Rocket Boys (2022-’23) were hand-drawn with minimal animation, a huge departure in style from their earlier work. “We don’t have the skill set for live action and it makes no sense for us to outsource it,” he says. “The other challenge is dealing with production houses that come to us without understanding the limitations of our field. For example, given that they were hand-drawn, we could replicate Jim Sarbh and Ishwak Singh’s facial features only to a certain extent,” they say, referring to the Rocket Boys opening credits.

But this SonyLIV web series turned out to be their big break. “With Lust Stories, people noticed us but we didn’t get calls for too many projects. But when actors began to tag us on social media after Rocket Boys, there was a sudden explosion of interest,” Pratheek explains. Their work had now reached critical mass.

Left to Right: Pratheek at work; his writing desk.

“We don’t quite know how it happened but we have somehow become synonymous with title sequences. We are not in Mumbai. We don’t go out and pitch. We are not very active on social media –– we are not even on WhatsApp,” he says, adding that the conceptualisation and execution of title sequences as mini films are in sync with their basic skill set as storytellers.

In their seventh year of creating title sequences, Studio Kokaachi is awaiting the release of their 25th project, Pippa, a film set during the 1971 Indo-Pak war. Then there’s Shiladitya Bora’s Bhagwan Bharose, the 25th UK Asian Film Festival’s closing film, which bagged the Best Film award in May. “We’ve also created an animated logo for Earthsky Pictures (Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari and Nitesh Tiwari’s production house),” says Tina.

The Art Of Credit Sequences

Pratheek’s page layouts for Hush.

Title sequences in Indian films have incorporated — from animation, handwritten slides and catchy music for aeons now. They have been a way to keep audiences entertained.

In earlier times, the tone, music and text often conveyed the emotion of the upcoming film and prepared viewers for what was in store. “I personally prefer credits where a little bit of the movie is shown. It captures the interest of the viewer,” says Bollywood buff Dhruv Somani. Earlier, he says, viewers wouldn’t mind missing the end credit sequences but with film-makers choosing to run elaborate end credits in recent years, this is no longer the case. “In Bollywood, this is also where you would sometimes find the hot-ticket number that is popular with the masses,” chimes in Puneet Rakheja, who used to run the blog Taking Credit in 2013-’14, with the aim of decoding credit sequences in films.

“Though it’s not recognised by the Academy yet, the title sequence is an art form in its own right. The opening credits are the first visuals you meet in a film. They can perform various roles — as a narrative device that pushes the story along, an introduction to the characters and big-ticket actors, and so on. Lately, some are using these title sequences as a way to pass on subtle clues about an anticipated plot; for instance, in Game of Thrones, at the height of its fervour, there were plenty of blogs and videos devoted to the now iconic title sequences,” adds Rakheja.

The credit sequences in Bollywood films and OTT series largely remain in English, with the name of the films being spelt out in Hindi and Urdu at times. Down South, the credits have always been displayed in the native languages. “In Kollywood, all the credits would appear in Tamil and only the names of the key cast and crew would be mentioned in English. The background music is often punctuated with dramatic silence for big names like, say, K. Balachander,” says film-maker and academic K. Hariharan. He believes simplistic titles are the way to go and brings up Sholay (1975) as an example, for its use of basic title cards — names handwritten on cards and photographed — that were far from ornate and yet effective. “There is no ideal credit sequence. There are effective or ineffective title sequences,” points out Rakheja.

And standout sequences have stayed with audiences through the years.

In the 1978 Amitabh Bachchan-starrer Don, the pre-credits scene has him throwing a briefcase at the goons. It explodes and leads us to the credit sequence, which opens with a fight. Presented as coloured film negatives, the credits, accompanied by the theme song, set the tone for the high-paced chase that is about to follow.

Shivendra Singh Dungarpur, film-maker, film historian and founder of the Film Heritage Foundation, cites the example of the 1966 film Teesri Manzil where the opening credits end with a woman falling off the third storey of a building in an effort to build suspense.

“The earlier title sequences mostly made use of title cards. The 1936 Devdas used an art deco typeface – that was popular then – against a black background. In the 1955 version, the credits appear as the pages of a book are flipped,” says Rakheja. “The remarkable expressionist frame of a pair of eyes and a dozen hands in the 1957 film Do Aankhen Barah Haath was striking; the opening sequence uses 12 handprints as a canvas for the credits.”

Somani recounts the presence of background music in the credits of black and white films of the ’50s. “When Eastmancolor came into the picture, title credits became more eye-catching. The ’80s saw some of the most memorable sequences thanks to Nasir Hussain, Hrishikesh Mukherjee, Raj Khosla and the Ramsay Brothers,” he says.

A double spread from Hush.

The credit sequences were often employed to create an atmosphere of suspense. “Those for low-budget horror films by the Ramsay Brothers brought with them a certain curiosity and evoked a mood that would lead viewers into the film without bringing in any elements of gore. Raja Nawathe’s 1965 thriller Gumnaam, on the other hand, had blood splattered across the screen, blatantly denoting a sense of mystery,” he says.

Fast-paced sequences with appropriate music were for thrillers and horror while animation was reserved for comedies. In Sai Paranjpye’s Katha (1983), the credit sequence tells us of the hare-and-tortoise fable with hand-drawn illustrations. It sets a comic tone and remains a thread through the film, reoccurring at the end.

The Effects Of Digitalisation

The digital age that set its stamp on the 2000s saw a new sophistication creep into title sequences. The production value was better and music was sometimes commissioned especially for the credit reels. According to Rakheja, there has also been a shift towards creating larger-than-life imagery. He cites Baahubali 2: The Conclusion (2017) as an example; it used its title credits as a plot device that gave viewers a glimpse of key events from the previous film. “Its title sequence animated scenes from the first film which lent them a larger-than-life feel,” he says.

From the ’90s onward, there were only a handful of references that they talk about. “In recent times, Farah Khan started the trend of creating end credit sequences that the audience would stay back to watch, we see it in Main Hoon Na and Om Shanti Om,” says Somani, referring in particular to the latter, where several of the cast and crew, including technicians and spot boys, make an appearance. The sequence closes with the grand entry of the director in an auto. It was a tribute to the cast and crew of the film that tips a hat to the glory days of the Hindi film industry.

The end credits of Zoya Akhtar’s Luck by Chance (2009) also made a mark for its innovation. The credit reel that the film closes with features a single long shot of Konkona Sen Sharma in a black-and-yellow taxi, with the city of Mumbai in the backdrop. From a starkly different genre, Anurag Kashyap’s Gangs of Wasseypur (2012), with its rugged, textured title cards, and Black Friday (2004), where the title of the film foregrounds the smoke-filled images of the 1993 Bombay blasts, are equally memorable.

A rough sketch from A Thousand Years.

Then there’s the flip side to digitally produced credit sequences. While embracing the digital tools available to create innovative and high-quality titles, most critics admit that the personal touch is slowly disappearing. “All credit sequences have started looking the same. The artistic interpretation is lost. Since it was not an easy job earlier, everyone thought of innovative, original ideas to make them stand out,” Dungarpur says. “It’s the same with film posters, you can’t match the hand-drawn ones from the early days. Also, when was the last time you saw a film’s interval being announced with a bang?” says Dungarpur, who has been maintaining a personal archive of the ending shots — specifically, “The End” frames –– of Indian films.

The Resurgence

Left: Tina assesses rough sketches from Mixtape Vol. 4 and A Thousand Years.

A significant trend that has emerged with OTT films and series is the outsourcing of credit sequences to studios and producers beyond the silos of film circuits. With OTT platforms coming up with new releases every week and competing for audience attention, the pie is becoming larger and there’s a piece for everyone.

As a result, a number of VFX agencies have sprung up. Mumbai-based Plexus Motion, best known for their title credits for both the seasons of Netflix’s Sacred Games (2018-’19), Gangs of Wasseypur and Angry Indian Goddesses (2015), was also born in 2014. More recently, Koffee With Karan (2004-’22) outsourced its credit sequence to the Chennai-based Whoa Mama Design. Mumbai-based Harkat Studios, launched in 2017, has created title sequences for Bombay Begums (2021), Trial by Fire (2023) and Guns and Gulaabs (2023), all of which are viewable on Netflix.

“We’ve done credits for two Tamil films but they were over six years ago. Dharma Productions got in touch with us after happening to see our brand videos and edits on social media. They were taking a chance,” says Shaun D’Sa, co-founder and creative head, Whoa Mama Design. He adds, “Karan (Johar) liked the concepts that we shared. He was keen on a red-carpet scene. We worked on the storyboard, scripts, choreography and set design, and shot the sequence at the YRF Studio in Mumbai.”

The early work of Vijesh Rajan, before he founded Plexus Motion, includes Gangs of Wasseypur, OK Kanmani, and MTV India’s The Dewarists (2011-’16) and Bring on the Night (2012). With Plexus Motion, he went on to produce atmospheric title sequences for yet another Kashyap film Raman Raghav 2.0 (2016), besides miniseries like Ghoul (2018) and Leila (2019).

Rajan’s approach to Gangs of Wasseypur was novel and attempted to give a touch of a Western, albeit in the heartlands of India. “I saw so much grit and texture on set. I wanted the sequence to reflect that and the credits set up the tale of the place and the people. The music had to indicate that it is a dangerous place to be, that the people are dangerous. We decided to go with a large textured typeface,” he says, recalling how they would rub sheets of paper with the title text on the ground for the rugged, aged look. “We would crumple paper and then scan it. For over 10 days, at Kashyap’s office in Mumbai, we were just rubbing paper across different surfaces to get the right texture. No two frames looked the same or had the same texture,” he shares.

“When Plexus was working on Netflix’s Decoupled, the directors came with a brief that clearly stated the need for something fresh for each episode. When a couple splits up, it’s not just them, all their belongings get split up too. We came up with eight executions of the title sequence. A different object in the opening credits of each of the eight episodes alludes to the separation by moving away from its counterpart,” Rajan adds.

Sacred Games, another early piece of work by Plexus, received rave reviews for the music — by Alokananda Dasgupta — employed in its title credits. Here, the mandala and the haunting music creates a palpable tension. “Each episode has its unique mandala with elements from Hindu mythology embedded in it. It is colourful to begin with and then the colour starts to fade away. It signifies the underlying darkness that is unleashed as the storyline progresses. We were told it needs to have some angst. That’s when we started doing these sharp edits,” he says of the thinking behind the sequence.

With the series, Rajan’s team tried to beat the system; specifically, the Skip Intro option on OTT platforms. They achieved this by creating title sequences that changed with every episode, a stratagem that they would replicate for Decoupled in 2021. The Skip Intro feature works against the animation artists. It also creates a new set of challenges, of bringing in variety with each episode. Lending the right amount of drama to the titles is critical; they should not overshadow the actual content or reveal spoilers. Titles appear at a faster speed nowadays — you can look up the credits online and hence the titles serve a more aesthetic and less functional purpose now. Nevertheless, Rajan believes that engaging credits are here to stay. The skip option on OTT platforms may not be a deal-breaker. “It pressurises studios to be more creative,” he says.

Surging Ahead

Studio Kokaachi’s journey with credit sequences and comic books isn’t going to end anytime soon. Their first Malayalam comic series, the upcoming eight-part Idivettu, is “a heist story”, Pratheek says excitedly. “It’s about a boy who comes from a lineage of thieves and wants to grow up to be the greatest thief in the world. He becomes a thief but he isn’t very good at it. When another smarter, more successful thief shows up, he is forced to go to extraordinary lengths to prove himself as the best thief in his small town,” he adds, while trying not to reveal all of the twists and turns in the book.

More than nine years after they reclaimed the scary boogeyman of their childhood, the duo is setting the record straight. Another upcoming comic, There’s No Such Thing Called A Kokaachi, revolves around the monster. “The upcoming book has been scripted and the illustrations are being worked on. We are aiming for a mid-2024 release,” she adds.

There’s also Raja, a comic book that Pratheek and Tina are writing together for the first time. “The 40-page graphic narrative is inspired by Pratheek’s maternal grandmother and her dog,” says Tina, adding that it is slated to be unveiled in two months’ time.

Over the last few years, their lives may have taken a more filmi turn than they had chalked out for themselves — they still can’t quite wrap their heads around it – but the two insist that Bollywood demands notwithstanding, they are publishers and storytellers first. Upcoming OTT projects aside, Mixtape Vol. 4, they remind us, is waiting to be born.

Wine & Dine

Text and Photography by Mallika Chandra.

I wasn’t always this keenly observant of the food being eaten at my parents’ home from a cultural perspective. But that changed in early 2021 when I left Mumbai to live on my partner’s farm in Gujarat. This meant that each time I visited the city, I found myself observing, with a unique insider-outsider view, the alterations in my family’s eating habits while also being more attuned to the city’s shifting food culture at large.

Most of our food has always been cooked at home, and on weekends, we often ate out or ordered in. During the pandemic-induced lockdown, our meals swung from simple cut fruit and one-pot dinners to extravagant feasts on special occasions depending on our morale that day. As restrictions eased, we’d step out (masked) to indulge in artisanal coffee and baked goods, in order to support our favourite cafes and bakeries. The memory of picking up a choice of brews from Kala Ghoda Cafe for our first socially distanced gathering with family friends after lockdown is as fresh as the croissants bought from Kitchen Garden By Suzette to go with it.

After a complete washout of a year in 2020, many restaurants found themselves overbooked when 2021 became the year of “revenge dining”. By 2022, eateries were so full that I remember struggling to make reservations even on weekdays. Food writer and friend, Sneha Mehta, describes her memory of that time: “Dining was not just about the act…but also marked a broader societal craving that needed fulfilling.” While away at the farm, I’d keep up with new restaurant openings via Instagram and sample a few on each visit.

I soon started noticing the diversity of take-out containers in our fridge from various meals ordered in. It became ritualistic for my sister to pop her head into my bedroom and offer me first dibs of the night’s leftovers, for lunch. Was I hungry enough to “polish off” the prawn dumplings with burnt garlic fried rice or would one-and-a-half slices of pepperoni pizza satiate me? While I enjoyed all of these, what struck me most about the food was that it was of an unexpectedly high quality, devoid of the greasy pools of oil and thus minus the regrets that, until now, had often followed meals that were ordered in. I started visiting home with a list of places to order from, rather than to eat out at.

By far, the thing that drew me towards a majority of the cloud kitchens that I soon grew to frequently order from is that they are chef-driven. Not only do they put a face to an otherwise obscure operation on their social media platforms — cloud kitchens were originally called dark kitchens or ghost kitchens for a reason — but they also intentionally convey the strong set of values that they are driven by. Chefs Anushka Malkani and Nariman Abdygapparov of Masa Bakery in Juhu have actively shared their pride in sourcing organic ingredients from within India and creatively reducing food wastage. Chef Rehan Mehta of the Colaba-based East 7th Pizza & Deli advocates for a better work-life balance for his employees when listing job opportunities. In both cases, they offer cleaner versions of notoriously indulgent foods.

Chef Kartikeya Ratan and her partner Rishabh Doshi of Bandra-based Kiki & Pastor resisted the old habit that establishments have of dousing dishes with yellow cheese sauce to make way for a more authentic take on Mexican food. Interestingly, they prioritise freshness over authenticity any day. Chef Kunal Makhija of Mahim-based Arabisque values freshness too — the hummus is made in small batches throughout the day and all his breads are freshly baked to order. Chef Divesh Aswani started Commis Station at Mahim with the idea of providing foods that are complicated or time-consuming to make — like fresh pasta or perfectly fermented kimchi — thus bringing a chef-level quality and flavour into home-cooked meals.

Focusing on flavour and knowing that people feel good while eating their food is important to them. Ratan makes no claims about specialising in Mexican food; she loves eating it with friends and that is the format she presents it in. Mehta named his company Very Casual Foods in defiance of fine dining. Makhija is purposeful about maintaining an open channel of communication and setting expectations with his customers in order to get constructive feedback.

Keeping up with the demand for delicious food that not only provides a sense of comfort but also satisfies the growing concern around eating better comes naturally to this new crop of chef-driven cloud kitchens. Each of them has figured out how to give their clientele exactly what they want in a wholesome manner.

Verve speaks to these young culinary talents about their enterprises.

At the links below, read how these chef-owners are changing the perception around cloud kitchens in Mumbai.

Kunal Makhija, Arabisque
Rehan Mehta, East 7th Pizza & Deli
Kartikeya Ratan & Rishabh Doshi, Kiki & Pastor
Divesh Aswani, Commis Station
Anushka Malkani and Nariman Abdygapparov, Masa Bakery

Wine & Dine

Text and Photography by Mallika Chandra.

Kunal Makhija, 27
Arabisque
Location: Mahim
Speciality: Middle Eastern

Kunal, tell me a little about your journey as a chef.
I developed an interest in cooking around 2007 thanks to my father’s restaurant in Dubai and after schooling there, I was pretty sure that this was what I wanted to pursue. I completed the culinary speciality programme at the Institute of Hotel Management in Aurangabad and then interned at Taj West End, Bengaluru for a year. I was lucky enough to also intern at Gaggan in Bangkok (now shut) for two months, following which I worked at Indigo Deli in Colaba for a year.

A batchmate, who had also been my roommate from college, called me one day and asked, “Do you want to come to Dubai?” I had been looking for a change at that point. So, I worked at a few places in Dubai, including a Lebanese restaurant where I learnt most of what I do today. Before I moved to Mumbai, the last place I worked at was a fine dining restaurant by the name of London Project.

How did you get into the cloud kitchen business?
I had always wanted to start something of my own. During the lockdown, I had seen a lot of home kitchens coming up and I thought I would give it a try. It was not a very calculated move, to be honest. It was a leap of faith.

How did you put together the concept, the menu, the name?
I must give credit to my family and to my girlfriend because while it may appear like I’m the only one who handles the brand, they are the backbone.

My grandmother let me work out of her kitchen and provided me with a base for one year. My parents, who live in Dubai, were very supportive. A lot of my ingredients still come from Dubai, like za’atar powder, sumac and fava beans which we use for our falafel and it was my father who found the best sources for these. My brother and sister-in-law look into the finances of the company. So everyone has helped me to get where I am today. The name was suggested by my brother.

Does your family still play a very active role?
Whenever I want to add something new on my menu, my family members are the first to taste it. My grandmother was my official hummus taster, and I like to believe that I never get any complaints because she tasted every batch. I often discuss future plans with my brother.

Despite the support, it must be challenging to juggle both roles — of chef and owner?
When I was working for someone else, I was responsible for a section. Now, I’m responsible for the entire brand — from sourcing of ingredients and prep to training of staff and marketing.

A big aspect of running a cloud kitchen is having a solid social media presence.
I underestimated the power of social media. I assumed I could focus on the food and everything else would fall into place. Two years in, I realised that it’s more than 50 per cent of the game. Personally, I’m not very active on social media so that’s been one change since my journey as an entrepreneur. Getting your name out there is difficult. This is where my girlfriend comes into the picture; she has a very good sense of aesthetics. I have done photo shoots in the past but people have told me to start clicking pictures in real time. I focus on that now.

Cooking the food, on the other hand, has been easy. That’s what I’m trained in. But again, we keep updating the menu. Sometimes, I try something on a Tuesday, get it tasted by Wednesday, and put it up as a special by Friday for the weekend. It helps keep me on my toes. But honestly, that little space I’ve created wouldn’t exist without the customers. They’ve been brutally honest which I really appreciate.

What kind of insight has interacting with your audience provided in terms of the gap Arabisque fills in the market?
I have done my schooling in Dubai and I was not happy with the Middle-Eastern food that was available in Mumbai. I did see a big difference in the taste and price points in what was offered here. There were brands that served rolls and then there were fine dining Lebanese restaurants. There was nothing in the middle. I felt that was a good segment for me to target. So that’s where Arabisque fits in. It’s good-quality food at good prices.

How do you maintain standards around the freshness of the food?
We produce in limited quantities. We can serve a large number of customers if need be, but everything’s made to order. We make hummus five or six times a day. We try to make everything from scratch. Our breads — pita bread, the whole wheat pita, pide dough, manakish dough — are made in-house and to order.

Did you have to do a lot of trials?
It took a lot of trial and error. Even though I had a recipe for the bread from my time in Dubai, I had to tweak it to suit the climate here. A lot of trials went into the hummus as well.

Does the cuisine suit the delivery model?
Since the lockdown, I have observed that people have come to terms with the fact that there is going to be a difference between eating in a restaurant and having food delivered to your home. Since I get a lot of direct orders, I try to consider the distance that the food has to travel. For example, falafel, which is fried, tends to get soggy. So, if a person is at a distance from my kitchen, I send it half fried, if they are okay with finishing the dish at home.

Have you been able to manage a work-life balance?
I’m still trying to figure out a work-life balance. I’m not saying I’m a workaholic but work is always on my mind, which I’m not very proud of. My work hours are fairly decent — from noon to 10 pm. Sometimes it may mean that I reach late for a social commitment, but I do try to make it. It’s part of the game.

In culinary college, they tell you on day one that you’re going to be working when everyone’s enjoying themselves. You can say goodbye to celebrating all the festivals. I do miss it and my family do miss me being there, but I’m more than happy to be in my kitchen or at a catering party because that’s the time that you get most of your business.

How are you thinking about the growth and scale of your business in the future? What are your metrics for success?
I do want to make a name for myself. If you think of Lebanese food, I want to be among the first five names that pop up in your head. So that’s the goal.

How are you influencing people’s ideas of what Lebanese food is?
Even when we go out to eat in Dubai, I see the majority of people ordering hummus and falafel, not much else. But there’s a lot more that the cuisine has to offer. What I’ve done with Arabisque is that I’ve kept the classics but I’ve also tried playing around with them. I have seven different flavours of hummus. Some of them — the truffle hummus, for example — are not authentically Lebanese, but they’ve been doing well. Even the peri-peri hummus has appealed to people. Indian audiences love a bit of fusion.

Given the current socio-political climate in our country, do you find serving food from the Gulf region to be a challenge?
None of my dishes trigger any religious or political sentiments though I have chosen not to serve pork or beef in my kitchen. I can do a lot with chicken, lamb and seafood. While I am not a very religious person, I respect the viewpoints of others and expect the same from them. If a customer has a problem with the food other than the taste then I can’t really help them. I can’t change the origin of a dish.

What is the perfect order from Arabisque?
If it’s a meal for one, I would suggest a mezze bowl. We offer falafel, paneer, lamb and different preparations of chicken. It is the optimum quantity for one person and gives you the opportunity to try several elements like the hummus, tabbouleh and our breads. It’s a perfect sample of what Arabisque has to offer.

Previous: Introduction
Next: Rehan Mehta, East 7th Pizza & Deli

Wine & Dine

Text and Photography by Mallika Chandra.

Rehan Mehta, 31
East 7th Pizza & Deli
Location: Colaba
Speciality: Pizzas, sandwiches, burgers, puddings

Rehan, tell me about your journey as a chef.
The first time I went to cooking school was after I finished my schooling in Mumbai. I had taken a gap year in 2010 and I did a three-month course at Le Cordon Bleu London. That experience actually made me not want to become a chef so I went to a liberal arts college in the US, where I graduated in psychology.

In my third year at college, I happened to watch a video of Anthony Bourdain (the late celebrity chef and travel documentarian) and David Chang (restaurateur and television personality) eating at one of Chang’s New York restaurants. That made me want to go back to cooking. In fact, I felt like I just could not do anything else! I enrolled in the cooking school David Chang had been to, which was the French Culinary Institute in New York. I had discovered a course that would allow me to take six months off from college, come back and still graduate on time. I loved it there.

The way it worked in America at the time was that I had three months to find a job after graduation. So I applied to a bunch of places. Finally, via Craigslist, I got a job as a pastry cook at Momofuku Milk Bar in New York (now called Milk Bar), even though it wasn’t what I had specifically trained in. I was making cookies, cakes and bread and I still think it’s the best job I’ve ever had. Unfortunately, I had to leave after a year because they were unable to sponsor my work visa.

When I returned to Mumbai in 2015, I was given a job in the pastry department wherever I applied because of my experience at Momofuku Milk Bar. My first job was in Colaba at the modern-American restaurant Ellipsis (now shut), headed by Chef Kelvin Cheung. Chef Kelvin was a Milk Bar fan so he was keen to have me onboard. Unfortunately, he left the restaurant six months after I joined.

Then, in September 2016, I joined Masque in Mahalaxmi in Mumbai. Chef Prateek Sadhu and co-owner Aditi Dugar got in touch with me while the restaurant was still under construction. Even on my first visit, I could tell the kitchen and the space were going to be special. The first year of Masque was really interesting but we were struggling to figure out our style or what could make it unique. Eventually, Chef Prateek started digging deeper into his own Kashmiri roots, and that’s when it really took off. It made more sense because it was personal and culturally relevant rather than just trying to be like many other Scandinavian-inspired tasting menu restaurants. What I enjoyed most from my time there was the fact that the chefs would serve all the dishes and got to interact with the customers, who were usually passionate about food, and that made it fun. We also had a lot of freedom to work on new dishes which kept things interesting.

Later, I grew disillusioned with fine dining. I was keen on starting something that could feed a lot more people. I thought about opening a sandwich shop. I did a few pop-ups and started looking for locations but nothing worked out. At the same time, I heard about the legendary chef Rahul Akerkar opening a new restaurant (Qualia) and I applied for a position in the hot kitchen. I was responsible for the pasta section, which was amazing because I like working with dough and the pasta became really popular.

What led you to start a cloud kitchen and how did you intend to stand out?
Soon after I left Qualia, the pandemic struck, which rekindled the idea of a sandwich shop since people were hungry for well-executed comfort food. There wasn’t really a Western-inspired sandwich culture in Mumbai at the time but because people got into baking bread during the lockdown, a sandwich culture was bound to follow.

My original sandwich shop idea evolved to include pizza. My thinking was that pizza and sandwiches go hand in hand. I had eaten a lot of great pizza during my time in New York, which got me obsessed — and during the pandemic I started fooling around with it, making it at home for my family. It was a no-brainer to start as a cloud kitchen at the time because if there had been another lockdown, you would be stuck paying rent for a restaurant without anyone coming in there. I found a place in Colaba in December 2021.

How did you go about setting up your operations? What did you bring in from past experience?
It took me three months to set up the place. I was very finicky about the kitchen being a certain way. I had to find the right oven. I knew I didn’t want a wood-fired oven, I wanted an electric one. In New York, most of my favourite pizza places used electric ovens. Wood fire is very charming, but I don’t think it adds much in terms of taste. I feel like if you have the right electric oven, the pizza can taste just as good and it’s a lot more consistent, which is important. When you’re trying to churn the pizzas out really fast and have 10 to 15 orders at a time, that wood-fired oven is going to be a pain and maybe a few are not going to be as good as the rest because it’s so hard to maintain and control the heat, unlike electric ovens.

Having mulled over the idea of the sandwich and pizza shop for so long, what has the menu development process been like?
When I started working on the recipes, I thought it would take maybe a few weeks or a month, but it took me five months just to figure out a pizza dough that I was happy with. I did almost a hundred trials. I was just making pizza every day and trying to figure it out. I never imagined how complicated it could be, given that it is just four ingredients that you’re working with. But, the way you mix those ingredients, the proportions, how much water you add, which flour you use, how long you ferment it — all these needed to be figured out. Finally, I settled on a dough after trial number 96. I wanted to simplify the dough process because it’s important for my team to be able to execute it as well as I would. That is why I ruled out a sourdough pizza dough because it has too much margin for error. Now, we’re on pizza dough trial number 103. The pizza dough recipe is still called a trial, even though we’ve been open for a year. And we keep making adjustments in line with changes in the weather to get that perfect light and airy yet crispy pizza crust.

Next came the sandwich bread. We were outsourcing the bread initially but the numbers didn’t work out. It was easier to settle on a recipe, but it still took several trials. We use a Vietnamese Bánh mì-style baguette. Compared to a French baguette, it has a very thin crust and a fluffy interior. The sandwiches got a lot better after we started making our own bread.

The one thing I knew I had to figure out was dessert. Most pizza places serve dough balls with Nutella and stuff like that. But I wanted something lighter. I thought an American-style pudding would fit the bill. Our lemon cheesecake and chocolate puddings do really well. We had a strawberries-and-cream pudding and one with mango, which were seasonal and really popular. We’re using fancy vanilla beans, but besides that they are mainly fruity, creamy and crunchy.

You put out a job opening on Instagram sometime back and it communicated a lot about the work culture you are trying to both desist from and build. Was that intentional?
Most restaurants I have worked at, the hours have been very long, which has been the benchmark in this industry for ages. But I knew I didn’t want to do that. If I was doing that and we were successful and making money, I would have still considered it a failure because an overworked team is not a sign of success. To me, it makes financial sense as well. If you push people so hard, they’re just going to get burnt out and leave in a few weeks or months, or a year. I would rather have people stick around for the long haul, be happy, go home and not think about work.

That’s why, in that hiring post, I was explicit that our shift lasts 10 hours only. In reality, it’s only 9 hours, but I have accounted for some extra time should we occasionally need it. Now, after running this place for a year and seeing how difficult it is to actually make money, I see why other restaurateurs demand such long hours from their teams. If restaurant sales are not reaching their target, the management somehow feels that making people work longer hours will boost sales. However, while sales might increase in the short term, if targets are not met, it’s more likely that there is a problem with the product or experience.

Were you also intending to give your customers an insight into what kind of cloud kitchen it is and the kind of people that are making the food?
That’s not why I posted it and I didn’t think about it at the time. I was just trying to hire a good candidate. But, of course, if I were to see a business posting something like this, I would be more likely to try the food and would try to order often. Our restaurant industry doesn’t have the best reputation. So, anyone who knows anything about what goes on behind the scenes would be happy for things to change for the better.

Who is your typical customer?
Unfortunately, most of our orders come from Swiggy and they don’t share customer data. It is safe to guess that most of the people ordering from us are kind of like pizza nerds, which seems to be every third person nowadays. Most of our food is New York-influenced. Those who’ve never had this kind of food are keen to try it. And those who have been to New York or Philadelphia and have had a cheesesteak sandwich, for example, will also want to relive that experience.

I have also intentionally not marketed East 7th Pizza & Deli a lot because I’m still tweaking things. I feel like it’s always a work in progress and I’m kind of a perfectionist; and I say that in the worst possible way. I’ll keep procrastinating with the marketing because I think maybe pizza dough trial 104 or 105 will be the perfect one and then we can really push our marketing. Currently, marketing has mainly been through word of mouth.

Is that also a result of the name East 7th Pizza & Deli? Your official company name is also interesting.
You could say that. Our official company name is Very Casual Foods. I came up with that name after leaving Masque because I was just so bored with fine dining. It is funny to say that now, since Masque is one of the best restaurants in India. I see myself sticking with fast casual or casual restaurants with thoughtfully executed and ingredient-driven food.

The name East 7th was inspired by the street I lived on in New York. While I was in cooking school, I lived on East 7th Street between 1st Avenue and Avenue A, which is in the East Village. And that one street had so much good food! You could walk down the street in 90 seconds but it had a lot of great tiny establishments. And each of them specialised in just one or two things. There was Luke’s Lobster, which made just seafood sandwiches. There was a Venezuelan arepas place. The building I lived in had an Italian sandwich shop called Porchetta, which just made a roast pork sandwich. Across the street was this soft-serve place called Big Gay Ice Cream, which sold really funky soft serve. And then there was a Chinese teahouse where I would sit and drink tea. That street really inspired me.

How would you describe what a deli is?
In the New York sense, it is your local sandwich place where you pick lunch up on a work day but it also could be where you go to get basic groceries, maybe even some baked goods, without having to make a trip to the supermarket. Within that, there are the bodega-style delis, where the sandwiches are made simply, using just packaged ingredients. Then there are the old-school delis, which make everything from scratch, like Katz’s Deli, which is famous for pastrami. Russ & Daughters is really well-known for their smoked fish. The deli culture came from the Jewish population of New York. But now it has become a trend that has spread across the world.

How do you build trust as a cloud kitchen?
I’m very particular about keeping the kitchen super clean, and also about making sure that ingredients are at their prime. That sense of hygiene was ingrained in me thanks to all my previous work places. Obviously, our food safety laws are not as strict or as strictly enforced over here in India, as compared to New York, but I enforce those same standards anyway.

How has juggling the roles of chef and business owner been for you?
I wish I could just cook and focus on the food because it would be so much easier. Half my time is spent managing people, even though I only have a team of nine. Just trying to keep them all on track and training them keeps me significantly occupied.

I’m terrible at marketing. So that’s another thing that I wish I would just not have to do. I keep hoping that if my food is good enough, I won’t have to do any marketing and people will just come anyway. And that’s obviously the dream. In New York, if you have an amazing restaurant, even if it’s a tiny one, the word is going to spread so fast that you’ll have queues down the road. But over here, I don’t think that’s possible because we are offering a niche product. Having said that, I’m not necessarily trying to reach a wide audience. I’m just trying to find the right people who want something delicious that’s made with care, attention and good ingredients.

What ended up being easier than you thought?
I don’t think anything has been easier than I thought. Most things have been harder than I thought. However, when someone tries your food, especially if it’s a stranger, and tells you that they loved it, you feel good and you feel like it’s all been worth it.

What is the perfect order from East 7th Pizza & Deli?
Our menu is not very long because I want every item to be super delicious. A Ray’s Cheese Pizza, our version of a margherita with extra buffalo mozzarella and parmesan cheese; a Pork Belly Bánh mì, which is meaty and spicy; and a lemon cheesecake pudding!

Previous: Kunal Makhija, Arabisque
Next: Kartikeya Ratan and Rishabh Doshi, Kiki & Pastor

Wine & Dine

Text and Photography by Mallika Chandra.

Kartikeya Ratan, 32 and Rishabh Doshi, 32
Kiki & Pastor
Location: Bandra
Speciality: Mexican

Kartikeya, tell me about your beginnings as a chef and how you co-founded Kiki & Pastor.
Kartikeya Ratan (KR): For the last decade or so, I’ve worked at a number of fine dining restaurants in India and abroad. And I increasingly felt that I wanted to cook more soul food, comfort food — food that actually satiates. When I returned to Mumbai from Delhi in 2019, I felt like the pandemic had taken a big toll on the nightlife of the city. There wasn’t any place where you could just hang out and not have to sit down and dine in. A taqueria was a great way of bringing that vibe in. But given the circumstances of COVID-19, things were very uncertain around 2020-2021, and yet Rishabh and I kept discussing how we could do it on a small scale.

While I was home during the lockdown, I started selling taco kits and there was a good response. But I wasn’t happy as a chef although the product was doing fine. I wanted more control. So now, we no longer send customers the ingredients and ask them to assemble it. We build your taco and deliver it to you. We are also big on catering because tacos are a lot like chaat, right? You want to eat them fresh. And yet, the deliveries work because we have a good radius, being in Bandra.

A lot has been spoken and written about how Mexican food just doesn’t do well in Mumbai. Do you think there’s something in particular that is working for you?
KR: I think one thing we realised pretty early on was that there’s no substituting good ingredients. Working in fine dining taught me that no dish can be greater than the ingredients used in it. And I think that with Mexican food, that is very true. You can’t just make a mole (sauce) out of a Bhavnagri chilli, for instance. Sometimes, sourcing a good, dried chilli from Mexico is crucial. Freshness also plays a huge role in components that are almost served raw, as is the case with most of our salsas and marinades. So freshness takes precedence over everything else and the quality of ingredients can never be compromised.

How have you tried to elevate or differentiate your food from what is available in the city?
KR: A lot of people ask us for Indianised versions of things because that’s what they’ve grown up eating. You may have seen corn queso balls on our menu, but they won’t taste like the ones available at New Yorker in Mumbai, for instance. In no way are we saying that we are better or dissing an experience that we too have grown up eating. But we are offering a new experience when it comes to eating Mexican food. There’s more to Mexican food than just putting cheddar sauce over everything.

Tell us how you are able to deliver the food as fresh as possible.
KR: Delivery is a difficult format. Especially during the monsoons, it becomes tough for a rider to get your food to you in perfect condition. But people still expect to get piping-hot food; fresh food shouldn’t get soggy, hard or dry. One of the things we do is that we add either a layer of chilmole or a jam that we make with salsa verde between the meat and the tortilla so that the juices from the meat don’t make the tortillas soggy. We also do a double tortilla so that even if the first tortilla gets soggy, you can just slap the second one over it.

Rishabh Doshi (RD): Basically, proportions matter. So, if you sauce it up too much or too little, it’ll change your whole experience of the taco.

KR: Absolutely. When we hire a new chef, we can taste the difference between them and someone who’s been making it for four or five months and has understood what these sauces do. Everyone has their own tastes and the dish gets its personality from there. So, the question that arises is how do you give it that personality while maintaining a high standard? It comes from the base recipes, which are tried and tested for a long time before we put them out there.

Tell us a little more about how you set up processes for the cloud kitchen model.
KR: Mostly, it was about keeping in mind the taqueria concept and the freshness of the produce. When we fixed on a delivery model, where the food was going to be on the road for 30 to 40 minutes, we had to do a lot of tests. Rishabh lives in Bhandup and I live in Wadala. So, I would send him dishes, and we would note how they travelled. Did it get soggy? Did we need two tortillas or extra salsa? From that exercise we decided to send the salsa separately, for example.

In terms of prep, it was very different from when I worked in restaurants that served tasting menus. At Eleven Madison Park in New York, for instance, we knew that 120 people were going to be coming in for dinner each night and that 14 dishes would be going out to each guest. In a cloud kitchen, you may not get orders for, say, two hours straight, and then suddenly they may come in non-stop until midnight. A match might mean people are ordering in or if it’s a long weekend and people are out travelling, then orders reduce. Still, there’s no way of gauging the volume of business for a particular day.

We try to keep the prep fresh, but we balance that with some back-up, which will last a little longer. We are very particular about the shelf life of our guacamole and pico de gallo. It’s better to make them twice a day, rather than to serve them the day after. Whereas we make refried beans in bulk because it tastes better the next day. Like dal makhani. Our pork carnitas and lamb barbacoa are made in big batches because they need to be cooked for four to six hours in the oven. So, we freeze them in batches. For the tortillas, we actually have this lady coming in every day. She makes them fresh for the lunch and evening services. We know now that we will need about 200 tortillas from Tuesdays to Thursdays. On weekends, we need more.

I would’ve thought that as a chef-driven taqueria you would be making the tortillas in-house.
KR: At first, we tried to make the tortillas ourselves but it’s tough to get it right every single time. At the same time, we were looking for someone to make a tiffin for our staff lunch. It struck us then that the person who makes the rotis that came in our tiffin could perhaps be trained to make our tortillas. So, we took a chance and reached out to her. It took some time for her to get used to the different flour but she turned out to be an expert. Even today, if I tell my cooks to make the tortillas, they’ll take probably four hours to do what she does in one.

People ask us, “How come your tortillas aren’t masa?” Firstly, there’s no corn available in India. There are some farms that are doing it, but it’s not the same. Even the calcium that you get in India, the chuna, it’s not the same quality. We tried multiple batches and there’s a long way to go in terms of sourcing and finding the right grinder because you need that volcanic stone. So, when we do get it right, we’ll do it but we did not want to do it half-baked.

How did you think about the branding, the naming and positioning of your taqueria?
KR: Kiki was my nickname when I lived in Goa many years ago. We then discovered that Kiki also means “get-together”. In African-American slang, the LGBTQIA+ community calls it a “Kiki” when you’re getting together to gossip, drink and have fun. The pastor, on the other hand, is considered by some to be the greatest of all tacos; it’s a topic of debate in Mexico City. We just wanted to give a fun name.

RD: In that same spirit, we do a few specials, especially on match days. We also do a Taco Tuesday special, where you can make your own combos. That pushes people to try new things because you can get a single piece instead of ordering a full portion. It’s also because Tuesdays are generally considered slower in terms of business.

KR: Plus, the guacamole is free on Tuesdays.

RD: In terms of the design, our designer flaked on us and it was too close to launch to find someone else. The only option was to do it ourselves. We did multiple iterations based on a list of keywords that we wanted the brand to be associated with, like “approachable” and “fresh”. That led to the primary colour of the branding being a muted green. The logo itself is hand-drawn and in it, the taco is bitten into already because we want to portray it as so good that you forget to take a photo.

KR: Which is actually seen in a lot of Instagram posts where we are tagged. We see a lot of bitten tacos.

RD: We have a few people who’ve taken a photo of an empty plate and said, “I forgot to click it, but it was amazing.” And that’s exactly what we want.

KR: Tacos are often called “ugly delicious” so they don’t need to look perfect. We don’t cut our tortillas with a cookie cutter either because we want that organic shape. That imperfection makes it approachable.

How do you employ social media?
RD: Unlike in a restaurant, things aren’t happening with us all the time. We also do not want to overwhelm our followers. So, we moderate our social media uploads. Reels that share a glimpse of the kitchen and the behind-the-scenes activities generally do well so every day at noon, we post something from the kitchen that announces we are open for orders.

KR: We do want to put a face to this otherwise invisible operation.

RD: Our kitchen is kept spotlessly clean by the team. We actually had a couple of customers come in just to see the kitchen. One of them wanted to do catering and one of them wanted to place an order. He wanted to see the place that he’s ordering from.

Would you say convincing your customers to order the best recommendation is your biggest challenge?
KR: When you’re in a restaurant, you have a server who recommends dishes. And when people call us, we do the same. But most of our orders come through Swiggy, Zomato or our website. So, there’s no room for recommendations. There’s no room for understanding what they are looking for. It is also challenging to communicate the size of our portions. People have all kinds of expectations. It’s easier to manage those expectations face-to-face.

Do you feel like there is pressure to employ social media and put your persona out there?
KR: This takes me back to when Instagram started. Friends, both chefs and otherwise, told me to post more. But when I was working in kitchens, we just weren’t allowed to use our phones on the job and that is something that’s stuck with me. So, it doesn’t come naturally to me to take a photo and post about something I cook. When I’m cooking, I’m cooking.

Rishabh has considered making a brand out of me as a chef but for me the food is enough. I’m not Mexican. I haven’t grown up around this food. It is something I’m extremely passionate about. I enjoy eating tacos myself. But if you look at my personal Instagram, people are disappointed to not find any food there.

I am now okay with being in front of the camera because I do realise that people want to see the faces behind the food. Otherwise, you’re just another cloud kitchen. So, when we do events, we make sure that at least one of us is attending. It makes sense for people to know about you. When you know the story behind why someone is doing something, you appreciate it more.

Did you anticipate that cloud kitchens would become a long-lasting format?
KR: I think so because even someone like me, who was never a person to order in, did so during the pandemic. Post-pandemic, there are so many cloud kitchens opening up, and so many shutting on a regular basis as well. But there are a few that have stuck because they have modified their product to fit the delivery model. A lot of restaurants have also realised that a chunk of their business is coming from delivery. The culture has shifted drastically. There is also an interest in trying something new. I think people are going to continue ordering in. But the product, and the way that kitchens think about their product while delivering it, is going to make the difference and be the deciding factor in whether that brand succeeds or not.

RD: The perception of a ghost kitchen or a cloud kitchen before the pandemic was that it must be a small place, probably not very hygienic. The food wasn’t supposed to be great, just cheap. But over the last three years, people have realised that these small kitchens are often serving better food than established restaurants. And they’ve allowed them to come into their lives on a daily basis.

What is the perfect order from Kiki & Pastor?
KR: My favourite customer’s order is the same every time and he doesn’t modify anything. It’s three of this, two of this, four of this…. And he gives us an hour’s heads-up. I feel like that’s the perfect order. It’s a big ticket. It’s straightforward.

So, you’re not particular about what is being ordered?
KR: No, order anything from my menu and I am happy. It just gets tricky when a customer makes too many modifications and the food loses its essence.

KR: Our other favourite customer orders a burrito bowl every week and says, “No corn please and thank you,” and I love that. We are quite emotional about our orders.

Previous: Rehan Mehta, East 7th Pizza & Deli
Next: Divesh Aswani, Commis Station

Wine & Dine

Text and Photography by Mallika Chandra.

Divesh Aswani, 33
Commis Station
Location: Mahim
Speciality: Baked goods, kitchen staples, condiments, confectionery, ice creams

What led you to start Commis Station?
I was 70 per cent down the line with my research and development for a restaurant when COVID-19 hit. The only thing that had been left to do was to find a space. So, a year after the lockdown, I kind of just broke the menu down into its basic elements and decided to take off. The only model that seemed to work at the time was the delivery model.

What was the concept of the original restaurant?
It was going to be a very casual space with no specific theme. A place where you could get a really good bowl of pasta, a nice noodle soup, a good roast chicken or sandwich.

And was that the kind of food that you had been making even before you ventured out on your own?
I left Mumbai when I was 17 and I had the luxury and the opportunity to train at Le Cordon Bleu in Sydney. During that course, I was working part-time. I lived in Australia for 10 years and worked at different cafes serving various cuisines. That’s where I picked up most of my cooking style from. I also ate out a lot which kind of defined how I cooked. Australia being a melting pot of cultures, there’s a lot on offer in terms of food and that just opened me up creatively.

So that diversity of cuisine has been carried into Commis Station?
It’s basically what chefs would now define as modern Australian cuisine. They’ve taken influences from different kinds of cuisines and put it together as elements on the menu. I like that you can go to a restaurant as a family of four where a child could want a noodle soup, the mother might want a sandwich or a salad or a fresh pasta and so on. I wanted to create a space where there’s something for everyone, really.

The name Commis Station itself is a nod to professional kitchen structures. An interesting choice instead of something more related to your product. What was the thought there?
There was a lot of thought behind the name. Essentially, a commis is the most junior person in the kitchen hierarchy. The first role that you can apply for in the kitchen is that of a commis and then you climb up the ranks.

Following that hierarchy, the idea was to tell our clients and guests that we are your commis chefs. Everyone was cooking during COVID-19, but they didn’t necessarily want to make fresh noodles or baos or gyoza wrappers. We wanted to be the place where people would reach out and say, “I feel like eating burgers tonight, what can you do for me?” And we’d say, “We can send you the buns, the BBQ sauce, the pickled cucumber, the hand-cut fries and you just have to put it together.”

In our logo, you’ll see the stripes on the lettering. The stripes resemble those on the aprons that commis chefs would wear back in the day. The commis station is where all the mise en place gets done. So basically, the commis station never stops. Even during service, they’re doing last-minute prep jobs and making sure that the kitchen is fully ready to serve.

Why offer simplified gourmet? What gaps are you filling?
The idea is very simple. We use our skill set and provide something that cannot be easily achieved at home. People learned a lot about cooking during COVID-19, but even then, they needed to get staples and condiments. If you look at our sauce range, we started with something familiar — a Sichuan sauce. One of our top-selling dips is the Lebanese garlic spread, which is essentially a toum but we add confit garlic to it to give it our twist. Everything had to be elevated, fresh and something that cannot be made or replicated easily at home. It is a constant battle to do things that other people aren’t doing.

I was surprised to see how short a time it took for a product to get made from scratch and get packed in the box.
Yes, but that does backfire sometimes. For instance, people would like to eat bagels for breakfast. But we start our shift at 8 am and by the time it’s ready, it’s like 10 or 11 am and by the time it reaches them, it’s noon. But it is important to me to create a very comfortable work environment for the team. It was difficult when we started because we didn’t know how much we would sell. Now we are almost certain that we’re going to sell X number of sauces every week so those can be made in small batches. And we’re quite vocal about the things that we make in small batches, things that are made-to-order, things that need 48 hours’ notice. It tastes different when it’s fresh. As opposed to any fancy restaurant in the city, which may still be serving portions that did not sell the day before.

How did you go about setting up your operations and space?
Tough! It was very tough. I don’t even want to think about those days. Everything that could have gone wrong went wrong. You kind of have to just be ready for it. We faced a lot of issues from licensing to water to the builders not showing up, and we were building during COVID-19!

I was scouting for deals all around town because so many places were shutting down. So, I was shopping for a coffee machine from one place, picking up someone’s shelves from another part of town, a second-hand oven from somewhere else. It was just full-on hustle mode.

But it was a labour of love and obviously we had to be very careful with what we spent. I wasn’t sure whether this was going to take off. Fortunately, things worked out and Commis Station has been growing both in terms of the services we offer and the business that we can take on.

How do you manage to keep growing?
It really helps to have a very strong team. My team has supported my decisions and backed me up with the long hours, when needed, or adapted to serving at catering gigs we take on at the last minute. I try to lead by example. I’m very proud of the fact that I’m always the first one in and the last one out, I’m very hands-on and that is central in keeping the morale of the team up.

The fact that I speak to all my customers and take their orders also helps. I feel that people have gotten so used to ordering on apps that they have forgotten the old school way of ordering food by calling a local restaurant guy and asking what was available that night. I have this group of select clients who just randomly pick up the phone when they don’t really feel like cooking and say, “Can you sort me out tonight?” And I think that’s a very nice part of the business. I’ve built very strong relationships with my clients, some of whom have even invited me over to their homes for special occasions!

It must take time to maintain these strong relationships. Do you take out time to focus on marketing and social media?
It’s not as well planned or designed as you may think it would be. When you’re an entrepreneur and you’re hands-on and you’re cooking, managing a team, doing sales and talking to customers, you just look for that five-minute gap and you jump on Instagram and post whatever is being done. Sometimes, I’ll be walking by a pile of bread and think that it looks great. And I’ll post that. A lot of it is just very spontaneous and very unplanned and I think that’s what makes it stand out. It’s organic and not staged.

Given that your offering is so much about being chef-driven and elevating staples, do you feel like the business is closely tied to your persona as a chef? How much of yourself do you have to put out on social media when it comes to creating content?
If you look at my profile versus Commis Station’s, I personally have more followers. But I’m not a chef who’s constantly on social media. It’s not that I’m not a social person. But I’m not someone who craves Instagram likes or thinks much about hashtags. I follow very few people. For me, being on Instagram for business is enough.

What are some of the challenges you face as a cloud kitchen?
The toughest part is figuring out how to get the food or the product to the client in the best possible way. That’s always been the challenge and always will be. Some days you can pull off a dessert and then a few months later it’s so hot that you cannot serve that dessert anymore. There’s a lot of science behind cooking, but it’s very hard to convey that to the customer.

It is also difficult to stay motivated while doing the same thing over and over again for years. That’s why I like the catering aspect of the business because it breaks the monotony. We go out, we cook in front of people and we interact.

Do you take time off?
I don’t. It’s mainly because of work that I travel. I’ve been working with Ishka Farms and producing a condiment range with them that’s caper-focused. So I travel to Kochi quite often because I have to be there for the production part of it. I love pop-ups. I do a lot of collaborative dinners. Once the work is over, I spend an extra day or two for fun and come back. That’s always going to be the luxury of being a chef — you can go to any part of the world and have a job.

How do you stay inspired?
It’s a process in itself and it actually happens when there is a lull. A quiet period might feel like something is wrong but usually it’s nothing to worry about. It could just be a festive weekend or maybe people are travelling. And so, every time there’s a lull, I use the time to create something new, post about it and get eyes back onto Commis Station. An idle mind is not always the devil’s workshop.

Some of your items, especially the tiramisu, have a cult following.
It does. I actually got the coffee machine for the kitchen thinking that I’d be this cool guy selling coffee in the compound. That never happened but because of that coffee machine, I started making tiramisu. Life works in mysterious ways. On average, we sell about 150 to 160 kilos of the dessert per month.

What is the perfect order from Commis Station?
It’s always going to be the tiramisu because that never lets you down and it’s in the sharing format, so everyone’s happy. But we can also help you put a meal together, so ordering something from the bakery, some sauces, some condiments, some staples, is a good way to go. I like to encourage people to kind of mix and match. Whenever someone calls for baos, I’ll also suggest ordering the kimchi and sesame. People don’t always have the knack of putting things together so the perfect order would always be to take the suggestions of the chef.

Previous: Kartikeya Ratan and Rishabh Doshi, Kiki & Pastor
Next: Anushka Malkani and Nariman Abdygapparov, Masa Bakery

Wine & Dine

Text and Photography by Mallika Chandra.

Anushka Malkani, 27 and Nariman Abdygapparov, 24
Masa Bakery
Location: Andheri
Speciality: Baked goods, pastries

Tell us about your journey as chefs before Masa. What led you to start a cloud kitchen and how were you intending to stand out?
Anushka Malkani (AM): I studied in Switzerland, and then I moved to Paris, where I was working with the Ducasse group. I learned a lot about the importance of good ingredients and how you source them. In fact, it inspired Nariman and me to open Masa because we felt like there was a space for ingredient-driven pastry in Mumbai. There are a lot of ingredient-driven restaurants in Mumbai, where they focus on the quality of the fruits and vegetables. But when it comes to cloud kitchens, I think there’s a perception that the food is bad, it’s unhygienic and in most cases that’s possibly the truth, right? We don’t know where the food is coming from. So, we wanted to set a standard for cloud kitchens, here in India, based on sourcing good-quality produce and creating an awareness about where the food is coming from. The aim was to change the perception around cloud kitchens.

Nariman Abdygapparov (NA): I started pursuing pastry when I was 14 years old, having an interest in it from a very early age. I’m originally from Kazakhstan and the mentality there is similar to India, in terms of parents wanting their kids to study finance, medicine or engineering. Being a pastry chef is considered a very niche path. I went to Spain for my culinary education and I spent two years there. I worked in multiple bakeries, through which I was trying to find my style. And then I realised that the best place to further my experience would be France. So, I pursued a career there for around four years. That’s where Anushka and I met.

AM: During the lockdown, we started a small page on Instagram. We were living in a 30-square-metre apartment in Paris with nothing to do, and all we had were our skill sets. We thought, let’s just show everyone what we can do and share recipes during this uncertain time. We noticed that a lot of our audience was from India. They really appreciated what we were doing, and communicated that there is a gap in the market, which ultimately led to our decision to move here.

And how was the move to India for you, Nariman?
NA: For me, it was a nice change. Understanding dietary preferences in India, specifically regarding pastry, along with observing a growing health-conscious movement, opened my mind professionally. Even technically, I grew. Many pastry chefs believe that some pastries cannot be made without egg, for example, but it’s just a limitation of our minds. I took that on as a creative challenge.

How did you go about setting up your operation? Was juggling the role of a chef and entrepreneur challenging?
AM: The most challenging part in India is time management. We set deadlines but we found that things either move too fast or too slow. But otherwise, setting up the kitchen has been fairly easy. I come from a family of hoteliers, so I’m privileged to have had that access to the contacts I needed in order to, say, get equipment or source materials. It was much easier for me than if I had had to start from scratch. This process also allowed us to find a balance while working together, and we understood our responsibilities and strengths separately. When you’re a couple working together, and you’re constantly in each other’s company, it’s important to find a way to not step on each other’s toes because it could affect us negatively both at work and home.

NA: It was most important to acknowledge that we’re both chefs and creatives, and that we might have different ideas about the same topic. Now, I’m mostly in charge of the daily production in the kitchen whereas Anushka develops recipes, and acts as that bridge between the production and the final outcome going to the customer. Our belief is that if we can leave our bakery for a week, and not have that affect our processes and the quality, then we’re good. I am also trying to react to things more analytically as a business owner, rather than emotionally. It’s completely normal for customers to give negative feedback but it used to trigger me as a chef in my early days. Now I have shifted my lens and I try listening to the customer with an open mind.

Do you find that younger chefs like yourselves, are increasingly advocating for and prioritising their mental and emotional stability? Is that something you brought in from your past work experiences?
AM: I would definitely describe the work environment in France as very toxic. We were working 16 to 18 hours a day. In France, they say en form which means that you always have to be ready. It’s a military term, used during wartime. That’s what they used to call us — the first line of the military. It was like going into a battlefield and there was no scope for being weak.

When we moved back and started hiring people, we wanted to make sure that our team members didn’t have to feel like it was their duty to be overworked. I remember waking up every single day and I was stressed out before even reaching work because I was either thinking, “I’m going to fail” or that a guest is going to be unhappy. There’s no scope for error because it was a 3-Michelin-star restaurant. Most of my colleagues were pushing themselves because they were passionate from within but all of them hated their jobs. They started burning out at the age of 25 or 26.

The reason that we’re chefs and we cook food is because we’re driven solely by passion. I want that passion to stay ignited but I still want to create a comfortable, non-toxic environment for the people who work with us.

Tell me about establishing your distinct visual aesthetic for the brand in terms of the packaging.
NA: We built that distinct style and aesthetic over time. We started by referencing big names in the industry, especially in France and Spain, and first learned how to copy well by practising, practising, practising.

Most of our inspiration comes from nature and we both gravitate towards that handcrafted feel. We thought about how we wanted our customers to feel when they opened the box of food and ate it. Every design decision went towards creating that experience. Being a cloud kitchen, we didn’t have a space where you could smell the pastries, have a cup of coffee, etc.

Our box in which the food is delivered, is well ventilated to preserve the aroma, crunch and texture. The simplicity of the packaging reflects our cooking style; we avoid crowding one dish with too many flavours or techniques. Generally, we like a feeling of spaciousness. Our packaging, and even the design of our kitchen, reflects that. In fact, we’re also working on documenting our own creative process, as resource material for young chefs. We think it would be helpful to have a guidebook that might help others add structure to their creative processes.

AM: We also wanted to reduce our carbon footprint where possible. Generally when you order from cloud kitchens there are multiple bags and boxes that the food comes in. Our box is the bag — it is as simple as that.

You describe yourself as a “bakery of proximity” on Instagram. What are you trying to communicate to your customer there?
AM: “Bakery of proximity” means two things. One, we try to source everything from a 500-700-kilometre radius. Secondly, we want to be the neighbourhood bakery.

How do you aim to build trust as a cloud kitchen?
AM: Transparency. We want to show where the food is being cooked and the hygiene standards we maintain, where we’re sourcing our ingredients from whether it is chocolate or flour. Our sources are not a secret. We’re lucky to be able to use them. Everybody just wants honesty today.

Both of you continue to maintain a presence on your personal Instagram accounts. Has that helped the business?
AM: Those accounts are a space for us to express the ways in which we are different as chefs. We have different styles; Masa is a reflection of where we align. We like focusing on our products and giving the customer a good experience, and making people happy. It helps the business when we are able to stay true to ourselves as individuals, and as a team.

How do you stay connected with the food community in Mumbai? Is there a space where you are able to discuss things with your peers?
AM: When we started our food page on Instagram, it was for the purpose of networking. But through collaborations, most of the chefs in the community have become our friends. We find it easy to get along with each other because we get what the other is going through on a day-to-day basis. Everyone has similar issues whether it comes to staffing or sourcing ingredients. We try to contribute by being open about our business.

NA: Collaborations also expose us to other points of view and we accept them. We build skills. It helps us get out of our bubble. On a more serious note, depression afflicts a lot of people from this industry so we really try to connect and check in with our colleagues. It’s important for the community to encourage each other to leave our kitchens as well.

How do you balance customer expectations? Do you push back when needed?
AM: We have our ways of doing that. When I told my parents that I wanted to open a bakery and that our focus was going to be on viennoiserie, which is Nariman’s expertise, they were disappointed that we were not going to sell sourdough bread. For us, it was just adding to the clutter; there are so many bakeries that offer it. But when the requests didn’t stop, we had the idea to recreate the essence of sourdough through a chocolate bar. We worked with a vendor who modelled a slice of sourdough bread that we baked, and created a mould for chocolate. And instead of putting sourdough inside, we dehydrate croissant trimmings and add it to the gianduja. It ended up being a great way to use the waste trimmings that come from making our croissants. You have that crunchy, sweet element in the chocolate bar, but it looks like it’s bread. It’s definitely one of our more experimental products, and people are often pleasantly surprised by it.

NA: People get so excited. They say we’re the first ones to sell bread by the slice and I still find myself reminding them that it’s not bread.

Can you highlight some of the ingredients that you use?
AM: India has everything from vanilla, which we source from Kerala, to chocolate, which we source from Andhra Pradesh, to butter. Ninety per cent of the produce that we use in our kitchen is from India. The imported ingredients we use are ones like olive oil, which aren’t really available here. Our flour is from Uttar Pradesh. The quality of fruits we’ve worked with is very impressive. We work with a company called Tillage that supplies locally-sourced, organically farmed staples, sweeteners and seasonal fruit. Even, for example, the pastrami in our croissant sandwich is sourced from an artisan in Pune who cuts and smokes the meat himself. I am so happy with the quality of ingredients we have been able to source from within the country.

NA: The key ingredient in the kitchen, which we like to try to take as much control of, is the flour. We partner with a company based in Uttar Pradesh called TWF. The founder is a scientist, with in-depth knowledge about flour, wheat structure, etc. He calls it multidimensional flour and he has developed a special blend for us. Everything is stone ground and organic. Unlike other suppliers, who process their flour traditionally but cannot guarantee quality, he is marrying traditional with a scientific approach to deliver a consistently high-quality product. Not only that, he is studying how the same flour is going to behave in different cities. We are learning a lot from him.

How are your products an expression of both your cultures? Is that something you try to express through the food at all?
AM: We do bring our cultural backgrounds into the pastries. Recently, we made a mango rice pudding that was inspired by phirni but we cooked the rice pudding like a French riz au lait and we used a local Maharashtrian rice variety called ambe mohar. It was flavoured with vanilla from Kerala and topped with fresh Alphonso mango.

In the Reuben, one of our croissant sandwiches, we use a locally sourced mustard called kashundi, which is similar to Dijon, and a pickled cucumber from Kazakhstan. Both the pastrami and cheddar are made in India as well.

NA: We recently introduced the medovik, which is something I grew up eating. It’s a honey cake with sour cream. Traditionally, it is something my grandmother would make, but we are using flour with a higher protein content in our version and making it less sweet. In general, when we create such rustic dishes that might be heavy to eat, we do try to cater to the health-consciousness of our customers in this way.

What are you looking forward to?
AM: We have just opened an outlet in Juhu. It’s not a sit-down space. We think of it as a boutique where people can come try the pastries and maybe grab a coffee. Our kitchen remains the same.

What is the perfect order from Masa?
NA: I’m a fan of classical things done right. I would definitely recommend a butter croissant. The confit garlic and cheese croissant is a nice savoury option, and our chocolate chip cookie is also one of my favourites. I would say order two or three things always, because it allows you to try them out. Think of it like tapas.

AM: I like the exact same things, but I would also recommend our marble cake because it is so beautiful. It looks like a slab of marble. It has a glaze on top, which is made of white chocolate and milk chocolate, and it’s really soft and moist.

Previous: Divesh Aswani, Commis Station
Back to Introduction

Spaces

Photograph by Naomi Shah

When I first traversed the Bandra-Worli Sea Link, it was also the first time I had come so close to the Arabian Sea. Although it had been within reach all my life, I had never been surrounded by it so, while still staying on land. For those who live in and love Mumbai, as I do, the rippling, muddy, grey waters of the Arabian Sea are the only constant among the changes in the city, natural or man-made. The sweeping arc of Marine Drive and the celebrity-lined Bandra promenade kiss the waters we are so grateful for but continue to neglect. Joggers on Worli Sea Face, keeping time with the ebb and flow of the tides, probably think of it as no more than a familiar shoreline which they reflexively follow as if it is an athletic track.

When the Sea Link was first built, I never imagined that this huge construction in the middle of the ocean would actually fill me with such awe about living in a coastal city. It was one of our first steps towards building a modern, 21^st-century infrastructure that normally gives nature a hard punch, but there I was atop a man-made road — and not a boat — marvelling at the horizon, the open sky and waters.

For the fishing community, living just off the Worli Sea Face with unobstructed views, this must be a major eyesore. But commuting is the lifeline of bustling Bombay, whatever the livelihood, and so we have the coastal road to look forward to in May 2024, and with that the sea will be remoulded one more time. It will mean the fisherfolk will have no choice but to tune in to the combined sounds of speeding cars and lapping waves along longer stretches of the coastline than they have been used to thus far. Their shoals of fish are also likely to migrate differently, and so they would perhaps need to cast their nets wider, into uncharted territory. Let’s hope that in the name of survival (they are the city’s oldest inhabitants), they will once again rise to the occasion and develop new skill sets to sail through the changing water currents, to say the least. Perhaps, the Gen Next of the Koli community are already employing ChatGPT to figure out the best areas for their local catch. And who knows if Bombay duck will conspire with scientifically generated algae transplants and multiply in numbers to keep the stomachs and souls of Mumbai alive.

The alteration, of not only their fishing ecological system but also their living conditions, due to the ongoing infrastructural work, has probably led to unprecedented occurrences in their families and homes. The colourfully painted canoe-shaped boats we spot on dry dock could have been abandoned even before the expectation of rain showers. Optimum fishing has, in any case, taken a hit with shrinking water due to pollution and climate change, and now fisherfolk must skirt the coastal road to get to the fishing waters and breeding areas. Perhaps ChatGPT came up with ominous predictions for marine life, and so many of the younger Kolis have already sought greener pastures, on terra firma instead. This marks a shift — in spite of weathering changing rulers, from the Portuguese and the British to the Hindu and the Muslim for two centuries — the seafarers had previously always managed to keep their heads above water.

For those who don’t depend on the sea for their daily brun maska (crunchy bread and butter), the effect of the changes is likely to be more psychological, ranging from disorientation and nostalgia to a sense of deep loss. Our familiar sightings of the Haji Ali Dargah — a lone island mosque — Mahim Creek and Sewri’s wetlands will take on new shapes thanks to the flyovers and overpasses being built for commuters crossing from one tip of the metropolis to the other. The sea and I will become the sea and man’s intervention to overcome limitations created by progress and, in turn or conversely, hopefully create further progress and development. As the coastal road project inches to completion, life in Mumbai will move at the speed of sound, with the easing of traffic jams, and multiple highways lengthening across our elongated land mass. And the effervescent rocking of the waves will only linger in our subconscious as if they were sounds in an old half-forgotten dream.

Neighbourhoods that we regularly used to cross in vehicles will be bypassed, by new fast-paced routes, and that corner vada-pav stall or the slowly disappearing Irani cafe we always spotted, while waiting at signals, will no longer be part of the daily scenery.

There is much anticipation of this moment: when Mumbai too begins to resemble New York, Sydney or Shanghai, long overdue since Big Mac made its entry into the city a few decades ago, in the mid-1990s. We have our malls, restaurants, our ritzy hotels and plush skyscrapers, but what about the lack of infrastructure that has been our lament? Now that day is nigh, with the breakthrough of the second tunnel under the seabed having been completed and the BMC officials announcing a D-Day. But the sea is not our sea anymore; we have watched the coastline being barricaded and overtaken with ominous-looking cranes and blinding halogen lights that allow work to continue through the night.

Unable to fathom the level of transformation behind those corrugated sheets, we have watched this sci-fication of our city. The unveiling will definitely create shock, and aftershock, like the sudden tremors of an imminent earthquake, following the one that has just passed. With the emphasis on zooming from one destination to the other, will any of us stop at the kerbside to marvel at the daily catch and pick up a pomfret or two for our evening repast? Fiercely protective about keeping the Mumbaikar well-fed with his favourite fish fry and prawn Koliwada, the Koli elders managed to intervene and negotiated a wider gap between the coastal-road pillars, to allow their boats to navigate the waters more easily. While our menus and tables might not be immediately deprived of fish curry and other sea-food favourites, their net has to be cast deeper and with diminishing returns.

For the land-faring locals, the pit stops, or “paan stops”, might become an anachronism, since the signs will now read, “Detours not allowed” or “No blocking traffic”. Used to the mayhem of an omnipresent yet vanishing street life — the smiling street urchin, the stray dog or the gajra (flower garland) seller — we will need to reorient our rhythms of mobility, now geared toward reaching the goalpost. The sea’s horizontal orientation, with the wideness of continuous movement from horizon to shore with waves lashing forwards and backwards, will be in opposition to our linear tectonic movements on concrete arterial roadways and interchanges. The twin tunnels will heave with our urgency to meet appointments and meetings, creating a new tide of life that is unrelated to the gravitational flow of the ocean’s tides.

Environmentalists have been outvoted and outnumbered by local civic bodies, as this is the need of the hour; otherwise, we will be doomed to overtake Bangkok as one of the cities with the worst traffic in Asia. Right as they might have been in their outcries, the more practical ideologues have also helped to find new homes for the displaced flora and fauna, with the heavy heart of parents leaving their offspring at a new boarding school.

At the inauguration speech, the powers that be will surely claim that they have saved Aamchi Mumbai from the brink of disaster. The transplanted coconut trees and rare peacock sightings at Raj Bhavan notwithstanding, this is the year of introducing a new sense of time and place. But according to tradition, perhaps a coconut will be offered as the first car is flagged off on the newly minted highway.

And this August, as the fisherfolk observe the annual Narali Purnima (a ceremonial day observed by fishing communities in Maharashtra) and prepare to go out at sea after the monsoon, they will offer a special prayer with coconuts and flowers to the god of oceans and waters, Lord Varuna, to seek his blessing to keep the Arabian Sea calm and free from natural calamities. A simple paean that has also held these original settlers of the city in good stead through the tsunami of invaders and settlers who have continuously reoriented Bombay’s compass and coastline, and hence marine ecosystem and life.

As their coconuts bob along the banks of Worli and Juhu or the Chimbai fishing village in Bandra (West) or Versova’s piers, it will be difficult to tell where the waters merged, blurring the boundaries between one 200-year-old habitat and the next.

Bombay it was, until its patron goddess, Mumba Devi, was resurrected to give birth to “Mumbai”. Now, there is a new tension, as the name rings in the native, and the island city, reclaimed over and over again, hurtles headlong into the sameness and monotony of the global with this major and dramatic urban redevelopment exercise. The polemics against development will only grow stronger with the burgeoning aspirations of a nearly 76-year-old Independent India, even as we continue to preserve and beautify our Queen’s Necklace at Marine Drive — whose name had been proposed for the UNESCO World Heritage site tag.

The zillion specks of cement spewing out of the barrels and the machinery will irrevocably alter that familiar — if fishy — scent of the Arabian Sea.

Yet only yesterday, during a North to South Mumbai run, as I marvelled once more at the seamless sky-to-sea view on the Sea Link — like a celestial canvas for my reveries — a few triangular multicoloured flags fluttering atop the coastal homes of Worli’s fishing village caught the periphery of my eye. They reminded me of palimpsests of a lost civilisation.

And I wondered whether the butterfly gardens that are being promised as part of the Coastal Road Project attractions will signal an unprecedented renewal of our beloved city of dreams.

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Spaces

Photograph by Naomi Shah

I noticed the sky becoming overcast, grey clouds throwing shadows on my restive mind — and then, it didn’t rain. The cloudburst that would clear the air with the new smell of earth didn’t arrive. I remained hanging in suspense about what the future would bring. If only I could hear the pitter-patter on my parched terrace, I would know where to begin. The dull, lingering humidity cast a pall on my brain, and began to weigh on me like a nameless, yet ominous, premonition.

I didn’t think a delayed monsoon would leave me so desperate, with such unfound or unknown expectations of a life that I wasn’t able to meet or find.

When it finally rained, I saw the wet palms outside my window and they reminded me of a previous life, where predictions came true. But now, the meagre downpour, that left a mere murmur, promised nothing I could count on, so who cared about planning ahead. The planet is already doomed, I figured. This time, June brought naught but delayed and unmet dreams. The turning point, when the searing heat is doused by showers, and umbrellas take wings like the ideas you have been baking, has sadly been claimed by climate change.

Now, tomorrow, with its implied water cuts and dashed agendas, is a day that I would want to postpone. The not-so-bewildered weatherman had religiously announced each week that the rains would descend the following week, and so our calendars hung in suspense. Like a man or woman, or anybody who hasn’t been taken, and is simply waiting for that right partner to show up, outside their door.

When nature abandons us or becomes unfriendly, no amount of meticulous planning can assuage the sense of sheer terror of being left alone to cope with man’s self-created predicaments. Forecasts and crystal balls can be delegated to the rubbish heap, but we need to nourish our human souls that crave the familiar sounds of returning birds and sprays of punctual rain on our windowpanes. Like the sunrise and sunset that we are so used to witnessing — even though night and day might have blurred into one another with the infliction of screens that don’t sleep. The earth’s diurnal rhythm keeps me grounded even though I know my own body clock has gone to hell.

Then on a Sunday, when I was languishing in my aimless nothingness, as if the sheer waiting itself would precipitate a thunderous downpour, I received a call from a close friend to join her over a cuppa while watching the rain! Was she delusional, I thought to myself. Are we to make do with “chai and chatter” over Zoom now? To truly indulge in such a pastime, you have to make time stand still. And here I was waiting for the monsoon to arrive, while hearing the clock ticking away to the day when the lakes would run dry.

Still, something inside me made me grab my trusted umbrella, neatly folded in its blue nylon case, and join her at a little cafe on a street lined with shops and boutiques, with awnings that look like mini shelters. Sanctuaries from the imminent rain, of course. As the hot tea arrived in glasses, Irani-style, and we debated about accompanying it with toast, butter and jam, there was a thunderous cloudburst! And suddenly, just like that, I felt purged of all that had been pent up inside me.

Tea had never tasted better, because even though I had been stalling life with my own scepticism, I eventually kept a promise that I had made to my long-time friend who is never dry of hope. “See, I told you,” she said gently, sipping her tea. “Some things change, and some remain the same, but life goes on.” I then realised how much I had grown in the limbo of my yearning.

The rain outside slid down from the slanting awnings and continued falling…and falling…and falling.

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Text by Shirin Mehta. With Photography by and Inputs from Asad Sheikh.

1. The entrance to the exhibition featured multiple red arches.
2. The sindoor-red walls of the opening lobby were covered with a scanned brocade weave.

The recently-concluded India in Fashion: The Impact of Indian Dress and Textiles on the Fashionable Imagination, at Mumbai’s spanking new Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Centre (NMACC), was a powerful reminder of India’s influence on European fashion. Curated by fashion journalist and editor Hamish Bowles and blueprinted by Patrick Kinmonth, a designer of sets for opera, and Mumbai-based architect Rooshad Shroff, the displays sprawled across a spacious hall and spanned centuries of India’s sway over Western aesthetics. “Beginning in the 17th century and continuing to this day, India’s impact on Western fashion has been a complicated and layered history of admiration, appropriation, exploitation and celebration” writes Bowles in his opening essay to the accompanying book of the same name.

About the design of the space where India in Fashion was housed, Shroff says, “Patrick and I worked together to come up with different scenographies for each of the sections. A lot of them (the backdrops to the exhibits) draw reference from either the time period or a moment of architecture from that particular time period or even a replication of a particular moment in time, like the recreation of the pavilion of the Great Exhibition of 1851 that was held at Hyde Park in London during the time of Queen Victoria.”

And interestingly Deepthi Sasidharan, art historian, heritage consultant and founder-director of Eka Archiving Services, who conducted a walk-through with the Verve team, points out, “There are two parallel storylines. One, the story of fashion. And the other is, of course, his (Kinmonth’s) referencing of India.”

The exhibition was presented against a backdrop inspired by Indian motifs, stylised arches and an opening lobby styled predominantly in sindoor-red, with walls embellished with a scanned brocade weave of a royal hunt in a procession filled with all the classics of the Western imagination of princely India — tigers, deer, and riders. Some might have regretted the approach being through a somewhat anglophile lens. But whatever the slant might have been, we need not lose sight of the importance of an exhibition such as this: a fitting documentation of the principal milestones of Indian influence on fashion which, in a sense, set the record straight — and about time too.

1. Armadillo boots, famously seen in Lady Gaga’s Bad Romance music video, were part of the late Alexander McQueen’s final collection, Plato’s Atlantis.
2. A framed photograph of a blue-green elytra beetle, used in the Deccan beetle wing embroidery and said to be the inspiration for the late Alexander McQueen’s final collection, hung on the wall behind the Armadillo boots.

The 10 sections aimed at inserting India’s presence in global design through different lenses that ranged from inspiration to innovation. The primary section basically looked at various flashpoints of inspiration. “The influence of India’s culture of dress and its superb craft traditions has been exerted beyond its frontiers for more than a thousand years,” states the exhibition brochure. Yet the first garment you encountered seemed somewhat perplexing in that it seemed to be an outlier with no apparent connect to the country. Jellyfish, the outfit from the late Alexander McQueen’s final collection, Plato’s Atlantis, consists of dress, leggings and Armadillo boots (made famous by Lady Gaga) embroidered with iridescent enamel paillettes. A link to India is however established in the caption of a framed picture of a blue-green beetle on the wall behind. It points out the Deccan beetle wing embroidery, practised in India, as the scaly inspiration for the textile used by McQueen for his garment.

“Beetle wing embroidery was much sought-after in the 18th and 19th centuries. It spread across the world, especially England, where it was considered as the epitome of luxurious clothing. And McQueen was actually inspired by it,” asserts Sasidharan, silencing sceptics. However, being able to showcase such a rare object of fashion history here almost seemed like reason enough for its presence which highlighted the state-of-the-art preservation system that now allows us to see a garment in Mumbai instead of having to travel to museums around the world.

Court suits made using silk brocade, zardozi, glass beads and tinsel, circa 1830. On loan from the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto.

Besides the McQueen ensemble, these first six rooms included two boys’ court suits from the 1830s made of brocade and embellished with zardozi embroidery, and a Federico Forquet dhoti-inspired jumpsuit of printed silk from 1967. Of interest were a silk lamé organza drape dress from the Autumn/Winter 1956 collection by Dior, paired with a distinctive Tarun Tahiliani draped creation in crinkle tulle from 2020. Both use sari drapes as an inspiration point, more than six decades apart.

Two dresses — by Christian Dior, 1956 (left) and Tarun Tahiliani, 2020 (right) — underline the versatility of the sari drape.

It was in this space that we discovered what Sasidharan conjectures is one of the oldest garments presented here — Captain John Foote’s jama (robe). “The jama has been such an inspiration and it was later taken on as a women’s silhouette as well,” the heritage consultant says. From 1750 and made of the finest muslin with block printing and embroidery, the garment has been presented together with a portrait of the man wearing it, thus throwing into focus that British men did embrace Indian textiles and, at times, the silhouettes as well. “This fact wasn’t publicised as much because it wasn’t much of a colonial narrative to put out there,” adds Sasidharan. “But the fact is that almost all British gentlemen who lived and worked here, had to adapt to the heat.”

1. A mannequin is dressed in Captain John Foote’s jama (robe), patka (a small shawl used as a sash around the waist) and shawl, as seen in the painting.
2. Captain John Foote’s ensemble, painted between 1761 and 1765 by Sir Joshua Reynolds in London.

Following a small section with a fleeting homage to Bollywood that seemed inevitable, two segments, “Gathered in a Mughal Garden” and “The Long Shadow of Muslin”, centred around the Coromandel coast’s chintz kalamkaris and Bengali muslins, respectively. These sections worked in tandem to bring to life the early colonial imagination of India. “The vast textile business contributed to making the Mughal Emperor…the richest monarch in the world.’ And presented a prize that the rapacious East India Company was keen to seize” Bowles writes. The exhibition brochure states that the popularity of the fabric in the 18th century led to a ban on its import from India “and that subsequent commercial exploitation of imitations sold back to India only provoked a greater passion for the originals”. Shroff expounds, “There is a lot of history intertwined with politics and the idea of how fabrics and garments were playing into a larger conversation and creating an impact on society.”

The chintz room, with water ripples printed on the carpet and a sound projection that enhanced the feeling of walking in a garden, featured multiple pieces loaned by The Art and People of India (TAPI) Collection as well as a quilted “banyan” coat worn by George IV when he was the Prince of Wales. “It’s quintessentially an Indian silhouette for an Indian man. But this was worn by British men,” Sasidharan enlightens. Eight garments including dresses with hooped skirts, circled a Rahul Mishra creation, where the embroidery has been inspired by chintz. An interesting fact is that the exhibition featured commissioned works by some designers, interpreting vintage styles in a modern context; this included the Tahiliani drape mentioned earlier as well as the Mishra conception.

Balloon sleeve details of a woollen dress with an embroidered chintz pattern, commissioned to Rahul Mishra. An embroidered chintz Palampore from the TAPI Collection can be seen behind.

“I love the whole cycle of different techniques that chintz as a fabric has gone through. From being painted and hand printed using natural dyes to being mass produced using mechanised printing. It was interesting to see the whole journey of chintz come alive; with the Palampore textiles from the TAPI Collection, to the European dresses to the recent commission of the embroidered chintz gown by Rahul Mishra,” says textile revivalist and curator Lavina Baldota.

The segment on Indian muslin, presented in a circular room under a giant parasol, underlined its popularity during the Regency period. The fabric, though associated with “humble usage” as related in the brochure, “made its way into the fashionable milieu in the early 19^th century. Sometimes embroidered, sometimes plain, it brought an Indian summer to the West”. Much of the Jane Austen classics we grew up reading had women strolling in gardens with cream-coloured parasols featuring this fabric. Four classic empire-line dresses were paired with an Abu Jani and Sandeep Khosla chikankari embroidered dress from 1993 and a Raw Mango mulmul sari from 2017.

The “Long Shadow of Muslin” section featured a cotton muslin sari by Raw Mango; here it is juxtaposed with an empire-line cotton muslin European gown from the early 19th century.

In “India’s Allure Meets Paris Couture”, in the next three sections, we encountered a remarkable array of garments from French couture houses Chanel, Christian Dior and Yves Saint Laurent — which revealed the essence of India. Chanel, the quintessential French label, came first with an impressive collection starring pieces from Gabrielle Chanel herself, a rare treat for fashion lovers in India. At Dior, what occupied pride of place was the iconic Lahore dress made by Christian Dior himself and a more structured dress in Marc Bohan’s characteristic rigid simplicity titled Koh-I-Noor followed by an embroidered waistcoat and trousers by Maria Grazia Chiuri, the house’s current creative director for women’s lines. Further, former creative directors, John Galliano and Gianfranco Ferré, were aptly represented.

1. An Yves Saint Laurent ensemble that explores Indian bejewelled motifs and the Nehru collar through a silk shantung evening suit, circa 1982.
2. Yves Saint Laurent’s 1982 Summer couture collection was inspired by the grand Mughal style; the set design of the section dedicated to him, was inspired by Indian stepwells.

But it was the last of the French trio, Saint Laurent, who had the most striking set. The room featured gridded walls in copper-hued metal that reached up to the ceiling of the exhibit hall, with the pieces displayed in alcoves on the walls. The design was inspired by the stepwells of India. “This was actually one of the most technically challenging spaces to create because every single rod was hand-soldered and welded together to form the space,” Shroff muses. “We wanted to create a very light, almost see-through feel so that you do not have the solidness of the stepwell yet you have its overall silhouette so that the clothes stand out.” At the centre of the room was a couture creation from 1982, where the late designer sought inspiration from European sketches of Mughal costumes, resulting in turbanned looks with bolero jackets and large skirts in silk faille and silk moiré.

Architectural details between two sections of the India in Fashion exhibition — “Yves Saint Laurent” and “Journey of the Sari”.

Ahead of the clothes room, a short corridor lined with tables with sketches by Saint Laurent himself, featured the designs displayed in the previous room. The dim corridor was illuminated by a bright light at the end where Isha Ambani Piramal’s Valentino wedding lehnga, a stunning piece in guipure lace with gold foil work that imitates the texture of zari embroidery, was displayed in the next section, titled “Valentino — Marriage of East and West”.

Time now to pay homage to that iconic garment, the sari, in a section all on its own. The sari, styled as a dress, by Mainbocher was sourced from the MET (Metropolitan Museum of Art), New York. Stylised drapes inspired by the sari could be seen in a Givenchy dress and two pieces by Cristóbal Balenciaga. A pallu (the loose end of a sari) thrown over the upper body at a 45-degree angle was the basis for much of Madame Grès’ works. A dress by Paul Poiret (featuring a skirt in sari fabric from 1922), a pleated sari-inspired dress by Elsa Schiaparelli from 1939 and an actual sari commissioned to Christian Dior in 1953 by an anonymous client, were on display.

1. The opening piece for the section, “Journey of the Sari”, was a sari dress in metallic jersey fabric material by Tarun Tahiliani.
2. Elsa Schiaparelli’s interpretation of the sari through a dress that dates back to 1939. It is said to be inspired by her encounter with Princess Sita Devi of Kapurthala on her visit to Paris in 1935.

The exhibition space then opened out into a large hall modelled after the Great Exhibition of 1851 which had showcased goods from across the world. The set design had been amazingly recreated from the original exhibition, right down to the flat lays, the standing exhibits, and, of course, the arched glass ceiling (the original building had been referred to as Shalimar). “In a typical museum, you are dictated by room sizes and the architecture,” says Shroff. “This particular case was different because we were working in a convention centre geared towards museum specifications…. We had 50,000 square feet to work with….” A variety of intricate Kashmiri weaves, experimental footwear by Christian Louboutin, revival crafts by Ritu Kumar and a dress by Charles Frederick Worth were showcased against an intricately hand-embroidered backdrop of a banyan tree, which took about 80 kaarigars (artisans) over a month to create.

1. A Rudi Gernreich dress, inspired by the hippie movement in the ’60s, utilised the Rajasthani bandhani tie-dye textile.
2. The “Hippie Trail” section was composed of a circular set of red mannequins, dressed by Western designers who have based their work on the imaginative freedom and mysticism that India symbolised.
3. Resembling the curved drape of the dhoti, this Madame Grès jumpsuit in silk taffeta — on loan from the Costume Institute at the MET — highlighted the designer’s modern interpretations of India.
4. The second section of the “Hippie Trail” featured six pieces from Manish Arora, John Galliano and Dries Van Noten. Here, a sari-dress (right) from Galliano’s 2002 Holi-inspired collection is placed next to a cape dress by Arora (left).

The two parts of the “Hippie Trail” transported us to the tumultuous era of the ’60s with Zandra Rhodes, Rudi Gernreich and Thea Porter pieces, all imagined in an idea of Rajasthan, the nomadic spiritual vision of India during that time. The setting of the second part was inspired by the Jantar Mantar observatory, with six garments perched above the ground in circular boxes. Two of Galliano’s wildest looks from the 2002 Holi-inspired collection were present, along with two silk ikat dresses by Dries Van Noten and a cape dress by Manish Malhotra. Shroff credits inspiration for the backdrop to a time when the West “fed up post-war, flocked to India and particularly to locations like Jantar Mantar in search of an alternate reality”.

Appropriately, India in Fashion concluded with a showcase of current Indian designers. After all, “The end point of the exhibition is that Indian fashion has arrived, or at least that’s the messaging,” Sasidharan said. A tableau with Sabyasachi’s bridal wear, pieces by Abu Jani and Sandeep Khosla, Manish Malhotra, a display with Rahul Mishra’s space-inspired garments, represented the classics of mainstream Indian high fashion.

1. The opening showcase for the final section of the exhibition presented Sabyasachi Mukherjee’s white bridal wear.
2. The closing display of the exhibition featured three space-inspired ensembles with hand embroideries, by Rahul Mishra.

The exhibition enthralled with its sets and the delight of viewing garments never before been able to be seen in the country. For the first time, a gamut of institutions and archives from around the world loaned collections, ranging from the Royal Ontario Museum to the MET. “You break it down…there’s a cultural layer, there’s an economics layer — there’s accessories, costumes, there are world events that were happening…. I’m familiar with a lot of the milestones that were presented in this exhibition, and it is the convergence of over 250 years of history and politics and really a view of the world scape through fashion….” Sasidharan concludes.