LOCKOUT BUT NOT DOWN
ON REAY ROAD
1. Shreeya Sachin Shinde joined Shree Mankeshwer Hindu Bakery after lockdown and manages all sales and some accounts.
2. Shamsur Ali is also a recent entry, previously working at Vasai’s Martina Super Bakery whose phone number was battis chalis bayalees (32-40-42).
3. Seated between the outer counter and inner bakery, patriarch Maruti Desai says in lockout orders from government canteens and the railways dried up. Sachivilaya’s account went two years ago unrelatedly.
4. In its heyday in the 1960s, Shree Mankeshwer Hindu Bakery supplied bread to over 20 mills in the Reay Road vicinity.
5. Their truck delivered naram pav to the mills’ canteens, where workers bought vada pav and bhajiya pav for their quick meals.
6. Then Maruti (unniso bayalees (19-42)) was in his prime, introducing sliced bread before Wibs made a big entry and helping his father Namdeo run the bakery.
7. Namdeo had migrated from Karad to Bombay to help at his sister’s husband’s bakery. His sister and her husband had no children, so Namdeo inherited the bakery.
8. There were no residences around, only Shree Mankeshwer Mandir on the left and its small temple colony. Namdeo took Kashibai as his wife and started a family.
9. Three generations, Maruti, his son Vijay and Vijay’s son Malhar and daughter Dhruva Desai, were born at Shree Mankeshwer Hindu Bakery.
Shree Mankeshwer
Hindu Bakery
270E Reay Road, Mazagaon.
25th May, 2021.
Irani bakeries in the city negotiated with each other through their naming policies~ Dadar’s New Persian Bakery and Grant Road’s Original Persian Bakery, Dhobi Talao’s famous Kyani and a small New Kyani next to the Masonic Lodge, Fort.
Hindu bakeries were banding together in the Mazagaon locality~ Shree Mankeshwer Hindu Bakery, Shree Prasad Bakery, Shree Krishna Bakery~ all indicating they were vegetarian, no mixing and non-veg flavouring agents.
Peter Bakery became Shree Prasad Bakery when Ramseth Naik took over. Peter Bakery was from the British time and in any case, Ramseth was a believer. Offering prasad at the Vithal Mandir at Pandharpur, Ramseth had acquired Shree Krishna Bakery earlier.
At Shree Mankeshwer Hindu Bakery, near the hilly Shree Mankeshwer temple colony, naming policies needed no explanation. The owners though, carried out their own experimentation. Maruti Kavade went to an office at Charni Road and changed his family name to Desai.
Then Maruti introduced sliced bread at the bakery, before Wibs made a big entry.
Photos by Philippe Calia (19-85).
