An Unexpected Treat.....
by Abdul Sattar Lakhana
It was a Saturday and we had gathered at malbari hotel as usual. The weather was good that day so the tasted better than usual. All of a sudden Siddique master started calling someone loudly…. “Ibrahim. Ibrahim …!!”. We all turned back and there was Ibrahim our common old friend but he was doing his own business and was doing well.
Ibrahim turned towards us saw all four of us and came to shake hands with us.
We offered him tea but he declined politely as he had was in a hurry instead he said to meet us the next morning over the breakfast, he would be free and relaxing as it was Sunday. I asked him weather we should come to his banglow or should we meet at some other place.His banglow was in Defence and no bus went there so we were hesitating a bit. Luckily he himself said that he would come to a nearby nihari hotel which serves tasty nihari and this treat was to be from Ibrahim. We were happy by this generous offer and decided to be at our spot at nine in the morning to have nihari.
We all were at the hotel a few minutes ahead of the fixed time but Ibrahim was no where to be seen. We were feeling sorry for ourselves that a chance of free breakfast was gone, and as we all came there without breakfast in our homes. We were thinking about going to the home of some other friend to have breakfast,but all of a sudden Ibrahim appeared from no where Ghaffar kapadia was first to see him coming.All four of us were happy as a child having an unexpected ice-cream.With lots of hellos and how are you? we walked towards the famous nihari hotel nearby.
Ibrahim led us towards the family cabins and we settled down there. Ibrahim called the waiter and silently passed twenty rupees note into his hand.
Yakoob Kiria could not remain silent he spoke Ibrahim bhai “why did you pay him twenty?”Ibrahim said that this was the trick to get best service in such hotels besides the waiter will make errors in the bills favoring us.We did not know about such tricks as we hardly visited hotels except the malbari hotel.
Ibrahim ordered a special nihari with maghaz (brain) and extra butter and tanduri roties.We were served extra quantities of chopped ginger, chopped green chillies and large pieces of lemons.
We started eating it wsa so tasty that we were eating like this was our last meal.No wonder it had gained that fame I thought. Ibrahim was in very good mood so he asked about tea or cold drink. I said whatever you like.
Ibrahim said that he usually took lassi after eating nihari. He called the waiter and ordered him to bring 5 lassies the waiter said that lassi was not served in the hotel but Ibrahim insisted and asked the waiter to fetch lassi from the near by shop and the waiter obliged.The 20rs were at work.
After a few minutes lassi arrived and as we were sipping slowly Ibrahim again called the waiter and ordered him to bring paan for all of us.We had breakfast in a very good mood and environment remembering our old days. It was a very unusual and wonderful sunday morning out.
We all thanked Ibrahim for this wonderful treat and we all started walking towards our malbari hotel ad Ibrahim walked on towards his car he had parked in a nearby street.
Siddique master was the first to speak he was so impressed by Ibrahim's gesture that he told that this was the game of money if we had that much to spend on a breakfast we could invite Ibrahim or persons like him to breakfast or lunch anytime.
I get only half cooked roties of my old lady served with lots of good sayings on subjects like saving money and wearing my clothes for three days instead of two days to save soap.
I could not keep mum i told that had our parents had allowed us to get more education and not insisted on getting jobs and that too the low paying jobs we would have been in much better state than we are now.
kiria who was listening jumped into discussion he reffering to his father said that his father was so Hitler like that he simply told that no earnings no meals.
We kept talking about the topic for a while but the sun was getting higher and there was no shed at the malbari hotel. We daily sat at the hotel in the evening and were not bothered by the sun we had to get up and our little gathering ended and we walked towards our homes
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