Crystal Owner Passes Away – Motto of restaurant owner Khanna that worked: People are happy when fed well

Khanna (77) passed away after three heart attacks, the first at 9.30 am and last at 3.30 pm, on Sunday. His daughter Poonam Mehra and grandson Sanket Mehra will now look after the restaurant that was built in the early 1950s by Khanna’s father.

“Each customer who visited this restaurant has a memory of him,” says Keshav Samal, an Odissa inhabitant living and serving in the restaurant for the past 15 years. “I lived and worked here because of him. He helped me with everything I wanted,” Samal adds. Aparna Joshi, from Bangalore, working in Mumbai for two years now, says whenever she felt homesick, she used to visit Crystal. “It is always packed and we have to wait in line to get a table. But it was light on the pockets,” she says. When her parents visited the city, she made sure they visited the restaurant. “They had a chat with him (Khanna) and he told them that people are the happiest when they are fed good food and he tries to accomplish that through Crystal,” the 25-year-old adds.

The single-page menu with 46 items listed in black on a laminated white paper has its highest priced item, Paneer Korma, at just Rs 95. In an upscale area with restaurants increasing their rates in the face of price rise of grains, cereals and pulses, this restaurant has been able to keep its rates minimal. “About 90 per cent of our customers are students. Sethji wanted to keep prices low for them. He makes less profit in the process,” says waiter Arun Singh, from Uttaranchal. Students from colleges including Wilson, St Xaviers, KC, and nearby hostels frequent this place.

Staffers at the restaurant say the portly owner has been asked by several families to install an air conditioner. “But then he would have had to increase the prices, and students can’t afford that,” Samal remembers.

The restaurant is famous for its Rajma at Rs 75, dal makhani at Rs 65, Fruit Cream at Rs 40 and its star item, Kheer at Rs 40. Khanna’s recipe of Kheer took at least four hours to cook. Scent of milk, rice and sugar would waft into the restaurant whole afternoon as preparation began at 12 noon right outside the doors overlooking the sea.

Kheer was also Khanna’a favourite item on the menu, his staffers say. The restaurant’s old walls are adorned with certificates from Burrp, Zomato and latest addition this year from Mouthshut.com. He would reach the restaurant at 12 noon and remain at his chair until 11.30 pm every night. His only break came at 4.00 pm for a quick nap.

An old defunct cassette player, now kept on the upper storey of the restaurant, will remain as part of Khanna’s memory. “He would ask us to play songs that were 50 years old. Even I had not heard them before,” laughs sexagenarian Samal. The songs stopped when the player broke a few years ago.

Also fans of the old music, Abhishek Dheer and Gurpreet Singh, both studying at J K Diamond Institute, come for lunch and dinner every day to Crystal, to find the owner smiling warmly at them. Since the restaurant is shut on Mondays, they came to know of his demise on Tuesday. “Uncle and I are both from Amritsar and we used to discuss the latest news of our city quite often. I last met him on Saturday and he had urged me to see him once before I left for Amritsar,” a shocked Dheer says.

Khanna took personal interest in the kitchen every now and then. Stuffed Parathas, filled with gobi or paneer, were also his specialty. “He would often taste and suggest additions to the dishes. He made sure every recipe was followed perfectly. With him gone, the cook will have to figure out dishes himself,” Samal admits. According to Khan’s daughter Poonam, the restaurant will continue to run with the same recipes and ambience. “He had a lot of fans,” she added. On Tuesday, marking the fourth day of Khanna’s death, over 150 people had gathered to pay their last respects at the Arya Samaj Hall

in Santacruz (West).

tabassum.barnagarwala@expressindia.com