All things baked and beautiful

The Iranis of Taboot Street are known by the bread they bake. And why not? Their enterprise - Husseny Bakery - is no new name to Puneites...

The Iranis of Taboot Street are known by the bread they bake. And why not? Their enterprise 8211; Husseny Bakery 8211; is no new name to Puneites, who8217;ve made their way to buy baked products here since 1932-33.

Telling the tale of the bakery is S.M. Irani, the 70-odd-year-old proprietor. Too old to sit at the counter now, the bakery is managed by his son, Dr. S.M.M. Irani. Rewinding to his young years, he remembers his first days at the bakery, doing odd jobs as a 12-year-old. That was when the bakery had just been opened by his uncle S.H. Irani, who8217;d immigrated here from Iran. He came to Pune in 1920, and took up work as a restaurateur. 8220;In the food business, he found the bakery supplies to his restaurant not upto his mark. Unhappy with what he got, he decided to venture into the line himself8221;.

And that was how Husseny Bakery saw the light of day. 8220;I was just a kid. But learnt the ropes of all the procedures involved 8211; sweating it out in the bhatti, sweet-talking at the counter 8211; doing everything,8221; recalls the senior Irani with a faraway look. In 1938, his uncle returned to Iran, and he stepped into his shoes. While the bakery was earlier located in Bhavani Peth, it fell prey to the road-widening bulldozer in 1977. A couple of years before that, the present premises had been purchased on Taboot Street, and since then, the aroma of freshly baked bread has woken up the neighbourhood here.

8230; and listening to the old man talk, you realise it8217;s a tale of a different era altogether8230; flour at a wholesale rate of Rs 7 per sack that weighed 75 kg, paying Re 1 as labour charges for lugging around seven sacks, one anna for a 13-ounce loaf of bread. 8220;We8217;d get the maida all the way from Mumbai, from just one place 8211; the Wallace Flour Mill. Earning about Rs 100-150 a day, those would also be busy days,8221; he grins.

Adds his son, 8220;While we work only about six hours per day, my father would work as much as 20 hours a day, cycling all the way for home deliveries uptil the ammunition factory at Khadki, even sleeping here most times.8221; And his father breaks in, narrating an incident that he remembers in vivid detail. 8220;After having spent the night at the bakery, I woke up one fine day to be greeted by the sight of a snake right by my bed. Before I could panic, a long-time assistant calmed me down, and said the snake would not do anything. Apparently it was a pet, whose food requirements were met by those at the bakery! Almost like a regular!8221;

While snakes are a rarity these days, the regulars are an ever-growing clan!