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We all live and enjoy life and its beautiful creations. We build philosophy in and around the life and share with our friends and family. We tend to follow at times these philosophies and sometimes divert from them. We also create and imaginative world of the inevitable truth of life- that is “DEATH”. We can see, feel and experience things, people, and objects when we are alive or are in our senses. That makes us feel free and we either can experience things or objects as per our own will.
But nobody knows what it feels like after death, how you look, feel, touch things and behave and hence that very thought is very freighting. This is the only reason humans normally create their own story, views, and patterns about “Death” and “Dead People”.
New Lucky Restaurant, Ahmedabad – Dine with the Dead
And generally, death is visualized as a negative thing and hence people tend to run away from things related to death, like dead people. Dead people are correlated with “Ghosts” and “Evil Spirits”. Places related to dead people are termed as ominous and inauspicious, and at times “Unlucky”.
Dead – Lucky for Some!
How it will feel that for someone in Ahmedabad running a restaurant on a cemetery is very normal. It is also very surprising that people come, sit for long hours and dine in the restaurant with the dead.
The graves do not bother the owner, worker and the customer who live, work and visit it. The owner is happy and feels “Lucky” that the place is built on a Muslim cemetery and ironically has named it – “The New Lucky Restaurant”.
Flashback on the – Cemetery
Just after independence in 1950’s when vacant plots were annexed in the city, an ancient graveyard was adopted by two young men – K.H.Mohammad and Krishnan Kutti Nair and a tea cart outside the graveyard was established. They use to sell tea and buns. The masala tea was very famous and soon they had to construct a structure to accommodate the rush.
In spite of paving over the graves, they decided to build the restaurant in and around them and tables were arranged delicately around them. The tombs were fenced with steel rods and neatly covered with clothes. Initially, the very thought of dining with the dead was not welcomed but the locals say that the graves belong to 19th century saints and hence the taboo phased out.
Fame and Luck
The popularity though happened because of the “Masala Tea” served here, with a signature twist of adding cocoa powder to the tea. The combination of masala tea with maska bun became very famous and had celebrity visitors as well. Famous painter M.F.Husain was one of them, a friend of the late owner Mr. Mohammad.
Today the owner Krishnan, 72 years, wakes up every day and the first thing they do is the cleaning, dusting off the graves and neatly decorating them with flowers. They offer their prayers and only then the work of the restaurant starts.
It is said that in India we respect the dead and the same is followed across religion, the same is very evident from the living example of – “The New Lucky Restaurant”.
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