Simple homely Bengali meals and snacks for only a few paise drew officegoers and travellers to pice hotels. Over a hundred such no-frill eateries dotted the city as it was transitioning from Calcutta to Kolkata. The Swadhin Bharat Hindu Hotel in College Street’s Bhawani Dutta Lane is one such surviving pice or ‘bhaat er’ hotel
All photos by Amit DattaIn existence since 1913, the hotel added ‘Swadhin Bharat’ to its name post Independence and it is where Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose is said to have dined during his days at Hindu College. His favourite dish, it is said, was the ‘pui shaaker chochchori’, which is still served at the eatery today
In the same neighbourhood is a hole-in-the-wall establishment named Paramount, where revolutionaries like M.N. Roy, Pulin Behari Das and, of course, Netaji held covert meetings while sipping on sharbats. The meetings took place under the protective, watchful eye of owner Nihar Majumdar who founded the shop in 1918. Paramount even had to down its shutters briefly in 1934 to ward off suspicions from the British authorities
Even today, Paramount is a popular stop for anyone visiting College Street and for the many students of this university ‘para’. The most popular drink — available only in summer — is the Daab Sharbat. The tender coconut concoction is said to have been the brainchild of Acharya Prafulla Chandra Ray, who made it for his close friend, Nihar Ranjan Majumdar
A stone’s throw away from Paramount was Favourite Cabin. Like pice hotels, cabins are a part of Kolkata’s history. These little eateries served beverages and snacks like fish fry, ‘kabiraji’, and cutlets. Established in 1918 with a simple menu, it was a haunt for students, officegoers, intellectuals, and rebels. The story goes that Kazi Nazrul Islam would recite and sing his compositions while a young Subhas Chandra Bose sat listening nearby. Unfortunately the cabin closed its doors during the pandemic
Travelling from central, to north Kolkata’s Hatibagan, a small eatery nestled on the ground floor of an old house is the famous ‘telebhaja’ shop Lakshmi Narayan Shaw and Sons, which has been serving its deep-fried snacks since 1918. Today, everyone in Kolkata knows this shop at the ‘Netaji shop’
The 107-year-old shop once supplied tea and ‘telebhaja’ to freedom fighters, and the story goes that that’s how the owner Khedu Shaw met Netaji. The revolutionary leader is said to have soon begun frequenting the shop for ‘telebhaja’ and ‘cha’. In 1942, Shaw distributed free fritters on January 23 to mark Netaji’s birthday. The tradition continues till date