Salamat Irani owned the City Bakery at M.G. Road, Pune. My visit to his
bakery was prompted by a desire to buy Pune’s famous Shrewsbury biscuits
from the Kayani Bakery. My cousin instead recommended Salamat’s bakery,
which he claimed baked cashew biscuits to die for. So down we drove to the
City Bakery on Main Street, a place with shelves and bottles redolent of an
old world charm. The wall behind the old style counter at the bakery had a
black board that had a humorous quotable quote written in chalk (changed
every day).Salamat, the curly-haired, friendly and very talkative owner,
welcomed my cousin (his school buddy) cheerily and on his introducing us,
chided him saying, ‘what are you doing Rahul, you are starving your guests!’
So saying, he opened a packet of his famous cashew biscuits and laid it on
the counter for us to eat (and of course sample!). Salamat, I discovered,
knew all his regular customers and made it a point to address them by their
names, (‘Good afternoon Mr. Joshi, what can I do for you today?’). It was
highly entertaining and educative to see how Salamat treated his customers
and so I decided to hang around for some more time to watch him in action.
To Mrs. Joshi, who wanted to buy buns, he said mischievously, ‘ only three
buns Mrs. Joshi, you must be starving your family! And what can I pack for
your friend over here?’ (Mrs. Joshi’s friend smiled and shook his head, but
you can be sure he is going to drop in again!) An aged Parsi customer
doddered in looking for kharis and realizing they were not in stock, turned
to go away,‘chaalo, paisa bachi gayo!’ smiled Salamat cheekily, eliciting a
smile from the Parsi gentleman. The next gentleman who walked in was
looking for jam tarts, which were out of stock, Salamat assured him with,
a 'Sorry Mr Fernandes, but you can get those tarts at 4 pm tomorrow
evening. They will be waiting for you.’
In the mean time a lady at the counter asked him for a bill, ‘That will be
only fifty dollars, Mrs. Sharma, why don’t you buy some more?’
To a customer who was peering down the glass counter at the trays of
biscuits, Salamat said naughtily, ‘who are you looking for Mrs. Andrews,
have you found him yet?’ ‘Oh! Just biscuits, is it? I thought it was
somebody else!’ To every one of his customers, Salamat seemed to have
something to say which would make them smile – and of course buy more
than what they originally intended to buy!!
Quite apart from the great goodwill and customer satisfaction generated
by Salamat, what struck me was the way he seemed to
actually enjoy what he did.
Salamat, the baker and graduate in law seemed to have a great time
doing his work! And his highly infectious joy in what he did clearly
rubbed off on his customers, who seemed to keep coming in for more
– keeping his cash register clicking merrily!
