Crunching wisdom in the wafer shop
- Meher Marfatia
- May 22
- 7 min read
Updated: May 23
This weekend we celebrate some of Bombay’s oldest wafer shops – felled but never forgotten
You have to agree. A comfort food favourite cutting across generations is the humble but heavenly wafer. May 30 is designated World Potato Day by the UN at the request of Peru – the tuber’s birthplace – to highlight its role in fighting global hunger and poverty.
Seventeenth-century Portuguese sailors brought the potato to India’s western coast. To begin with Bombay’s oldest outlet stocking this palate pleaser. “Over a hundred years ago our family shop, Golden Wafers, was the first bhatti wafer shop,” says actor Boman Irani. His grandfather Bomanji set it up in a Grant Road cul de sac behind Novelty Cinema. The little structure with Mangalore tiles and a chimney was fitted with a large, well-like kadhai behind the counter, to fry slices and straws (sali) to the mellow gold of their name.
I interview Boman one evening in his Dadar Parsi Colony home. His lovely wife Zenobia has filled platters of plump mutton and chicken sandwiches (“Do you eat non-veg?” she has messaged thoughtfully that morning) with, obviously, wafers.
Boman says, “My father Khodadad took over the reins from Bomanji. He coined a good, old-fashioned tagline for Golden Wafers: ‘Where quality leads, customers follow’. When he died, too young, my mother stepped in and repaid a debt of 57,000 rupees, a massive amount then (watch the video). “She stoked the hot kolsa bhatti fumes with courage and determination, returning home with a blouse rimmed with coal sweat.”
A loyalist declares he will never forget the many kindnesses of Boman’s mother Jeroo and aunt Khorshed (Khodadad’s sister) who helped run the shop. Waiting at the lane entrance to hand over a pair of packets for him and his brother, Khorshed would caution them to remove the metal staple pin sealing their goodies.
Continuing his story, Boman says, “I sat there in my mother’s lap as a toddler and later stopped by on my way back from St Mary’s School. When possible, I served customers myself at the counter. Retail was done over chai and conversation. It wasn’t merely transactional. People came themselves to buy, no sending staff or phoning in orders.
“Any wafer shop is a wise space, a khazana of character reading. We had warm interactions with everyone, from bank managers to actors and directors like Manmohan Desai from nearby Khetwadi. And it was my privilege once to escort Sharmila Tagore to her hairdresser’s house opposite, when she came asking for directions (watch the video).”
That iconic counter was where he met Zenobia Panthaky. “My wife-to-be turned up every evening. How was I to know this daily customer was coming to see me?” he quips. “I only thought her regularity was because of the Parsi craze for ‘kurum kurum’. That’s anything crisp. We even top rice dishes with a dash of kurum kurum.”
Other shops also thrived because of amazing shared camaraderie, says Boman. His mother’s relatives owned Victory Wafers in Colaba. Janta Wafers was gaining ground in Malad after Dhirubhai Khakhar introduced the brand in the mid-1950s. Flourishing with Golden Wafers were A1 Wafers on Balaram Street, OK Wafers at Tardeo and Colaba, Coronation Wafers at Foras Road and B Wafers on Forjett Hill. “The A1 Wafers people were particularly supportive,” Boman adds. “Back in the day, shops helped replenish each other’s stock. Kishinchand Chainani of A1 told my mother, ‘Any problem Jeroo Ben, let us know.’”
At A1 Wafers, I chat with Kishinchand’s son Ramesh Chainani. Kishinchand’s wife Usha smiles from behind the counter. Her unexpected presence is a pleasant change from the “manned” counters of these shops. Exceptionally, A1 stays rooted at the spot where it opened in 1950, behind Apsara Cinema. Quite a few wafer shops used to brush walls with cinema halls, like Golden with Novelty and Sun Wafers behind Alfred Talkies in Khetwadi.
“If the Golden Wafers bhatti wala didn’t report to work one morning, my father took care of it,” says Ramesh. “Boman’s mother was a really remarkable lady.” Ramesh and his mother slowly thread together the story of his grandfather Gokuldas Chainani arriving from Sind post-Partition (watch the video).
Gokuldas’ sons – Ramesh’s father Kishinchand and his brother Naraindas – succeeded him. “But my father underwent a 360-degree turn after a life-changing illness. He was on a search for more meaning,” says Ramesh. “Surviving a tetanus bout that the doctors didn’t expect him to, he sat me down and said, ‘I realise things differently and must question: am I in this world to just cut wafers?’”
At B Wafers, I meet an experienced hand, who had joined the trade as an 18-year-old. Now 63, Mohammad Abdul tells me, “Bachpan se mein yehi karta aaya hoon – this is what I’ve been doing since childhood.” The single-counter he manages in Tardeo’s Matrumandir Lane, hawking farsaan, sandwiches and cold drinks, is the palest shadow of the earlier B Wafers shop at Forjett Street in its 1960s-’70s heyday (it is replaced by a hairstyling salon). “I was trained to slice potatoes,” says Abdul. “There’s a lot of difference between the two shops. Imagine, no less than Indira Gandhi sent for our wafers when she visited Bombay.”
B Wafers, Golden Wafers and Victory Wafers were food writer Kunal Vijayakar’s haunts. “You got the best aromas from all three shops,” he says (watch the video). “I clearly recollect walking three steps up and into B Wafers at Forjett Street. Regular and masala wafers were stored in huge aluminium dabbas with kadis and dhakkans on them. My strongest memory is of dark patches of oil on brown paper bags in which they weighed the amount you wanted. Dig into them, they were delicious! When B Wafers shut, I felt so bad I actually cried.”
There seems more to cry about. Rare to find a shop equipped with the old-fashioned vat crisping chips on the premises, behind the counter. But this was what Ideal Wafers, in a corner of Khotachi Wadi, has had till recently. Knifed spuds in vanaspati (an unusual frying medium for wafers) sputtered in a gigantic pan, then were cooled and packed by Venkatesh Subbiah and his wife Vaidehi. After more than 60 years of customers addicted to its salted and pepper banana wafers, this outlet is on the verge of downing shutters. “It is extremely hard getting man power,” says Subbiah, struggling with his ancestral shop till its brave end.
Labour shortage, soaring rents and heavyweight outsider contenders like Lay’s and Pringles are constraints impacting the savviest proprietors who have tried to innovate with the times. Like Welcome Wafers in Attarwala Chawl of Mahim. Velji Manshi Gada left his Kutch village of Vagal to open Welcome in the 1970s. Potatoes were crisped in two pans from a backroom before they went on to produce 200 kilos an hour from a Govandi unit. The Gadas employed boys on bicycles to deliver at doors from Mahim to Byculla. “Teh cycle no jamano hato, that was the age of cycles,” Gada had said when I interviewed him some years ago. “Our skilled men could slice a potato and instantly gauge its starch content by the crunch made.”
Welcome experimented with new flavours (the tomato was perfected after more than a hundred tries) and noted inputs from clients and retailers (Gujaratis are partial to sweet-sour flavours; North Indian communities want masala chips; kid-friendly tangy flavours do better during holiday months). Yet, the writing on the wall came to pass.
As it did for Victory Wafers of Colaba. At the entrance to Windy Hall Lane, ahead of Navy Nagar, this reigned supreme where Tier Nom Patisserie now stands. “Happily, this shop was next to where I lived in Usha Sadan,” says Shakeel Kudrolli, founder of Aquasail India. “People crowded to buy big quantities in white butter paper. The proprietors were given to using some colourful language, though always in a playful manner. Remember, in the 1960s and ’70s, comfort food was restricted to wafers, chocolate and toffees. Victory Wafers remains the benchmark, so outstanding that I yet feel the taste on the tongue.”
Introduced in 1962 as a makeshift counter selling hand-cut wafers from a home kitchen, Pankaj Farsan and Wafer Mart, in Vile Parle east, probably sustained itself thanks to a cult following among Gujarati and Maharashtrian residents.
Besides undeniably popular Camy and Balaji, Mota Wafers is a major contemporary player. Birthed in 1992 by Ajit Mota and his wife Amrut, as a 1000 square feet operation in Andheri, Motas is firmly entrenched with multiple factories and a deep retailer network. Offering interesting market insights and comparisons, Ajit Mota’s son Jeegar describes brands like Uncle Chips and Simba Chips. The latter was a surprising, if short-lived, challenger. “Simba stopped manufacturing before we started. But their typical masala chips were simply superb, with a great flavour which even we can’t match today.”
How can I close this column without mention of the wafers I grew up craving? To the left of our home was Mac Ronell’s, Cajetan Pereira’s contribution to 1970s Bandra. With that pioneer confectioner’s chicken patties, lemon sponge rolls and cakes possible to shape “from a pipe to a piano”, were wafers that flew off the shelves of his flagship Hill Road store.
But the ones I still dream about were from Blue Circle. That shop was located within easy reach. Next to New Talkies, where my brother and I were members of a children’s film club. The magic of the movies was a weekly ritual. Picking up those chips doubled the fun. Which Bandraite of a certain vintage has stayed unseduced by Blue Circle’s buttery orbs of bliss, I’d like to know.
© Meher Marfatia Multimedia production & digital marketing: Danesh Mistry
this feature describes wafers, yes... but i would say more, much more than wafers
it describes a time when mumbai had time to build and value relationships .
it describes a time when living was a joy because of people .
it describes a time when consumerism as a word was not even conceived...thus enabling people to savour every little blessing... in this case the wafers!
no wonder they say ... good old days!
bravo Meher, in bringing genteel to the forefront..
more power to your elbow.
best regards
ameeta
McRonell wafers (and cakes) ruled over many of my single-digit home birthday parties! There was always something so seductive about the smell and the crunch of fresh wafers - made the popcorn retreat in shame, in my opinion! Well, the decades have rolled on for me, but Mota-bhai does provide some indulgence with his wafers every now and then…
Bicycling down Colaba Causeway to pick up a bag of wafers fresh from the giant kadai at Victory Wafers, then cycling on to wolf them down sitting by the sea at the US Club is a core childhood memory. And then there were the 5 kg bags for birthday parties. Much later in life I discovered Candies’ butter wafers which are simply unsurpassed. A few years ago I tried to get the handmade variety in Sonepat. The lady at the store, surrounded by every wafer brand imaginable, laughed and said, “Oh, you mean the old-fashioned kind!”
Ah yes Vinodini. What joy they brought us sated souls!
Dear Meher loved your article on wafers. Kunal Vijaykar sums this up perfectly - one could actually hear the 'crunch' in his voice. Difficult to believe the humble potato rose to becoming a worldwide phenomenon by Peru the country of its origin declaring 'World Potato Day'. And Mumbai must be blessing the Portuguese sailors who introduced it here. Interesting stories of generations who established wafer companies & how their simple shops became settings of romance like Boman & Zenobia Irani - the bonhomie & goodwill between customers & owners. One memory stands out -my Mum grew up in Kotachiwadi & as children whenever we visited relatives, it was a treat to be taken to the 'chip shop' as we called…