Brownspotting in Davis Maidan
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The short-lived Bhoja Café |
I’ve lived in plenty of interesting hoods: Williamsburg with its blend of Latino and Polish. The Nuyoricans and Dominicans of Loisaida (Lower East Side). A corner of Harlem with African immigrants, upscale art cafés and a smattering of Caribbean desis, the devout coming bleary-eyed into the mosque at four in the morning while I’m returning from a party. But I’ve never seen so much stealth desi influence as in Davis Square.
The oversized cornershop Store 24 has a Tibetan cashier who didn’t take offense when I guessed his name was Nepali. He said he grew up in Delhi and seemed proud of it. Diva has a power-restaurateur owner and seems like a Guido magnet at night. Inside the open kitchen at Namaskar stands a stout, turbaned cook. The owner of Martsa Tibetan, perenially crowded at dinner, pulls up in an SUV with eponymous plates. I haven’t had the heart to inquire about family in Lhasa.
Choesang and Dechen Martsa, a married couple who own Martsa on Elm, a Tibetan restaurant in Davis Square, had a chance to take over the space next door. Hubby Choesang wanted to expand the restaurant. Dechen, who thought an expansion would make their workload too heavy, wanted to open a casual cafe. [Link]
The café idea didn’t pan out, but the restaurant accordioned in size. Across the street there’s a Punjabi-owned grocery which advertises Irish and Indian foods. It’s a family business; many are friendly, some are indifferent, and one surly young dude avoids eye contact when you run into him at Starbucks down the street. If this guy has any talent he’s a future Hanif Kureishi. The best thing about desi grocery stores is they’re used to dealing with bachelors and phree-and-easy with their recipes.
East Coast Dunkin’ Donuts are hothouses of free-floating racial anxiety. They’re either old battle-axes muttering to each other in Bengali about rude customers or friendly young guys who want to know, ‘Are you from India?’ It’s real, not Amway. A Dunkin’ cashier in Davis Square was chatting with a friend on his hands-free. He greeted me with ‘Han, bolo‘ before correcting himself, ‘Can I help you?’ I grinned. ‘Woh bhi chalega, yaar.’
So I paid for my hot chocolate in quarters. I wanted to give him the unabridged desi experience.
on Monday, March 24th, 2008, 3:28 pm in Boston, Food, Humor, Musings › 
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I once paid for a rumali roti takeout from a fancy San Jose restaurant in pennies and dimes. The owner DID NOT like that at all. He did not bother to count what I’d paid.
The CVS pharmacy at Davis is also manned by a couple of desis. And there is a Bengali cafe/store down the road. And another Tibetan restaurent down the road. And…
how are the momos manish?
Nice post, Manish. One thing we ‘normative’ South Asians often forget is that many ethnic Tibetans are desis too. That is, born, brought up in the desh proper, speak at least one, or even two desi languages, and fully conversant with desi cultural mores. I once met a Tibetan lady who was teaching Buddhism at a small college in Pennsylvania. She turned out to have grown up at a Tibetan resettlement colony in Karnataka, spoke Kannada, Hindi, English like a desi, and Tibetan of course. I thought she was Tibetan, she knew I was desi, and what’s more, drew fully on her stereotypes of desi men to assist her interaction with me, but that’s another story.
OMG, I cannot believe you mentioned Store 24. STORE 24!!!
Vij Uncle, I love you.
I LOVE YOU.
Ah, the Store 24 which is open for 18 hours. Good times!
Ha ha ha ha. So true.
P.S. I totally dig this translation thingy. What is it? That would be a good solution for books, no? Like that other post from a while back…
Thanks. It’s a simple little definition feature I wrote for my blog editor. And yeah, it’s much nicer than footnotes, endnotes or glossaries. I’m going to demand the definition go in-line above words…
Now how could IB possibly know that? Davis Square booty call?
I hear it makes buying prophylactics even more fun :P
I actually mistook some fleshy white bread buns for momos at the lunch buffet.
Bhutanese don’t want Nepalis, Chinese don’t want Tibetans, Indians don’t want Bangladeshis. A subcontinent united!
manish, is that an invitation?
Send biodata pliss. Must include hobbies of second cousin once removed.
Its not Davis Maidan
but Davis Chowk.