COEP ( College of Engineering Pune) canteen and the present owner Rahul near his father’s photograph at boat club his father’s put. Express photograph by Arul Horizon. In 1978-79, a young man with a passion for rowing was so tired of his well-paying job in India’s nascent computer industry that he decided to start a canteen at the place where he had learnt water sports — the Boat Club at the institute that is now known as the College of Engineering Technological University (COEP), Pune.
Madhu Seth or Madhukar Lakshman Kamble was born in the servants’ quarters of the institute and had started kayaking at the Boat Club. It is at this place that he, along with the cook Gopal Sayaad, created the famous Uthappa Sandwich that is going strong half-century later. Madhu would become a legend — today his photograph as a muscular, good looking oarsman hangs above the clock at the boat club as an inspiration to new batches of engineers.
The Boat Club Canteen
COEP, the third oldest engineering institute in Asia, was started in 1823 when the British government decided to give Indians an opportunity to train in civil works. It introduced the civil, mechanical and electrical departments in 1908, 1912 and 1932, respectively. The Boat Club was established in 1928 and has given India several medallists, national coaches and umpires, among others. The canteen is an integral part of the club.
To locate the Boat Club Canteen, one follows the trail of satchel-carrying students past the Mechanical Engineering department. A buzz of conversation leads to the board that reads ‘Degree Boat Club’. “The sign is from the year when the first batch of students passed out with degrees from Bombay University, with which the institute was then affiliated,” says Snehal Hirve, COEP Public Relation Officer.
Every so often, an old student or retired faculty member who is visiting the campus comes to the canteen and asks for Madhu.
“Twenty years ago, we were eating dinner as a family at home and I pointed out that my father had not made much money. He asked me if I ever lacked for anything and I had to say no. It was when he died in 2015, did I really see what he had earned. There were huge crowds of people, from former students to teachers to sportspeople, who came to see him off,” says Rahul.
A buzz of conversation leads to the board that reads ‘Degree Boat Club’. “The sign is from the year when the first batch of students passed out with degrees from Bombay University, with which the institute was then affiliated,” says Snehal Hirve, COEP Public Relation Officer. (Express Photo by Arul Horizon) Madhu was a strict person; he would come to the canteen at 6 am and stay there till somebody from his family came to pick him in the evening. Today, Rahul sits in the chair. “It is a very difficult task because it involves handling the phone. Every minute, there is a phone call from a department of the institute ordering samosa, vada pav or some other food item,” says Rahul.
Sports binds this family
Madhu, once free from the burden of corporate work, would spend his time operating the canteen and practising on his boat in the Mula river that runs past COEP. He represented the country in Colombo and Bangladesh, among others, and won more than 100 medals in his lifetime. He was paralysed in 2007 but, soon after, he was back to exercising and practised yoga for an hour every day.
Sports runs strong in their family. “His (Madhu’s) father, Lakshman Kamble, was a boatman at the Boat Club in the 1920s while his grandfather, Ramchandra Kamble, worked at Deccan College where he had taught rowing to Bal Gangadhar Tilak,” says Rahul Kamble, the present owner and Madhu’s son.
Rahul too is a national-level rowing and badminton player while his son, Rohit Kamble, who is in Class XII, is an up-and-coming cricketer and captain of the U19 Invitation of Pune Youth Club.
Uthappa Sandwich, laughter, and memories
Being the oldest canteen in the institute, the Boat Club Canteen is responsible for catering for all events, from workshops to seminars to lunches with foreign dignitaries, at the institute. The menu, which is handwritten on a white board, is dominated by Maharashtrian vegetarian dishes, such as pithla bhakri, vada pav, dal-rice and misal pav. There is also idli sambhar, samosas, puffs, cakes ,and sandwiches. What’s special here is the tea, which used to be priced Re 1 in the 1980s and is now Rs 10 and Rs 15; vada, which would cost between 25 and 50 paise per piece, now comes with a pav for Rs 15.
“Twenty years ago, we introduced the rice thali and it was an instant hit,” says Rahul. A thali, priced at Rs 60, has vegetable, rice, dal, salad and a dessert.
“For generations of alumni and staff at COEP, there is only one answer to ‘kahan milenge (where will we meet)?’”. It is at the Boat Club Canteen that we catch up when a batchmate comes to town, when we need a break from classes or want to get together with students or visiting academics. Our first question is always, ‘Aaj kya banaya (what did you cook)?’. When we go to a five-star place, we are aware that it is an artificial space. At the Boat Club canteen, there is a familiar feeling of camaraderie and natural belonging,” says Dr Deepak Kshirsagar, an Assistant Professor and COEP alumni.
Kshirsagar regularly eats lunch at the canteen and, before leaving for home in the evening, tucks into bhel from here. The plastic red tables and brown chairs might keep getting replaced but the space outside the canteen is covered by centuries-old tamarind trees and a younger sandalwood tree. The river breeze wafts over the students eating tiffin in the shade. Old boats, arranged in rows, look at the canteen.
Then, there is the Uthappa Sandwich. Like many of the innovations at the institute, it is simple. It requires a thick layer of potato filling between two layers of uthappam. It is sliced and served like a pizza with chutney and sambhar. Rahul says he runs the canteen as a legacy of his father. There are 16 members of the staff at the canteen, some of whom remember the era of Madhu.
Among these are 88-year-old Mahatba Shinde, who has spent 35 years at the canteen, guiding students to empty tables. Every morning, he rides a cycle to work. Another member, Iqbal, has been here for more than 15 years and is a familiar, comforting face. Shambhaji Lavate, fondly called Babu Bhaiyya, came here as a 16-year-old from a farming family in Nanded and stayed on because “Madhu Seth showered me with affection”. Babu Bhaiyya’s humour and smiling face is what makes him popular among both staff and students. “Once we asked him what was nice and hot at the canteen and Babu Bhaiyya replied, ‘The tawa,’” says Hirve.
In the kitchen, the ladle has passed several hands, from Gopal to Shivaji Lavate to Mukesh Pawar. who has come from Satara and learnt cooking as a child. “When we see the students enjoying the food, it gives me a sense of satisfaction. We know that, wherever they go in life, these young people will recall the food and the time spent here,” says Pawar.