Oman: Chaat vendors to chartered accountants in the Asher household

Muscat: Pradip Asher was just one years old when he came to Oman. He came with his mother and kaki (his father’s brother’s wife) by ship from Bombay. But Muscat wasn’t the same then, in 1970, when they made the city their home.

Asher’s father and uncle were working with the Khimji Ramdas Company then. “We stayed inside the Muscat Gate, which is now Muscat Gate Museum, where even the embassy of India used to operate then,” says Asher. “The construction work at the Port Mina Qaboos was going on then, and the place only had workers and staff working in the port project. My mother and kaki, started a tiffin service to cater to those people. Every day, at 12 noon these workers would come to our house to fill their tiffin sets with rotis (Indian flat bread), dal and some subji. I studied till class ten in a school run by Khimji Ramdas, in Wadi Kabir, which is now Indian School Wadi Kabir,” he continues.

He remembers that somewhere during the eighties, a Gulf News correspondent had come to interview the two ladies’ and their tireless tiffin service in those days of kerosene stove and no air conditioners.

Asher, originally from Kutch, reminisces fondly of the bygone days so much so that even when he flourished in his business of selling Bombay and Gujarati snacks, he preferred a house overlooking the port with its sailing dhows and boats.

After finishing his schooling till tenth grade in Muscat, he went back to Mumbai to finish his college studies and retuned to Oman armed with a bachelor’s degree in Commerce. His elder brother is settled well in Mumbai and his younger brother died in an accident in Muscat at an early age. That prompted his parents to move back to India and giving them company was Asher’s uncle and aunt who also left Oman along with his parents.

Today, out of the four, only his aunt is alive, who is being taken care of by Asher, in Muscat. Set behind the famous Star Cinema complex in downtown Ruwi, is his shop that dishes out pani puri, bhel puri, raj Khachori, Dhabeli which is his signature dish, paav bhaji and vada paav. Very typical Gujarati dishes like undhio, thepla, and sweet dishes are made on specific orders. Swanky cars with people inside waiting for their parcel and Omanis relishing paav bhaji are regular sights in his small and clean outlet. His only son Mihir is a chartered accountant, working with Ernst and Young and Asher says that’s his return on investment.

“It is the dream of every parent to see their children in good position. I am happy to have spent my earnings for his education, sending him to Canada for studies as well as in other good educational institutions,” he says.