Aurthur Henry Cole's Park: Shafiulla's Marrow Soup

Nothing special can be written, really, about the small, under-rated, under-appreciated, almost-inaccessible patch of greenery that is Coles Park. Except of course, its name, and until more recently, the story of its gastric importance in the larger scheme of Bangalorean things. More on that later. But first...

In 1799, sometime after the fall of Tipu Sultan, and post the shifting of the capital from Srirangapatna back to Mysore, Mummadi Krishnaraja Wadiyar was thrust on the throne with a little help from the British. It was of course, as we all now know, a mummer’s farce as the administration and diplomacy of the land was managed purely by the Dewan, Purnaiah, and a British representative under a newly appointed post titled The Resident of Mysore. It was a stately post, one held with great pride and symbolic of rank and status within the British Empire in India. After all, it wasn’t always that you got to hang out with the King and his buds while making all the decisions for the King and his buds. Besides, you also got put up at the Government House, which was built for the British resident in Mysore and used as a facility to entertain a mighty fine posse of gents and some serious bevvy of ladies just drippin’ swaggoo. It was a bitchin’ place, a single-storey structure, built in 1805, that served the high and mighty in democratic India and was once home to the duderiety of Sir John Malcolm, Col Wilks, who penned Mysore's history, and Sir James Gordon, the guardian and tutor of Maharaja Chamaraja Wadiyar.

For years, the post of the Mysore Resident was entrusted with the administration and management of the Mysore kingdom but soon conflict and overlapping of authority between the resident and commissioner emerged, and this resulted in the abolishment of the post completely. By then, champs such as Sir Barry Close, Josiah Webbe and even Cubbon himself had held the post intermittently. For a while, between 1811 and 1813, the post was also held by one Arthur Henry Cole.

Not a lot of information exists on A. H. Cole out there, except some unconfirmed excerpts from letters and such that provide a glimpse into his awesomeness. One particular story that I read rumoured that in October 1811 the Maharaja of Mysore, Krishnaraja Wodeyar III, visited Bangalore along with the A. H. Cole to check out the horse races. As if putting down some money on a couple of purebred stallions and drinking your ass off wasn’t enough, a couple of tigers were let loose on the racetrack to be hunted over the course of the afternoon! The guy sure did know how to party. AHC was also responsible for laying down the law when it came down to booze apparently, and is credited with regulating the sale of Arrack in the territories, putting systems in place for manufacture and making sure people didn’t die from an all-night bender. Of course, this meant that locals couldn’t buy more than one quart a day which was disappointing but hey, it was disruptive legislation at the time. If you lay down that shit now, asking us to restrict to one quart, the city will burn I tell you. The story also goes that he had a bit of a falling out with the Dewan and maybe that’s what resulted in a shorter than normal stint as the Resident. AHC is also credited with the setting up of St Bartholomew’s Church in Mysore, a man with so many facets, that in 1914, we named a park after him. And that’s how Cole’s Park got its name.

About 65 years later, Shafiulla, then a strapping young lad of 18 full years, manned a single grill of coals at his father’s kebab shop on the St. John’s Road side of Coles Park. The menu was simple, Sheekh Kebab, Phaal and beef marrow soup. It was quiet times back then, with just a handful of customers who swore by his meat but mainly showed up for his soup. And what a soup it was. A peppery broth slowly stewed all day long, for over 15 hours with a pile of beef bones and carcass until the gelatin across joints had melted its flavor into the dish. The bones then received the baseball bat treatment, to extract every last gram of marrow from deep within, collected, not mixed yet, into ready to serve steel mugs, the broth topped with a centimeter of fat that fried its way into your esophagus if you weren’t careful enough to blow and sip slowly.

It was a nameless place back then, and into the 30 years of its existence on the St. Johns Road side, each year seeing a larger influx of people aching, pushing, almost fighting to pick up his plastic coupons that meant you had a confirmed order, each year his grills getting larger, vats getting bigger and pile of bones getting more mountainous. Pretty good for a nameless place, I think. Until the cops shut him down forcing him to move across the road, adjacent to a popular convention hall near the signal on St, John’s Road. It’s a matter that clearly affects him. “Kya karega, woh jagah hamareh kismet meh nahin tha!”, he claims, his voice clearly stung from the impact the move has had on his business.

 

His menu has expanded quite a bit now, with chicken featuring in its kebab form as well, but there is no doubt that his beef items still remain favorites. They take pride in their food here and I was reminded, on a couple of occasions, to eat the phal first before the sheekh as the former tastes best hot and the spices are more subtle. The sheekh kebab was also delicious, almost crispy on the outside and steaming and juicy on the inside. But that soup. I tell you man, that soup. It is a legendary soup. One that needs its own place in the heritage of this city. A relic from a time long forgotten. Cole’s Park Standard Kebab Marrow Soup!

A namesake Arthur Henry Cole would be proud of!