The Chai Shoppe @ The Hot Spot
Over the years, the F7 Gol Market area had gained a reputation as being cursed among Islamabad’s property dealer community. In the 1980s, a prominent, well-connected family started Islamabad’s attempt at “Fine Dining” with an upmarket restaurant designed as a train compartment. The menu boasted items like lobster and delicacies not on the usual local menus. Unfortunately, the lady running the restaurant developed serious health issues and had to tear herself away from her “love child”.
The Orient Express then changed hands, but customers could tell the management change translated into deteriorating standards. Soon enough, the Orient Express’s journey came to a shuddering halt.
The space turned into a plant nursery, but even that was a failure, and when we ventured to the place with our property dealer, he filled us in on the spot’s sorry history. I had been aware of The Orient Express Restaurant but never visited it. With the vision of creating a fangled horror and cult movie-themed version of Pop Tate’s in my mind, this place, derelict, crumbling and overgrown, was exactly the spot that would suit us.
So, to cut a long story short, we turned a cursed, failed, abandoned area the city had forgotten into our new home, where the first-ever official legal outlet of The Hot Spot opened in February 1997.
A few years later, we had problems with our landlord, who decided to increase the rent tenfold simply because he saw an opportunity to exploit the situation. Things got to the point where our relationship broke down, and he found himself some new tenants. The Hot Spot left its original spot where someone brimming with creativity and originality opened up “The Cool Spot“, touted as “a hang-out for artists”. We were forced to relocate.
We sought an outdoorsy place to suit our laid-back aura during this time. I found a man who had a licensed kiosk in the Green Belt (now virtually gone) and was very happy to come to an arrangement where I would take it over, and he would continue to honour his deal with the Administration.
Our New operation revolutionised how a typical “Khoka” could be used while keeping within the parameters of the terms of the Kiosk agreement.
Initially, when Islamabad was expanding rapidly, the city’s Kiosks were erected to provide hubs of refuge for the labourer. These sprouting “Khokas” was a perfectly justifiable and sensible idea when the city was developing. As development in some sectors reached completion, labourers in the area would be scarce. It didn’t seem to make sense to have kiosks serving customers who didn’t exist.
The Hot Spot decided to change this Kiosk from the norm and make it a place where it was accessible not only to the odd labourer in the area who would want a cup of tea but also to a much wider audience. The revamping of the local Khoka to a funky little outlet designed in Keith Haring’s figures and Rastafarian colours was just the vibe.
Tunes from The Hot Spot jukebox, some wooden benches and a mini version of The Hot Spot we called The Chai Shoppe were soon rocking and rolling and creating their own little vibe. It differed from the Gol Market spot with less hustle and bustle.
Months later, one evening around 8 pm, I was at home, and the phone rang telling me the President and Prime Minister were there with their wives tucking into ice cream and a lot of other stuff and playing their selections on the Multi-CD player! I couldn’t believe it. My lads were confident enough and mischievous enough to throw a prank on me but surely not.
I drove down and quietly made myself to the Kiosk without any customer noticing me. I first saw that they had brought their music and were playing their songs and merrily tucking into their order. In jovial spirits when times were good, for them at least. They were romanticising their good old days because “Kabhi Kabhi Mere Dil Mein Khayal Aata Hai” was played repeatedly on a loop while they laughed and gorged the evening away.
The next day the lads told me President Parvez Musharraf had been kind enough to take the time to thank each of the staff members and had tipped them very generously, which was very decent of him indeed. That was a surreal moment. The President and Prime Minster are sitting with their wives enjoying food and desserts at a local Khoka!
That was a surreal evening, but it proved that the kiosks, at least some of them, could and should operate in a way that serves its community, rich or poor or otherwise. If there are communities where there is not much of a working labour force, then those Khokas like the one we took will struggle to make ends meet and end up serving no purpose. The Hot Spot’s Chai Shoppe remains a game changer in breaking the stereotyped preconception of a Khoka in Islamabad. We weren’t there for long as the city’s planners added avenues to their plans.
Meanwhile, The Hot Spot won a legit 10ft by 10ft kiosk contract at the Park in F 6 3. A park I had grown up as a kid playing in with many memories associated. A park I am delighted to have given a name to that appears to have stuck now that Google Maps is using it, and it seems so are local people, including the City’s Administrators. Haunted Hill is a name I called this Park in F 6 3 in one of our little promotional pamphlets to get the word out when we opened up. I am delighted that the area is now known as Haunted Hill even though the City Administration and powers that be saw fit to send their tractors to demolish our 100% legitimate kiosk, citing a “terrorist threat” as their reasoning and according to Court Orders. A few months following the demolition of our Kiosk, the ENTIRE public Park was handed over to The Marriot as a venue for their events – No Questions asked, no eyebrows raised!
No public member was allowed in the Park until they decided a couple of years later to abandon the project and relinquish the Park. It seems that The Marriot using the Park as a venue for their events didn’t threaten security even though it had suffered from the worst bomb attack ever witnessed in the city’s history. The city administrators have sound reasoning and motives for their decision-making, even if sometimes it doesn’t make sense to simple-minded folk like us.
Despite all the heartache of being torn away from a spot we had nurtured for a decade, nobody can deprive us of the golden memories of our stay at the Park. They also evidently can’t stop the name we gave the area from becoming an “official name”, far more intriguing than Khayaban-e-Great Leader. Long Live Islamabad’s Haunted Hill!
#GhostsMattertoo.
