It was very gratifying to read about the progress of the Cooper’s chikki and popular fudges ("Cooper’s at the crossroads,” Parsiana, December 7-20, 2022). In the 1950s and ’60s my father and I would go to Lonavala at least once a month in our Chevrolet car. We would invariably stop at the Cooper’s chikki shop and purchase coconut, glucose and mixed nuts chikki. Cooper’s would never sell their products at the Lonavala railway station or at any other place. Their outlet was the small shop in the Lonavala bazaar which has been described in your article.
My wife Parvin was also very fond of the coconut fudge which Cooper’s later added to their products. She was so enamored with it that once, on her way by train from Poona to Bombay in the 1960s on the Deccan Queen, though she was told that the train would stop at Lonavala station for only five minutes, she got off and ran to Cooper’s waving the money in her hand and shouting to the salesperson behind the counter that she was traveling on the train! Fortunately the other customers who were already at the shop ahead of her allowed her to make her purchase and she raced back. The train took off just as she stepped on the footboard of the nearest compartment (the Deccan Queen was a vestibule train) and she made her way back to her companions. Of course, we were not married at that time!
I, for one, am very pleased to see that the Cooper’s establishment is well and thriving in its new premises in the Rye Woods area. Of course, there was plenty of competition with imitators who let loose many young salesmen on the railway platform as well as on the trains to sell the products of other chikkiwallas but there was only one Cooper’s. It was much later that Matheran’s noted Nariman Chikki Mart and others came into existence.
Dr ARDESHIR B. DAMANIA
Davis, California, USA
abdamania@yahoo.com