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Though we live under the same roof, it took me all of six months to get an interview with Tauby Bhagwagar. It is not that she has anything against me or an interview. It is just that she believes "my products should speak for themselves.” Does make it sound like she has more faith in her soufflés than in her sasu (mother-in-law)!

A recent write-up spoke of her as "Tauby, the cake queen of Nagpur.” A well deserved epithet. For though she is relatively new to the bakery scene in the city she has established herself as the czarina of quality cakes, chocolates and desserts.

A bright and beautiful shop, Tauby’s opened its doors to Nagpur, on May 24, 2006. But behind it has been a long and languid journey. Reminiscing about her passage through the world of bread and batter, Bhagwagar says she started making cakes for her own children’s birthday parties 14 years ago. From family it spread to friends. From being a mere hobby, it evolved to pocket-money proportions. But it still centered around the kitchenette in her own home and was a one-woman enterprise.

As Bhagwagar gained expertise with experience, her name and fame spread by word of mouth and the orders flew in thick and fast.

"A couple of high profile weddings where I successfully handled an array of desserts and the reception of the barats (ceremonial arrival of bridegroom with family and friends) made me decide that the work was too much to cope with by myself,” she observed. It was time to go professional.

"In 2003 my bakery took a quantum leap forward,” she recalled. With husband Naushad she went to Bombay and met with chefs and bakery consultants "who helped us in buying equipment and in giving us technical know-how.” The next step was to hire professionals with experience from other similar establishments or fresh from catering colleges. "Fortunately, space was not a constraint for me,” explains the 42-year-old entrepreneur. "From the kitchen in the main house I moved operations to the outhouse that came with old colonial bungalows like the one we live in.”

Bhagwagar’s USP (unique selling proposition) is the fantastic shapes she can create in cakes. Fairies and witches, animals and automobiles, Krrish and cartoon characters, are all part of a day’s work. "One little boy came and told me of a dream he had about what his birthday cake should look like!” Bhagwagar crafted the dream ­— of a street with a lamppost with maple leaves floating down — into a reality, to the utter delight of her young customer. 

When The Times Of India reached a circulation figure of 40,000 copies in Nagpur after its recent launch, they ordered a cake in celebration. A cake was designed as a half-fold of the day’s newspaper, complete with masthead and headlines! 

One cake catastrophe that still haunts Bhagwagar is her first three-tier creation, ordered for an elite navjote. It was a vision in white icing, decorated with perfect pink marzipan roses, satin ribbon and silver balls, rising one tier upon another on slender Greek columns. "There were ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs’ from the family when I went to assemble the cake,” she remembers. "But no sooner I returned home, I got a phone call from them to say ‘Dear, the cake looks precariously like the Leaning Tower of Pisa.’

"It was an agonizing morning as I rushed back to make repairs, amid the gathering guests. But it taught me some lessons I won’t forget in a hurry,” she laughs.

Her biggest strength is her capacity for hard work. She can work shoulder to shoulder with her 13 strong staff. There is no job she cannot or will not do. This builds respect for her and makes for a lot of camaraderie in the bakery. On festivals like Divali and Christmas, when there is an over-load of work, everyone has worked happily past midnight, helped along by cups of tea, snacks and good cheer.

Quality ingredients and cleanliness are also top priority. If ever any    complaint regarding these is received, it is addressed with utmost seriousness.

With complete candor the cake queen admits, "If I am a success story today, it is due in great measure to my husband Naushad. I never realized my own potential. It was his faith in my abilities that pushed me to expand my horizons.” Content to create her cakes and desserts, she prefers to leave the advertising and PR to Naushad. A division of labor that works well.

Tauby herself has had no formal training in baking or cooking. It was her elder sister Keyan Limzerwalla who studied at the Institute of Hotel Management, Catering Technology and Applied Nutrition in Bombay and later gained experience when working at Hotel President, the Sir Ratan Tata Institute and executing cake orders from their home in Parsi Colony, Dadar. "I learnt from my sister,” acknowledges Tauby. "But it was learning the hard way. Keyan would not let me touch her cakes! I was only allowed to watch, cut and clean. When she was in a particularly good mood, she would let me practice icing on upturned quarter plates.”

Tauby (née Cyrusi) graduated in Arts, did her diploma in travel and tourism, and went on to become an Air India airhostess. She traveled the world from Muscat to Moscow. But as a school girl, Tauby had already left her heart behind in Nagpur, in the safe keeping of Naushad. She came back to marry him and settled down in the city, slipping happily and easily into the laid-back life that Nagpur offers. Their two sons, Cherag, aged 14 and Arman, 12, study at Panchgani’s New Era High School.

"I am religious but not ritualistic,” says Tauby. "I wear my sudreh and do my kusti and impress upon my boys to do the same. But I would not be averse to being without it on occasion.

"Sure, I feel great pride in my identity as a Zoroastrian. In the airlines, in business and in society, a Zoroastrian is always looked up to. My religion and my upbringing have instilled worthy values in me...

"I do not identify with all the hue and cry over the dakhmenashini system. My mother wished to be cremated after she died in Bombay. We respected her wishes. I live in Nagpur where there has never been a Tower of Silence. Burial is the accepted mode of disposal of the dead. Does that mean a person dying here will not achieve behest (paradise)?

"Respect for human values and for human beings be they Hindu, Muslim, Sikh or Esai and kindness and compassion to all is true religion,” she maintains.

Be under no illusion that Bhagwagar’s talents are restricted to cakes and cookies. She is a committed Rotarian, with more awards than shelf place to keep them. She is actively involved with the English theater scene and has a flair for organizing and taking part in song and dance programs.

Tauby’s most popular cake continues to be Dark Chocolate, followed by Coffee ’n Walnut, Nutty-Nougat and Simply Strawberry. Cheesecakes and mousse-cakes are party stoppers, while the good, old caramel custard is an enduring favorite. Her quiches, pizzas, sandwiches and speciality breads are just as popular.

A recent first time visitor to Nagpur gave Tauby the ultimate compliment. "On a scale of 1:10, I would give you 11,” he said.