SOME day Farhang Jehani might patch up the bullet holes and cover the shrapnel pockmarks. But for now they are the Leopold Cafe's new decor.
"We are going to let it be," Jehani said over the din of his crowded restaurant, where eight people were killed in the Mumbai terrorist attacks last month. "It's part of history."
In the two weeks since the attacks, this Mumbai neighbourhood of na
rrow streets shared by street urchins and the well-to-do has staggered back on to its feet. But at the Leopold, it is often standing room only.
The restaurant has become a shrine of defiance against terrorism. That, at least, is how Jehani portrays it. "I want it to go on the same way, as if nothing has happened," he said.
Tourists come to buy T-shirts emblazoned with the restaurant's logo. Sales are five times what they were before the attack. Passers-by stop to peer at the bullet holes in the restaurant's façade. And an eclectic clientele – some coming out of curiosity, others to show their support – sits down for a meal and freely flowing beer.
"I thought I'd come to have a look," said Jagdeep Kishore, a lawyer in his early 60s from New Delhi, who came to Mumbai for a conference. Leopold has become a household name in India, Kishore said. "But I never imagined this place would be full of people."
The diversity of customers mirrors Mumbai itself. Tourists, especially budget travellers, have been the mainstay of the restaurant for years, starting with hippies in the 1960s. But since the attacks, the Leopold has attracted the more wealthy and middle-class of Mumbai.
"There are more Indians now," said Amerita Kotak, 16, part of a group of high school students waiting for a table on Friday night. "People want to see what's happened."
The attacks, which left 171 people and nine of 10 gunmen dead, began a few hours after dusk on November 26.
Around 9.40pm, dinner at the Leopold was interrupted by a minute-long volley of gunfire and the loud bang of an exploding grenade. The gunmen never entered the restaurant, according to Jagat Khadka, the bouncer, whose bruised left arm was grazed by a bullet. They stood outside and casually opened fire, sending waiters and customers running for the kitchen or ducking below tables.
Six patrons and two waiters were killed. The gunmen then walked down a narrow street to the back entrance of the Taj Mahal Palace and Tower hotel, where they terrorised guests and hotel staff members for more than two full days.
The waiters at the Leopold who died, Peer Pasha and Hidayat Khazi, were Indian Muslims. A note at each table, placed under the glass tabletop, advises diners that donations for family members of the "deceased staff" can be made at the cashier point.
Jehani says he does not know the identities of the other six killed, except that three were foreigners, including one German. Jehani escaped injury because he had gone up to the restaurant's mezzanine bar to watch the end of a cricket match between England and India.
On the way upstairs he saw two young men standing on the sidewalk with large rucksacks. They looked like "decent" people, he said. "I thought they were waiting for friends." About three minutes later the men began shooting.
The atmosphere at Leopold is now raucous and boozy. But there are reminders of the power of the weapons that the gunmen used. The bullet that grazed Khadka punctured a solid wood door plated with stainless steel. The bullet holes in the granite-panelled walls look like they were made with percussion drills.
Many buildings in Mumbai exhibit perpetual dilapidation, and the Leopold is no exception. It is hard to know whether some of the missing tiles and broken windows here were caused by the attack or by long-standing disrepair.
But the divot under table 24 is unmistakable. A grenade had blasted a fist-sized hole in the granite floor and sprayed shrapnel across the adjacent counter.
Shrouded in revelry, the scars of the attacks do not seem to bother customers.
"Nobody seems to give any impression of trepidation, absolutely not," said Pat Dunworth, an insurance assessor from Sheffield who was sitting two tables down from the grenade hole. "It's no different from being in Bangkok or Los Angeles."
Patrons at the Leopold, which first opened as a wholesale cooking oil business in 1871, say they admire the restaurant's speed in reopening. It took the staff two days to clean the blood from the floor. Zoroastrian priests in white robes came to bless the business with burning sandalwood. Customers were served on December 1, just 48 hours after the siege of the Taj Mahal hotel was over. But in newspapers and on blogs, some Indians say they are worried that this type of resilience is also self-defeating. After each new terrorist attack – and there have been many in India in recent years – life returns to normal and the pressure to prevent future attacks dissipates.
On the sidewalk outside the Leopold, Arnaz Irani, a jewellery designer, said she found the scene inside disconcerting.
"We were shocked," she said. "It's so upsetting to think that people were in there lying dead, and now everyone is laughing and eating."
Of all the targets the gunmen chose in the attacks – including a train station, a Jewish centre, a hospital and two hotels – the Leopold was among the easiest to spot. The restaurant sits on Colaba Causeway, a main boulevard, and is advertised by a large sign, sponsored by Coca-Cola, that reads, "Coke Time, Join the Friendly Circle."
In Mumbai life spills out onto the streets, at food stalls, markets and along Marine Drive on the Arabian Sea, where couples stroll. The Leopold is now a symbol of those public places, which terrorism experts call "soft targets," and a sign of the city's continued vulnerability.
Three police officers are now posted on the street outside the restaurant, but their only weapon is one long stick shared among them. Khadka, the stocky bouncer who is also head of security at the restaurant, says he is not armed. During the attacks, he ran for his life down a side street. Asked what he would do if gunmen returned, he shrugged.
"Next time I won't run away," he said.
