When 16-year-old Anumula Baburao came to Hyderabad from Adilabad in search of a job in 1978, all he wanted was to help his parents buy back the cow they had sold to pay his examination fee. Now at 60, he’s the owner of the four branches of Niloufer Cafe; two are premium tea lounges that serve the popular bun-maska (most popular item), vada-pav, sabudana khichdi, kulcha sandwich and continental snacks like onion rings, jalapeno pops and a lot more. The tea lounges offer a range of teas starting from adrak (ginger) masala, and lemon to speciality teas like chamomile, green and earl grey.
The AC tea section at Lakdi-ka-pul and the ones at Jubilee Hills and Himayatnagar in Hyderabad have their genesis in the Niloufer Cafe the used to be a regular Irani chai shop at Lakdikapul (near Niloufer hospital) where one had Irani chai, puffs, Osmania biscuits and Patti-samosa.
Inside Himayatnagar Niloufer cafe | Photo Credit: Varun Kumar Mukhiya
Baburao started his life in Hyderabad by working at a cloth shop in Nampally, sleeping and bathing in the waiting room at Nampally Railway Station. He believes he was at the right place at the right time with the right people who helped him rise from a busboy to a waiter and then finally a partner at the chai shop.
Sitting on the first floor at the newly opened premium tea lounge at Himayatnagar, Baburao recalls, “When I came looking for a job,people helped me. I want to do the same for other job. aspirants I was six years old when I left home owing to family circumstances. I was sent to Chandrapur in Maharashtra to live with my uncle. I lived there as long as they could afford to feed an extra mouth.”
After that, he went to a hostel run by the Vaishya community in Maharashtra. There he studied for free until Class X and worked at cloth stores in his spare time to earn money for his expenses.
Yet he had to ask his parents who lived in Adilabad district in (undivided) Andhra Pradesh for ₹ 100 to pay his Matric examination fee . “My goal was to clear the matric exam so that I could get a job and support my parents. My father sold the cow for ₹250. The cow was my parents’ source of income. I was devastated but my father encouraged me by saying ‘Till now we couldn’t do anything for your studies. You clear your matric, get a job and remember to help when you become capable’. Those words are etched in my mind.. Soon after I wrote my exam, I left for Hyderabad in search of a job. I travelled by passenger train because I couldn’t afford to buy a bus ticket. I got down at Nampally station and asked where I could find cloth shops. Someone directed me towards Gupta Cloth stores and I went straight to the shop.”
Shashank with Baburao | Photo Credit: Varun Kumar Mukhiya
It so happened that a salesman at the shop was absent and the shop owners wanted a helper for the day. After observing the way Baburao attended to customers and cut cloth from the rolls, the owners decided to keep him.
“That day, I went back to the station with my day’s wage after having a meal at Purnam hotel. This routine continued for a month and the hotel manager suggested I look for a job at a hotel where I could save money on meals and also sleep.”
That set Baburao looking for places that would hire him; the search landed him a job as a busboy at a hotel in Abids. “ I had no experience but since I desperately wanted the job, I claimed I had worked in small places,” he shares.
He worked there for a while until he met a gentleman from one of the famous Iranian families in Hyderabad who casually offered him a job at the Niloufer Cafe in Lakdikapul which they were planning to purchase from its owners. Baburao jumped at the opportunity and entered into a verbal agreement of salary and work.
The owner, however, wasn’t able to run the business well and ran into debts. “Seeing his difficulty, I suggested he let me run the place in exchange for no pay and a promise of a certain amount of sales every month,” recollects Baburao.
Within no time Baburao became the one-man army working in the kitchen and taking care of the counter. “Doing so I was able to clear his debt and the gentleman offered to sell it to me. . I asked for a few months’ time and took over the place after paying him.”
Gradually, Baburao grew confident about purchasing the building where he began work when it was up for sale. Over the years, to encourage customers from all walks of life, he started an airconditioned outlet. “Even then I wasn’t satisfied; I wanted people to get down from fancy cars and enter the AC tea place; that wasn’t happening. Finally, after my son entered the business, we started the Jubilee Hills outlet.”
Baburao credits much of the modern ideas (the tea lounges) to his son Shashank Anumula. He says as a young mind in the business when he wanted his son to bring in the modern look.
bun maska | Photo Credit: Prabalika M Borah
The father-son duo went ahead and expanded their business to Basheerbagh as they felt could offer tea as a luxury drink without any drama. “We sell tea as it is drunk by people. We do traditional teas and the overwhelming response shows the love Indians have for this beverage.”
Now, does Baburao feel he is successful? “It makes me happy and contented when customers go back home happy, smiling and say they enjoyed their time,” he adds.
He also says when “I have 350 employees and it makes me happy that I am able to help them earn for their families.”
