The best bakery in the world

Are the poor more generous than the rich? It's an interesting if romantic notion, somewhat backed up with serious but contested research. But while the science isn't clear, most of us have personal experience of the generosity of the not-so-fortunate.

As a little boy in mid-70s Srinagar, I'd sometimes be given the errand of buying bread on the way home from school. I'd cross the Jhelum in a shikara (https://nicheless.blog/post/172) and wander into a back lane of Residency Road, to Ghulam Nabi sahib's bakery, or more accurately, his oven.

It was a wood-fired affair, built into a wall. Ghulam Nabi sahib would be in charge, dripping with sweat occasioned by the open flames, skull cap on his head, vest and pyjamas blackened by the woodsmoke. A fresh loaf would be extracted from the belly of the oven, wrapped in old newspaper and passed over. Warm bread is impossible to resist - the minute I got home, my sister and I would devour half the loaf, slathered with butter.

Before I left the bakery though, he'd hand me a freshly baked, crunchy biscuit, either walnut or plain, free of charge: "yeh lo beta, tumhare liye".

A delicious treat, and an early lesson in generosity.

Jee Enn Bakery, as Ghulam Nabi sahib's micro-enterprise was eventually named, grew and moved to a shop in Polo View. Over the years, it became the best known bakery in town.

We moved away from Kashmir but I've been back many times, always visiting our favourite bakery. As the business grew, the free biscuit became a macaroon, the macaroon a pastry and the pastry a cake. Handed over with the same affection and toothy smile as decades ago.

For this man at least, wealth and generosity had nothing to do with each other.