She runs Kolkata’s first Singaporean cafe, helping trafficked women and their children

Kaya toast for 70 rupees (S$1.10), laksa for 250 rupees and kopi for 80 rupees – these are some of the items you’ll find on the menu at Kolkata’s first Singaporean restaurant.

Singaporean Josephine Tan, 56, runs iDelight Cafe, the first eatery in the Indian city dedicated entirely to Singapore fare. Opened late December last year in trendy Hindustan Park, the young establishment has already garnered rave reviews from local content creators.

Here, you’ll also find Hainanese chicken rice, wantons both fried and in soup, soy sauce chicken noodles, mee siam, lo mai gai, ondeh ondeh and pandan cake. Food is handmade in-house, including things like kaya; while coffee powder, for instance, is authentic coffee powder from Singapore.

The dishes most popular with guests are the laksa, rendang and char siew chicken, Tan shared, and even Singapore-style curry chicken, which is “richer and rounder, less spicy and oily” than what locals are used to, is well-received. She hasn’t had to modify any of the dishes to suit local tastes.

In fact, “many people actually thank me for opening an authentic Singaporean restaurant. I never thought that people would thank me for opening a restaurant,” she said.

“Some told me that they missed Singaporean food so much and eating our food brought back many fond memories. One customer used to study at NTU (Nanyang Technological University) and he showed me a photo of a coffee cup that he had taken at NTU, and compared it with ours, and said that they looked exactly the same.”

In addition to bringing a taste of Singapore to Kolkata through food, she’s also incorporated a Singapore flavour into the cafe’s decor, for example, through the use of tiles that resemble Peranakan ones. “I love the Peranakan style – the tiles feel like home,” she said.

She also “wanted to replicate the murals in the streets of Singapore – they give me a nostalgic feeling”.

Painted on one of the cafe’s walls, next to a kopitiam uncle wielding an old-timey kopi sock, a woman hawks popiah from a roadside pushcart lit by a kerosene lamp. She is a tribute to Tan’s grandmother.

“My grandma was a widow and sold popiah when I was young. I used to follow her in her tricycle,” Tan recalled. “She would sell her popiah at wayang performances, and she would have her mobile ‘pom deng’, a kerosene stove.” Additionally, “she also had a stall in a kopitiam in Lavender Street. The whole family was involved in preparing the food. Her popiah was very tasty and she was lovingly known as the ‘popiah shou’.

“When I was contemplating what to draw on the wall, I thought of my grandma who sold popiah, and me sitting on the back of her tricycle.”

HOME AWAY FROM HOME

How did Tan come to be living and running a cafe in India?

The story began when she moved to Nepal in 1996. With the aim of creating employment for single mothers, she started five social enterprises including a sewing business and, in 2001, a soapmaking business called Touch Nature.

“After staying there for 15 years, I had to move out of Nepal due to political instability,” Tan shared. She and her husband, who is from Mumbai, faced a “Maoist attack” when an armed mob stormed the gates of the soap factory, attempting to extort money and threatening their lives. Some of her attackers had been Touch Nature’s beneficiaries.

Instead of turning tail and going home, Tan and her husband moved to Kolkata in 2012. “Many Nepali women are trafficked to Kolkata. So, when I was looking for a place to start Touch Nature again, we decided to move to Kolkata to help Nepali women who had been trafficked by providing them employment through Touch Nature,” said Tan, who speaks fluent Nepali and some Hindi.

In the face of such challenging experiences, what kept her going instead of giving up?

She said: “I believed that I should move on to help those who were in need, and I should not stop loving them because of betrayals from some.”

After about a year of looking for a suitable property in Hindustan Park, an area with many lively cafes and stores, Tan and her husband found a two-storey, 63-year-old house that they were able to convert into a space for business.

The original idea was to open a retail shop for Touch Nature’s handmade soaps and candles, she shared. “But, since the shop was rather spacious, we used half of the ground floor and the first floor for the cafe. It turns out that the two businesses leverage each other.”

CHOOSING DELIGHT 

The cafe on the ground floor has a “garden concept” with “garden chairs, spa music and flowing water”, while the upper floor has three glass-enclosed balconies. “Since Kolkata is a noisy place, we wanted to cut off the honking so that people can find serenity in our cafe,” Tan said.

“I decorated our cafe with pine wood as it gives a relaxing feel, like in mountainous places like Darjeeling and Nepal. Our coral pink upholstery is also cheerful and welcoming.”

Initially, she wasn’t sure what kind of cafe she wanted, or what food to serve. “One day, the thought struck me: Instead of trying to serve some food that I was not familiar with, I might as well serve Singaporean food that I loved and missed. So, I started to dream, and list down the items that I liked and could be made in Kolkata.”

She named the cafe “iDelight” because “the food I serve is the food I take delight in”. It is also “a reminder that God loves and delights in us, and we do not have to feel guilty that we are not good enough.”

To craft recipes and train staff, Tan enlisted the help of Singaporeans who came to teach the staff to make desserts like cakes and ice cream, as well as a Malaysian cook who had previously started two restaurants in Nepal.

“Most of the cooking is done by my staff – I do the quality checks to make sure that the taste is consistent, and I design new dishes with them and train my staff to make them,” Tan said. “Recently, we have been working on kong bak bao, bak chor mee and bak kut teh.”

While some things like attap seeds, pandan, water chestnuts and ngoh hiang skins are impossible to get hold of in India, Tan is able to bring some ingredients over from Singapore, and makes do with substitutions for others.  

The 40-plus-seat cafe employs eight staff members, most of whom are locals; some are daughters of mothers from red light districts. “The jobs have prevented them from walking down the slippery path of their mums. Instead, they gain new skills, training, dignity and livelihood,” Tan said.

In the course of her work through Touch Nature, she’s seen many more lives changed and impacted.

“One of our little girls was trafficked with her mum when she was 17 days old” and put into someone else’s care. “She was not well taken care of and she was always sick. When she came into our care, she was about three. We took care of her for about three years."

She continued: "After her mum got her freedom and was allowed to leave, she took her back to her country. But, she found it hard to get a job there, so she decided to come back to Kolkata and go back to the red light area. We intercepted her and persuaded her to work at Touch Nature, and said we would take care of her child in our home. She has since worked with us for six years.”

Another survivor “was trafficked at the age of 13 when she drank a cup of tea that was doped. She could not go back to her village for over 30 years, and was living in the red light area with her so-called husband. When she had a stroke, she was not given immediate medical attention," she said. 

"Touch Nature helped to get her admitted to a neurosurgery hospital and paid for all her bills. She was saved in time and was on the path to recovery. Then, her husband took her gold and money and left her in bad shape. Touch Nature intervened and brought her to our safe home. She is now safe and leading a healthy life.”

Apart from helping at-risk women and supporting the education of their children, Touch Nature also organises food and blanket distributions for the community.

So, it’s not just laksa and kaya toast that fuels Tan’s days.

“I have chosen to stay (in India) because I love the social work here. I am glad that I can make a difference in the lives of the people here,” she said.

While “Singapore has taught me to be generous and kind, being here in Kolkata, I find that I can help many people in need. I find my purpose of life working here.”