Daulat Rahman/Guwahati

For those in and around Guwahati who love cakes, pastries, and bakery products, Shaikh Brothers are the holy grail. For over a century now, this bakery has become synonymous with cakes and goodies and has weathered the ravages of time that has consumed many of its competitors. For a few generations now, this bakery has reinvented itself to stay ahead and delight connoisseurs and commoners alike.

 

Exactly 137 years ago, Shaikh Ghulam Ibrahim, a young and enterprising youth from Hooghly, West Bengal, came to Assam in connection with his construction business. During those days, the Guwahati-Shillong Road was being rebuilt. Since a good number of British officers and planters had settled in Assam, Ghulam Ibrahim visualised a good potential for the bakery and confectionery business. There was no bakery in Assam those days.

 

Khandaan

 

The Ibrahim family was running a bakery at Mirzapur Street in Kolkata (then Calcutta). In 1880, Shaikh Ghulam Ibrahim decided to come to Assam to expand his business.

 

The Founder Of Shaikh Dynasty - Sheikh Ghulam Ibrahim

 

Shaikh Ibrahim initially set up a soda water-making plant at Pan Bazar in 1882. It was quite a success and the next came to the Bakery. His elder brother Shaikh Sobiruddin joined him and thus Shaikh Brothers was established as a venture at Guwahati in 1885.

 

During the 19th century, Assam had no bakery. But the British settlers and the slow emergence of a middle class had created a good market for baked items. Being a traditional business family, Shaikh Ibrahim and Shaikh Sobiruddin knew the bakery business will do well. Both the brothers were confident about their skills and business acumen.

 

Their vision and intuition of Shaikh Ibrahim and Shaikh Sobiruddin proved true. Even though the conservative section of the society was initially not against patronizing the products like bread loaves, biscuits, and pastries, considered as Western consumables, the situation slowly changed and Shaikh Brothers’ business flourished. After delivering delicious bakery products to the consumers of Guwahati, M/s Shaikh Brothers’ bread, biscuits, and cakes entered the then chief commissioner’s house at Shillong (now Raj Bhavan) in the 1890s.

 

The Shaikh Bakery in Pan Bazar, Guwahati

 

From 1905 onwards, special boxes for the Governor House were daily dispatched to Shillong from the Shaikh Brothers shop in horse-drawn carts.

 

The notification appointing M/s Shaikh Brothers as official suppliers to the then Government of Assam was published in the Assam Gazette. John Henry Kerr, Sir Michael Keane, Robert Neil Reid, the successive governors, had been patrons and admirers of Shaikh Brothers. Assam’s eminent personalities Jnandabhiram Barua, Tarun Ram Phukan, Rohini Chowdhury, Dr. Bhubaneswar Barua, historian, Barpujari brothers (senior late Heramba Kanta and his younger sibling, Surya Kanta) were among the regular elite visitors to Shaikh Brothers shop.

 

After Shaikh Ibrahim and Shaikh Sobiruddin the next generations of the Shaikhs — Shaikh Khuda Hafez, Shaikh Ali Hussain, and Shaikh Sultan Hussain — are still remembered by the octogenarians of Guwahati for their impressive behaviour and humble disposition which took M/s Shaikh Brothers’ business to new heights. In particular, Khuda Hafez and Ali Hussain gave their heart and soul to give Shaikh Brothers the present shape.

 

 

The Fourth generation of Shaikh Family

 

The third and fourth generations of the Shaikh family which include Shaikh Khoda Nawaj, Shaikh Sakhawat Hussain, Shaikh. Khaleque Nawaz, Shaikh Malique Nawaz, Shaikh Azijul Hussain, Shaikh Ajmal Hussain, Shaikh Arfan Hussain, and Shaikh Altaf Hussain are leaving no stone unturned to keep the goodwill of Shaikh Brothers, which was built brick-by-brick by their predecessors.

 

“Service to the customers is our topmost priority and we are very lucky that our customers have great faith in us. Even though the present generation of Shaikh family has settled in different places of India and abroad, engaged in different professions, they are always ready to keep the legacy of Shaikh Brothers alive forever,” Sk Altaf Hussain told Awaz-The Voice.

 

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Hussain who represents the fourth generation of Shaikh Ghulam Ibrahim family, says many old items such as lemon biscuit, butter biscuit, fruit cake, and palm cake are still available in Shaikh Brothers.

 

Seventy-plus Mahendra Bora says his family has been purchasing all bakery items especially cake, lemon, and butter biscuits from Shaikh Brothers for ages. “The original taste of the bakery items are still being retained,” Bora said.

 

Sheikh Hussain with his wife Zeenat

 

While Hussain’s wife Zeenat Zaman is a senior teacher at St Mary’s School at Maligaon in Guwahati, his two daughters Karishma Altaf and Rehnuma Altaf have completed their higher education. Rehnuma is currently pursuing her Master's degree in Canada.

 

“The Britishers had found local bread too hard and sticky. They found bread from Shaikh Brothers soft and always preferred it for breakfast. During Jawaharlal Nehru’s visits to Guwahati, cheese straw from this bakery was invariably served on Nehru’s breakfast table as he had a liking for it. Indira Gandhi’s Z-category security personnel kept standing by the oven when bread meant for the former Prime Minister was being baked and packed in this very bakery,” Hussain said.

 

In the past, wheat and cheese for Shaikh Brothers used to come from Australia. Hoves (a type of yeast for fermentation) came from Belgium. Cashewnuts were procured from Goa. Dry dates and raisins found their way into this shop from north India and Peshwar. Bakers in this establishment had specific expertise.

 

With Guwahati’s transition into a fast-growing metro city with modern patisseries and cafes, how does the 137-year-old Shaikh Brothers sustain itself? “I suppose it is honesty and our secret ingredient,” Hussain says with a disarming smile, asserting that such honesty will always be delicious for customers.

 

The shop

 

Eminent historian Dipankar Banerjee writes in his book "Heritage Guwahati" about Shaikh Brothers. He writes:

 

"John Henry Kerr, the then governor of Assam, wrote in his diary, “Today there has been no supply of bread from the Gohati bakery as the road is under repair. Local bread is too hard and sticky — Gohati bread is soft,” (Shillong, November 24, 1923). Another government file refers to a “sanction of Rs 380 for His Excellency’s X-mas party for which bread, biscuits, and cakes are to be ordered with Gauhati Bakery immediately with an instruction that all materials should reach the Governor House by midday, preferably by noon.

 

“During Jawaharlal Nehru’s visits to Guwahati, cheese straw from this bakery was invariably served on Nehru’s breakfast table as he had a liking for it. Indira Gandhi’s Z-category security personnel kept standing by the oven when bread meant for the former Prime Minister was being baked and packed in this very bakery. By this time the reader must have guessed which bakery I am referring to. It’s M/s Shaikh Brothers of Panbazar, Guwahati.”