AHMeDABAD: In India, death is a part of life — and, at one restaurant here, a part of lunch. The bustling New Lucky Restaurant is famous for its tea, its rolls, and the graves between the tables.

Here, elderly men page through newspapers and argue politics in the morning, young couples share candlelit meals and hold hands after dusk. That the candles sit on graves adds to the ambiance.

Krishnan Kutty Nair has helped run the restaurant built over a centuries-old Muslim cemetery for close to four decades, but he does not know who is buried in the cafe floor. Customers seem to like the graves, which resemble small cement coffins, and that is enough for him.

“The graveyard is good luck,” Mr. Nair said one afternoon after the lunch-time rush. “Our business is better because of the graveyard.”

The individual graves are painted green, stand about shin high, and every day the manager decorates each of them with a single dried flower. They are scattered randomly across the restaurant: one is up front next to the cash register, three are in the middle next to a table for two, four are along the kitchen.

The waiters know the floor plan as a bus driver would know his route, and they have mastered the delicate dance of shimmying between graves with a tray of hot tea in each hand. “We’re used to it,” said waiter Kayyum Sheikh.

The restaurant dates back to the 1950s when K.H. Mohammed opened a tea stall outside the cemetery, said Mr. Nair. He had helped run the place and became Mohammed’s partner. Business was good, and the stall kept expanding until its tin walls encircled the graves. Mohammed died in 1996.

Some say the restaurant is disrespectful. “They should maintain the decorum of the graveyard,” said a Professor of history who asked that his name be withheld. Asked why he did not want to be identified, he said: “Because I have my tea there.” — AP….http://www.hindu.com/2007/12/12/stories/2007121257702200.htm
Wonder what is next in store for us.. [leaving with shivers running down my spine]