Many of Mumbai's landmark Iranis have been grappling with a rude economic reality that seems bent on edging them out of business, and eventually, existence. The die has been cast for one of the city's oldest Iranis, New Empire Hotel. Ensconced in the corner of the lane leading up to three theatres - Sterling, New Excelsior and New Empire - near CST station, the Irani was given on a `conducting basis' to American fast food biggie McDonalds for a 20-year period in December last year.

On November 1, the food chain's Indian franchisees hope to unveil the latest eatery to grace south Mumbai to the public, and labourers are furiously at work, chipping away at what once was one of Mumbai's favourite addas.New Empire Hotel has been dishing out omelet pavs, chais and solace for decades.

Where artists, journalists,students, professionals and advertising types once chewed the bun maska and sat for hours on teak wood seats, now, professional McDonalds personnel will serve up a new menu: burgers, colas and chips. The shift, though is hardly just from naankhatai to burger.

Although the former proprietor of New Empire, Behrooz Khosravi, insists that the deal does not imply outright sale, 20 years is a long enough lapse of time to rub out the memory of the Irani from the Mumbaiite's contracting attention span.

The Iranis in Mumbai are in danger of becoming just that: memories of another era which will be relegated to the recesses of the mind and palate. Mumbai's notoriously fast paced mind has done its periodical paradigm shift, and food habits are changing to keep pace with the tastes of a new generation weaned on colas and burgers. Earlier, the advent of the Shettys and their style of running eateries gave the Iranis much to chew on. Now, one of the numerous sub-cultures adorning Mumbai's pastiche is beingforced to sell out, literally. As costs shoot upwards and profits stay moored to the ground, and as a new generation shrugs off the "boring" business of sitting at an Irani's helm and waiting for customers to trickle in, restaurants like New Empire are putting out the kitchen fires.

Everything is expensive: labour costs, maintenance, cooking materials, sighs Mehervan Gourabian, one of the six partners of Bastani and Co, near Metro Cinema. Prices change every 15 days, but we can't change the prices of our items every fortnight as well, he points out. Bang opposite his restaurant is the equally famed Kyani and Co, a family concern in the business since 1909. Aflatoon Irani, one of the partners who has run the restaurant for 35 years, concedes that customers have been dwindling, and Mumbaiites seem to be going in for change in a big way. New Empire had three partners of three faiths: a Muslim, a Parsi and a Bahai. That "99.99" per cent of Iranis are run by a group of partners hardly helps business, say Iraniowners, as internal quibblings do not rake in profits.Also, they add, the younger generation prefers the security of jobs, and, as one Irani owner wryly remarked, the `weekly offs and paid holidays.'

While some partners keep the Iranis going, the rest simply pack up. Bastani's Gourabian rattled off the names of at least eight Iranis which have now metamorphosed into permit rooms or hardware stores. The customer who comes in for a cheap meal or a drink in the ambience that the thick glass jar, biscuit smells and teak furniture produce, can simply totter off to the next door Shetty. And while others lament the assisted death of sorts of what seemed to be an indelible piece of Mumbai's canvas, Irani owners simply point out that keeping the perceived romance of an Irani alive is an expensive affair.

The almost museum-like quality of Iranis has charmed hordes of Mumbaiites weary of assembly line, impersonal eateries with waiters eager to sweep clean tables of customers to accommodate the next ones. But quite afew Iranis proprietors, unable to keep step with time and rude economics, have simply hobbled off. Concedes New Empire's Khosravi: "Till the day I had the trade with me, I was Behrooz seth. Now..." Khosravi also chose to hand over his decade-old trade to the newest item on Mumbai's ever-expanding menu: the trans-American Big Daddy of cheap junk food the world over. Khosravi, in fact, is happy with the deal he has struck with McDonalds, as he says he knows who he is dealing with. "I wouldn't have gone in for a permit room.

Here, I know that it is a respectable family joint."McDonalds' own decision to buy over New Empire was based on the one principle that has catapulted this fast food joint to international big bucks. The location, said a company spokesperson, was "the best". As Khosravi was struggling to shoulder New Empire Hotel, the company stepped in to make him an offer he couldn't afford to refuse. And in Big Mac tradition, the new joint may well be a faithful replica of the Big Mac outlets theuniverse over, with their trademark sterile clean environments, uniformed personnel and staple burger-cola-chips fare.

The `cleanliness' bit, interestingly enough, was an argument hurled against the multi-hued political groupings protesting their entry into India. The city is already home to five McDonald outlets, and the sixth is by no means the last. Lines of hungry Mumbaiites waited for the recently inaugurated McDonald outlet at Bandra to open sesame. Perhaps, if there's anyone who will be threatened by the unstoppable march towards the McDonaldisation of one section of the city's populace, it is the Udipis, who, at one point in the city's history, gave the Iranis a run for their fare. As yet another ascending star is added to Mumbai's neon-lit pantheon, a chapter of the city's history quietly continues the act of folding up.

(Nandini Ramnath is a sub-editor with The Indian Express)