Google doodle honours first man to launch Indian food in UK

New Delhi: Google's honourary doodle today was a nod to Anglo-Indian traveller and businessman Sake Dean Mahomed who not only became the first Indian author to publish a book in English, but would go on later, to open an Indian restaurant in England.

Born in 1759 in Patna, Sake Dean Mahomed, who came from Buxar knew much of alchemy and understood the techniques used to produce various soaps and shampoo.

Introducing the Indian cuisine to Great Britain, Mahomed went on to find success as the "The Shampooing Surgeon of Brighton," opening a spa in the British seaside town that attracted the rich and royal.

In 1810, Mahomed opened the Hindostanee Coffee House, Britain's first Indian restaurant, which was hailed by the then media reports as a place for nobility to enjoy hookah and Indian dishes of the highest perfection. Nonetheless, Mahomed was forced to close his luxurious restaurant in 1812 and sought to reinvent himself.

According to Google, "Moving his family to the beachside town of Brighton, he opened a spa named Mahomed's Baths offering luxurious herbal steam baths. His specialty was a combination of a steam bath and an Indian therapeutic massage-a treatment he named "shampooing" inspired by the Hindi word champissage meaning "a head massage." He also published a book about the therapeutic benefits of the treatment with testimonials from his patients. In 1822, King George IV appointed Mahomed as his personal 'shampooing surgeon', which greatly improved his business. A portrait of Mahomed hangs in the Brighton Museum, commemorating this man who helped merge the cultures of his two homelands."

The doodle itself shows a portraiture of Sake Dean Mahomed on a bottle surrounded by Indian herbs and spices.