Fan’s fantasy fulfilled

When Parsiana tried to contact Boman Kohinoor, the 93-year-old owner of Bombay’s iconic Britannia Café regarding his meeting with the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge during their brief visit to Bombay, his son Afshin received the call. Since his father is rather hard of hearing, he requested the reporter to speak loudly. Kohinoor came on the line and asked who he was speaking to. On hearing the reporter’s name, he promptly announced "Your name means sweet” before the self-confessed diehard fan of British Royalty proceeded to describe Prince William and Duchess Catherine as "very, very simple and sweet, charming and handsome. I was awestruck.”

Afshin shared that he too was present in the room during the meeting but chose to remain in the background so that his father could savor his special moment. His take on the Royals was that they are "very humble,” that Prince William has a very "strong personality and will be the future king of England.” Calling himself the "one man army of Britannia,” Afshin described his working day at the Café from 5.15 a.m. to 5.15 p.m. as "12 hours on the run.”
Boman was not only invited to see the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, he was even transported from his home for the visit. "It’s such a privilege. I feel so lucky as there were (many) waiting to meet them and I was ushered in almost immediately,” he told Bombay Times (BT) of April 13, 2016.
Though the unscheduled meeting (the result of a video he had posted on a microblog site with a message for Prince William and his wife Catherine that had gone viral) lasted just 10 minutes, Kohinoor described it as being fun. "We talked and laughed and I wished them a rosy future. I requested them to give a hug and kiss to Prince George and Princess Charlotte and my regards to Prince Harry.” He also invited them for lunch with him but they excused themselves as they had a tight schedule. Naturally, he would have offered them his famed berry pulav, which is what Britannia is best known for, he told BT. "I told William and Kate it’s my wife’s prized recipe!”
The nonagenarian also requested the Royal couple to convey his regards to Queen Elizabeth II whom he had met in Bombay in 1961. "This was at the Mahalaxmi Race Course; we were in the members’ stand and I wished her a long, happy tenure. She has turned 90 and what a tenure — she has been the longest reigning Queen so far and has broken Queen Victoria’s record of 63 years,” he shared with BT.