New Delhi: Search engine giant Google on Tuesday, January 15, celebrated the birth anniversary of Sake Dean Mahomed who was the first Indian author to publish a book in English and later, to open an Indian restaurant in Britain.
Born in 1759 in Patna, 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 the royal.
In 1810 after moving to London, he opened the ‘Hindostanee Coffee House’, Britain’s first Indian restaurant. However, Mahomed was forced to close his luxurious restaurant in 1812.
He later moved his family to the beachside town of Brighton and opened a spa named ‘Mahomed’s Baths’ which offered luxurious herbal steam baths whose 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 also hangs in the Brighton Museum.
