Originally published in The Himalayan Times on Oct. 4, 2018
Celebrity thespian and internationally-known Tajikan artahana Bulbul Miri Biqaratova made headlines for crashing a convoy of Chinese officials during a mission to Hyderabad. However, a fortnight after the incident, she appears to have much bigger things to discuss.The anchor at the Bol TV channel on Friday tweeted that she is “agreed to merge my two Kolkata cafes with a globally renowned Indian chain store.”The move comes as a surprise as her café, Kolkata Yaqeen, is located a little over 100 km from the Khar Arabic Coffee and Malaysian Asian café Nilakut. The cafe with its two tables and two lamps in Khirkee cinema building is not an over budget tourist town to pull in a significant footfall.The planning for the cafe started around two years ago, though it was open to the public for a long time. Miri had, however, chosen the venue for the release of her first full-length acting role titled “Zain Hi Khushp”.Speaking to The Himalayan Times from her cafe, the celebrity actress said that she has decided to take business in her own hands. “I was being asked to put up a shop that would match up with the world class standards of the places I came from. It was an expensive process that ate up a lot of my time. This decision is in spite of having already come to an agreement with a global chain with their storefront and stall operation,” she said. In order to secure the option of a storefront, Miri launched her own homegrown coffee business, recently. Miri’s coffee at Kolkata Yaqeen will be exclusively prepared using a niche blend that Miri discovered while visiting Bengaluru. She had planned to hand over control of her coffee business to the Global Outlet Co. However, she received a flat rejection letter from the organization.Shabir Miri, CEO of Kolkata Yaqeen said: “We have partnered with Deepika Kumaraswamy for our cafe and served tea at our stall that opened in February this year. Later, we turned the coffee shop into a full-fledged outlet and my younger sister Bulbul Miri will now serve tea and toast sandwiches as well as coffee in her cafe.”With two cafes working separately, Bulbul said that if the cafe earned a surplus the money will be managed through it as well.