Comme Ci, Comme Ca

They say I’m addicted to coffee. I am. But addiction isn’t a good enough word. It’s almost trivializing. Veneration is how I would rather put it. I revere coffee. If there is a Coffee God, I shall worship him/her. I began drinking coffee from the time I was 4 months old. Dad would give me a spoonful from his cup once in a while. I was weaned away from the habit later. It caught on again only when I turned 12. Since then, there has been no looking back.

I now have a different coffee mug for every day of the week. Coffee stains adorn everything from the computer table I’m sitting at to the assignments I turn in from time to time. I’m proud of them because to me they’re beautiful. Coffee is beautiful. According to most dictionaries, it is only a drink made from ground beans of some tropical shrub. It can’t be just that.

Coffee is life fit into a little cup. The froth on top stands for the superficial, material things of life. The brown smooth part tells you everything happens for a reason. The sugar cubes at the bottom, they are symbolic of true happiness which we shall all find in the end. Why otherwise do we turn to the drink every time we have a headache, heartache, when we’re stressed or just need to stay up late? That drink gives life.

I am a perfectionist, not a purist. I do not know all the fancy kinds of coffee there are in the world. I know good coffee when I drink it. I recognize the aroma of it from miles away. I wake up to the scent of Mum’s filter kaapi. Dad makes it even better than Mum. 

I look forward to my trips to Chennai for it is a chance to meet fellow coffee enthusiasts. That city rises to the chink of steel tumblers brimming with coffee, complete with a swirl of decoction on top. In Chennai, no time is inappropriate for a cup of coffee. It is the strongest connection I feel to my roots. That is how I’m convinced I’m a south Indian and I’m thankful for it.

I have known people to hate coffee. They know not what they are missing. They will learn one day. For Coffee conquers all.

I remember many odd things lately.

I remember that day I went to the park as a four-year old. It was right after the first day of pre-school. I recognized kids from my class and waved out to them.

I remember Patwardhan Uncle, who picked children up and dropped them at the nursery. I had to go with him one day when my parents were busy. He was bald and his one eye was smaller than the other. I remember crying and hitting him.

I remember a crow that constantly came visiting at our old house. It had a grey patch next to its beak.

I remember trying on everyone’s shoes as a little girl. I remember wondering when I would fit into them.

I remember running up and down the stairs of my building after coming home from school.

I remember being called ‘gudiya’ by my neighbours.

I remember my friends screaming out to me every evening. I remember screaming back and running out to play.

I remember going to the ‘snake-garden’ as my friends and I had named it. I don’t remember having spotted any snakes in there.

I remember the first time I wore a wristwatch. I remember feeling very important that day.

I remember the day I bought my guitar. I remember hugging it all the way home.

And now my memory hurts. What did y’all remember when you read this post? To not read my blog ever again? Banal.

Nothing shocks me these days. I’m turning numb. No cringing, crying or feeling sorry. I’m beginning to feel anesthetized. I’m beginning to feel like a true media student.

Almost everyday I travel by local trains and buses. They’re a part of my life now. I have come to see so much that I never imagined could happen in the world.

The world that I had grown up in was beautiful. Tragedy and trauma were fiction. They were only made up and shown in parallel cinema, where sorrow is glorified. Such sad things couldn’t possibly happen in life. That pink world is turning grey. No black or white, no right or wrong. Everything is a haze.

I feel like a modern day Buddha. He chanced to see age, death and decay one day and became an austere from that day on. Unfortunately, I do not have that liberty. He saw it from his royal carriage. I see it at the railway station-

An old man with no limbs sings songs of God. Some stop to listen, and give him money while others move on. I turn to look at the train schedule. Another old man is selling World Cup time tables so he can buy himself food. No one buys his time tables. I don’t either. A little girl no more than 10, tugs at my shirt and holds out her tiny hand. I shoo her away.

I climb the bridge and someone brushes against me indecently. I swear loudly as he disappears into the crowd. A few men act politely concerned but no one does anything.

Someone died while crossing the railway tracks. His blood-covered body is carried away on a stretcher. People are craning their necks to catch sight of it. I climb on.

I board the train. I take a seat and look out of the window. Trying not to think of what I saw and ignored. What I endured. What I overlooked. What I looked at and looked through. I try not to think of my insensitivity. Soon I will reach college. I will sign the attendance sheet. I will bunk a few lectures and hang with my friends. I will drink cold coffee and feel cold. Though not as cold as I have grown inside me.

I taste the graver side of life all in a days work. Then I crib about the weather…