Cafe Coffee Day

This is a piece I wrote many years ago and only a handful of friends have seen it. It feels only right to post this today, to put my love for CCD out there. 
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After a long time, I was at a Café Coffee Day today. I was looking to treat myself to one of their snacks to satiate my hunger.

 It was then that their cold coffee tempted me. I had given up on these about three years ago. (Due to severe acidity problems!)

I sat down to eat my sandwich which felt warm and comforting. When I was almost done, the tall cold glass of salvation arrived; the Tropical Iceberg! Yes, I had thrown caution to the winds given in. 

Picture this scene in the movie ‘Ratatouille’ where the food critic has one bite of this dish and his mind whooshes back several years to when he is in his mom’s kitchen eating her dish.

I HAD SUCH A MOMEMT.

One sip of the ‘Tropical Iceberg’ and I almost cried out loud. A million memories came flooding through!

Back right to the first time I tasted it. Almost 17 years ago.

Soumya is going to hate me for remembering this, but we had gone to college to collect our hall tickets for our Board exams. It was a very hot summer afternoon and we couldnt find a ride home. Fed up, she said we should try out the cold coffee at this new place Cafe Coffee Day. I said that I could never drink a 'cold' coffee. Coffee is such an important drink to us South Indians that putting ice in it seemed like sacrilege. She convinced me by adding that we could also cool off in the Air Conditioned café. 

Anyway, we decided to share one and she said that this was the best drink on the menu.  

Oh! My first sip and I fell in love with it. The coffee, the chocolate, the ice….! Loved everything about it!

There are of course, so many other memories of this particular coffee. 

It was THE drink at so many birthday treats during my Engineering days. Anytime we wanted to hang out with friends on a cool summer evening during the semester break, it was always with a ‘Tropical Iceberg’!

My brother Subhash and I enjoyed one sitting outside Forum Mall when we had gone to watch ‘Sarkar’. We felt so grown up having gone off to watch a movie by ourselves, getting coffee and all. Little did we know that some years later, we would both work at Bosch, right across the street!

It’s a coffee that’s also chocolate, cold yet comforting. I can’t wait to have my next one and add on to the memories!

P.S: When we took our daughter to Cafe Coffee Day when she was just about 6 months old, she lunged for my cold coffee. That's my daughter, alright!

Maa

This one is about my mother. I have wanted to write about her since my wedding, simply because, that's when I realised that our lives were following similar paths, literally too. Here's how.

By virtue of marriage, I moved from Basavanagudi to Malleswaram in Bangalore, just like my mother had. 

As I walked the streets, soaking in the old world charm, I wondered what she felt as a new bride. I went to the same Hopcoms for vegetables, to the same Coffee Works for my filter coffee powder, to the same Ganesha temple tucked away at the dead end of a road, smelling the same scents from the ancient trees, trying to gather it all in. It was as if I was retracing her steps. And, it felt good. 

Like my mother, I too moved cities because of my husband's job and now understand how hard it must have been. There were no luxuries like Movers and Packers, or company-paid hotel stay for weeks together until you set up your house. But she never complained, was always cheerful and made our home a happy place. Yet, here I was, complaining about lizards entering the house and kitchens without enough cupboards and stuff like that! Mom held everything together even in places where snakes were a common sight during the rains.

She was a great friend to many a people and enjoyed conversations with people of all ages. She loved having people over for lunches, dinners and breakfast even! I once had my friends over for a Masala Dosa breakfast. It was a sudden decision since yoga class got cancelled and I wanted to make good use of the morning; one friend was unwell and she was so happy to have been invited unexpectedly and fed that she twice said, 'I bless you for this’. I then knew why it gave my mom so much joy always. I called her and told her that I was able to do a bit of what she always does for others and how happy I felt. She just smiled. So many lessons to recognise from what we have grown up seeing everyday.

In Durjoy Dutta’s “Our Impossible Love”, the protagonist Aisha's mother tells her constantly to find herself as a woman, to find her strength and most importantly, to not just be like her. And Aisha tries, with all her might. Only to understand that her mother is strong, resilient and loving beyond words and she then knows what she  wants to be. She wants to be her mother. 

My mother too said similar things to me, aspire to do more, be more, do not let your life slip away while you are busy doing the mundane. Now, 4 months after losing her, I get what she taught without ever saying it. Be kind, gentle, loving, generous and forgiving. It continues to illuminate the lives of your loved ones long after you are gone.

I want to be her.