Reminiscence over a cup of coffee

Note: This post is dedicated to Reny, my Brother, Mentor and Best Friend of all times :)

Ask me to name one thing I just can't live without...

Wake me up from the deep slumber and ask me this question, my answer will always be the same.. Coffee...

It all started too early, according to my Mom..

From the very days when I was a toddler and my late GrandDad used to dip little droplets from his steaming cup of morning espresso and giving me, because he couldn't just avoid my stare and my wide open toothless mouth towards his cup. 

My caffeine addiction and my Dad's hatred towards my addiction started almost during my pre-school days.. I remember sneaking back to the house next door because black coffee was a treat denied at home.. And there(next door) lived a pretty old granny who was always willing to cater to my whims and fancies, be it a sip of black coffee or banana leaves rolled and folded into a cone and filled with diced raw mango and mixed with salt, shallots and coconut oil :) Granny's skin tan was towards the darker shade and my Dad had this emotional blackmail weapon to me ' She is black because she is drinking all these cups of black coffee.. If you keep sneaking over and drink all these cups, you too will eventually become as dark as her"... It was those days when I, just like any other little girl, wanted to grow up as Cinderella :D And that was one of the toughest tests of life in the earliest days of innocence.. Good looks or Coffee? Couldn't sacrifice the growing temptation of a cup those days even when the so called 'ugly look disaster' was hanging like a sword on the top of my tiny head..

I grew up, and so did my addiction... The brand changed from home made roasted and powdered coffee powder to the ever loved 'Nescafe'... Mom's kitchen cupboard started to get filled with rows and rows of empty, washed n dried bottles of Nescafe..(it was too hard to throw them away).. And then the college days... Miles and miles away from home..Could survive without Mom's food, but couldn't with that ever refreshing cup of espresso.. And thus came my first demand to Dad.. to get me the first ever (personal) electric gadget in my life.. An electric kettle..for brewing coffee in the hostel room... (of course, he was too reluctant to buy me one).. And hostel life started getting better... Gossip sessions and midnight study hours over those steaming cups :) Many of my cherished friendships from the college days were born and eventually bonded over these steaming cups of espressos..

And then the biggest twist in the coffee love story... in terms of flavor.. It happened in Bangalore, back in October 2004.. I met my cousin whom I haven't met since our toddler days... We happened to be in Bangalore in the same time and our parents pushed us to talk to each other over the phone.. If I remember the story accurately, I was just too reluctant to call him up... With all my presumptions of a 'Bangalored' cousin... being so sure that we are not gonna get along... I rang him up(or was it you Reny?) on a Sunday afternoon with my 'why on earth am I forced to meet relatives here in Bangalore too!!' feeling hanging heavily in my mind.. And it was him, who on our first meeting, introduced me to Cafe Coffee Day and its Cappuccinos...From Day 1, we started getting along so well... with Reny and with Cappuccinos :) 

Life wasn't so smooth back then.. Freshly graduated and jobless in a city like Bangalore... When life seemed too unpredictable... All those walk-ins and flopped interviews... Jobless days and empty wallets.. Reny had a job those days, but he too was just starting his career...n his pay packet did not always allowed us to the luxury of a cappuccino through out the month.. Thus we discovered this amazing place... The Manipal Hospital canteen where you get to buy a cup of coffee without spending a fortune... That spot became over haven... To reboot after each gone awry interviews... There were days when I just wanted to quit my job hunt.. On the verge of tears, concluding myself that I will never get a job... I wouldn't have got through that toughest challenges in my life without his support and those steaming cups of filter coffee from Manipal :)

The shortest love story over a cup of coffee.. That too happened in Bangalore..When someone fell for my (according to him) perfectly brewed and mixed cup of coffee and couldn't resist asking whether I have any plans to get married in the near future.. It did not take too long to answer a 'No' because my priorities in life were way too different during those days..(Please don't start quizzing about the Hero.. I really have no clue on his whereabouts these days.. )

Last week.. 7 years....Sitting at the same Manipal hospital canteen with a steaming cup of filter coffee, I was just trying to sink in.. My eyes were blinded by tears, thinking of all those un-shed tears, when life felt like hell.... This time I had the money in my wallet to walk to the nearby Cafe coffee day and buy ourselves a Cappuccino Grande, but coffee still  tastes like heaven in Manipal.. It might be the flavor of those tears.. and the sweetness of those memories..and above all, of our lives not gone awry :)