just coffee...

And yes this must be another of those stories or rather a story of (aided)self discovery that now-a- days have got in trend in bollywood’s “artsie” movies... but anyways adding to the already growing collection of them doesn’t harm anyone.. so here is mine...

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I am 26... just the other day i celebrated my birthday with the usual cup of coffee in the evening.. its not something i don’t do everyday but well it signified drinking in a new mug which i HAD to buy cause the maid being the " rajdhani express" that she is broke my ancient mug.. but never mind that it was time of a new beginning.. i lived in a small one BHK flat with a few things cramped about in as homely a way i could muster. With a couch and a small coffee cum dinner table and tv... that’s about where my world revolved around the little time i had to spare after the day at work..

As i cuddled down to my favourite spot on the sofa with a sepia mood and a cup of coffee, seeing the bubbles and foam at the edges and the thick brown liquid swishing the side as i cradled it reminded me of the “cafe days” 

T’was those vibrant years when one had little to worry about and lots of happiness and laughter to spread (even if i offered it in a junkyard sale i would have become rich!) on one of such gay years i was given the nod for coffee(took my parents quite a while.. fear of having a kidney failure young.. but i did manage to consume quite as much to compensate all those missed years of it!) and this particular shack like thing assembled with all  probable things  was where i had my first coffee (i make it sound like my first love) and so began the journey...i naturally upgraded to more cafe like places.. but always that sticky sweet coffee stuck somewhere within the knits... and so the journey began..

Despite the heavy monsoon rains i took my usual route from work towards a cafe near by. I made it a regular visit and sat by a seat beside the window.. staring at the rain and dreading the thought of going out and getting catty drenched. The sound of type writer made me turn around to get a glimpse of a man bend over a sheaf of papers with pepper gray hair.. and furiously scratching on the paper.. he looked up and smiled.. returning a polite smile i turned back to my mundane worries..  and so rest of the days followed by the same pattern of, the rain, coffee, and clicks of the type writer. Out of curiosity of what he typed i introduced myself.. as i looked him for the first time (not through all the sheaf of  papers he was already surrounded with) i was immediately struck my his intelligent bright eyes and the aquiline features which seemed to have been left untouched by time.. on my addressal  to him as dadu there was a sudden twinkle to those murky eyes..

And from then i never had my coffee alone.. dadu was always there with his type writer. He said he was writing a book. He was a collection of all kind of stories and advices. And a very good listener. A window into the past is what he was. More than an elderly person he had become a friend. A wise friend.  His tales of jungles where he worked ,of india after independence, of politics, of love, of people, of history, of places..you name it and he would never fail to surprise you with a witty remark. And there  always was coffee.. dadu opened up new windows with new scenes to stare,places where my mind had never wandered. And if hadn’t been for the “dadu” status i had already bestowed upon him, i would have been probably head over heels for him.(if only i had a time machine)

So went the many days and few months. Ever since those days of talks i have never enjoyed my coffee without a little dose of daduism (as i put, his stories which  always seemed to have a moral).and on 25^th august 2011 he never came.. like he had pulled a Houdini , vapourised , sublimed.. to my shocked disbelief i never knew his name nor where he lived. Nor did the cafe know anything. He would always be there in that corner seat before i came..with his precious type writer.. i never knew what happened of him,or may be some things are best left unsaid. if he still breathed the face of earth. I shall always miss the company of the dear old man who made me feel like a child and grown up all at the same time. I was surprised to the butterfly(i like to believe of beauty rather than a moth) he had turned me into from a mere caterpillar. And may be this is the reason for all his stories and witty one liners,cementing a pavement on which i would once walk on, on living by memory if rest fails(well,i will give him the credit of being part dumbeldore, at the very least). Those coffee aromared and rainy evenings were left behind. 

With every swish of that brown elixir(yes, for me its like water) frisked a memory just like a curling vapour, this was just the beginning of all the tales, but at the end of all those stories it was always.....

                                                  me and just coffee....