A Love Affair with Coffee

Coffee makes all things well… right from the gorgeous aroma the filtered decoction to the warmth seeping through the glass into your fingertips and finally that sweet warm liquid going down your throat, spreading its heat towards your back before it disappears into the depths of your stomach…

The journey of that sip being one pure South Indian talisman of Belonging…

And then that special sense of community that gets tickled when that elderly couple asks if they could sit at my table, on the chairs opposite me, after noticing Rhea leave to college (for her final exam) and I stayed back to enjoy my filter kaapi #1. (But of course, they could!!)

‘Sense of Community’ because of that quick flick of eyes that spotted the ash smeared of our foreheads – a recognition of where we all had been before arriving for our coffee and brekkie.

That same recognition resurfaced as many of us spotted each other in the melee of patrons at that little idli-dosa-pongal-kaapi place, including many of the little ones who sported their foreheads with their innocent heads held high! Their childish pride at being able to receive the ash after standing in line, once a year, until they were old enough to receive their Eucharist. A sense of grown-up-ness that they could do what they saw other adults doing!

All these observations…

All these notes to myself…

All this, while I had a second cup of coffee before heading home to a busy workday.