Coffee...My earliest memories of coffee is waking up to the smell of it as it permeated the house at about 5 in the morning... As amma (mother) offered her cup of love to get Appa's (father) day going... Appa would roll it back and forth like a Narasus coffee Ad ( A famous coffee brand in south India) and drink it piping hot until it would scald his tongue ...And as one would snuggle deeper in to the thin jamakalams (ground covers) and porvai (thin blankets), it swirled around you, the smell of it lulling you into a warm blanket of security and timelessness...
As i grew older, i would brave the early morning cold, and too impatient to wait for the coffee, climb the ricketty wooden ladder, onto the dangerous asbestos and over the ledge to get to the open terrace armed with a book to mug (study rote) from... and with the grey dawn just breaking... snuggle up beside the chimney as wafts of warm air and the smell of coffee lured me down again...
Paati (grand mother) would grind the beans sitting in the middle room between the kitchen and the Swami (god) room ... I remember the thrill of turning it, the crunching noise, the coarse mix coming out to be ground again... On a rare day, one was allowed a couple of turns at it...
And Paati's love for coffee... It was always a lota.( a small mug) 'Ennum Konjam kudendi Kalyani ...' And the lota would be tilted so as to not waste the precious last drop...
Then the rendam (second) coffee.. which of course meant it was a weaker version... The coffee powder was subjected to a second dose of hot water, obviously a lesser volume and mixed with the milk once boiled. But one drank the consolation prize all the same, pulling a face but not refusing the offer...Of course, the three 'o' clock afternoon coffee was a different affair and accompanied with some light snacks...
Appa's baptism of all the innumerable children that our house was blessed with, was to secretly walk across and at the earliest opportunity sneak a drop of coffee into their lips... (I am going to have the whole family jumping up to deny this but I have an elephantine memory for impressions, so i will stand my ground on this)... I have been a witness at least thrice...
When I got married and went into a tea drinking house, i felt like i had lost a personal wake up mantra... How I would long for that smell, taste and flavour until i almost felt sick... and babuji's mother would casually stroll in and say i need you for something and sneak me into her house and quickly make me a super coffee with ' vegam kudichuko' and i would like a cat that has licked some cream or like a man who has had a secret swag at his drink innocently swagger back... I could handle the innumerable pink teas for the day... I have had my coffee...
Years ago, when I was in the US and had dropped into Ramesh's place and saw him religiously grinding his beans and smelling it deep, and a few years ago, I saw Bala filtering the powder with a tissue to get the perfect taste ... these caffeine memories are forever etched in my memory... i grin I know what it means to be a coffee lover...
I have recently managed to like tea, the various teas without milk... but coffee is a lifetime of memories... an integral part of my existence, one that i can't just drink away...And when some old mama comes home and says ' A1 coffee' when i offer it to him, i have this stupid grin plastered on my face... I know I have arrived ... I recently stumbled on Narasus coffee powder in a store next to my place and it almost felt like Amma had moved in closer... I felt I had to call and tell her the news...
And everyday I ping a dear old pal... and we share a kaapi some days online...
A coffee talk with a friend got me started on this today ...
So did your kaapi make your day? Cappuccino? Kaapichino ? Kaapi ?
1 comment:
Vidhu, you took me back years and years. Lovely post. I could imagine the house, paati, your appa, amma, the asbestos, the terrace, the backyard. Everything. Loved it!
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