BROWN BREW

We South Indians abide by our morning coffee.Not just some coffee-very particularly filter coffee:frothy,foamy,brown,strong,slightly bitter with a sweet after-taste.

Words arent enough to describe our relish for coffee dear coffee.When a guest arrives he is offered a glass of coffee even before water.Not a cup of coffee,George m'boy,a glass of coffee.A small stainless steel glass placed in a small stainless steel cup.Let the Chinese keep all their porcelein,we will mine out all the iron from Kudremukha to quench our thirst for stainless steel flavoured frothy,foamy,brown,strong,slightly bitter with a sweet after-taste coffee.

Stainless steel flavoured frothy,foamy,brown,strong,slightly bitter with a sweet after-taste coffee wakes us from our nocturnal slumber.A morning woken up to the chocolatey smell pervading through the house is a morning well woken up to.The aroma sneaks in through the nostrils,somehow reaches the medulla oblongata and stimulates it to escalate my need for the beverage to such an extent that all my morninng ablutions are carried out quickly and even during my prayers i can do nothing but thank god for bestowing mankind with coffee and making the world bearable.Then as i reach out for my coffee i can't but feel a strong surge of love for my mummy dear for making such excellent coffee.Every south indian woman every morning boils water and pours it into a coffee powder containing filter- a quintessential of every south indian household-and  leaves it for a while to trickle down through the tiny holes into the lower container.Till then she washes the front yard and decorates it with white rangoli.By then the filtrate called the decoction is collected in the lower container which is mixed with milk and sugar,boiled and poured into a glass from quite a distance so as to produce the necessary foam at the top.

The sugary,chocolatey liquid steaming hot is best consumed steaming hot.The taste of this coffee on a blistered tongue is unrivalled.It travels down your esophagus,soothing and clearing your throat and reaches your stomach where it makes a smooth landing filling that muscular sack much better than you would expect of a liquid.Even your tummy dear quivers with the joy of containing such a heavenly fluid!!!

Also our night slumber is brought about by stainless steel flavoured frothy,foamy,brown,strong,slightly bitter with a sweet after-taste coffee.Caffeine stimulates you?Makes you feel awake?Bull shit!!Just see us sleep after a glass of hot filter coffee.

Other than this,any hour of the day is coffee hour.Feeling bored,drink coffee.Woke from siesta,drink coffee.Lights out,nothing to do-drink coffee.Headache?Drink coffee.Any season is coffee season:coffee in rains accompanied with bombai bonda-totally scrumptious.Coffee in winter with a novel,a rug over your legs and roasted kaju:out of this world.Coffee in summer out in the balcony on the swing:delightful.Non-south indians have a misconception that we are obsessed with idli-dosa and people are like,"Din me kitne baar idli-dosa khate ho?"

Ask that for coffee,people.That's more sensible.Those who have tasted mere ghar ki coffee cant stop raving about it.This same coffee is sold in the market at 90 rs per cup!!!The experience of coffee at my home is priceless ;)

Just Google it.You would get a lot about the health benefits of coffee which i would not bore you with.Also the residue in the coffee filter and the stale decoction are not wasted:they are extremely good moisturisers which are used to wash the hair and scrubbed onto the skin leaving you with lustrous black hair and radiant skin.

One in your lifetime do taste this coffee.Maybe in a small canteen amidst the Western Ghats surrounded by virgin forests interspersed with coffee plantations.Or at a small cafe somewhere in Bengaluru with the rain pouring.Or badger your South Indian friend till they invite you over for coffee. ;) :)

But taste you should. ;) (y)

 

Filter Coffe as served in CTR Bangalore.

ME AND MY LOVE AFFAIR

I am a lovely person and I admit I have had numerous love affairs.Many scandalous,numerous fleeting and a couple long-standing ones.

Now come,come.Given all your fertile imaginations out there it makes it necessary for me to mention that all these affairs are not with humans.No sir, not a single affair with a human.

My first and most lasting love affair has been and continues with:books.

Books of all shapes,sizes,colours,genres and smells.When i was a toddler,my momma used to bring those thin books with huge colourful pictures depicting the ideal daily routine and with captions in Kannada script.She would read out to me and i would repeat and this continued till a time when i had all the captions of the respective pictures by heart.A funny incident that is well reminisced  in family circles is  when i, picking up a book sat down studiously before my uncle and began reciting the captions as though reading a book and my bewildered uncle overwhelmed to see his 3 year old niece deciphering the curled-as-jalebi Kannada letters brought the entire household into the hall only to find my mother bend over with uncontrollable,unending, speechless laughter at how convincingly studious her daughter can appear. 

That initial acquaintance with books i really enjoyed.And i didn't want it to end.So as i grew up and learned to read i developed a voracious appetite for reading.Lying down,sitting up,eating,watching tv,I had to read:be it individual letters,letters strung together to form words or words arrayed to form sentences or sentences woven together to form text-I HAD TO READ IT.Be it in books,on t-shirts,on walls,posters,products-written words make sense and i had to comprehend it.

But the joy of reading words out of books is undoubtably unmatched.The feel of the book on your hands,the rustle of its pages in your ear,the aroma of the pages wrapping around you and the words resounding in your head:all of this is certainly unique to reading books.I have tried reading soft copies but the experience is nowhere as thrilling.

Beginning with my first novel-an abridged version of Iliad and Odyssey- at the age of 7,there was no looking back.I gobbled up Enid Blyton,gulped in Ruskin Bond,drunk in Rudyard Kipling,crammed in J.K.Rowling,guzzled down Mario Puzo and devoured A.C.Doyle.

To prove the ingenuity of my feelings for books,I can well describe to you the three stages i went through falling in love:

1.Dunno what drew me to books but there definitely was attraction-sizzling chemistry.I would always be aware of its presence if a book was about me,stealing glances and studying in those stolen glances all that i could of its appearance.It would linger in my memory,every breath i took reminding me i have still to read it.

2.When i would at last get my hands on the book....i could just not keep my hands off it. Ishhh...the way it fills my mind,numbs me to the world,keeps me to it-all to it and the way i cant stay away from it till i have read it COMPLETELY like in COMPLETELY ...haiii

Promise: never has a guy succeded in doing this to me :P :D

3.And once i am done reading i cant but keep thinking of the book,the characters,the events and fantasize about what i would be doing if i were a part of the plot.I wish to read it again,go over all my favourite parts.It then becomes a part of a sweet memory which when remembered brings a smile to my lips.

And yeah this one IS a scandalous affair.You have No idea how much my family opposed my involvement with books.But kon samjhaye...pyaar andha hota hai... ;) And thats exactly what their argument was:you will go blind reading at this rate!!!

Crossword at Alkapuri,Vadodara

I knew my books which have always been a reliable companion to me throughout my life would bring out a solution to my weakening eyesight and sure enough I stumbled across yoga and naturopathy books which helped me stabilize my aankhon ka number.

Now my liaison with books will be incomplete without mentioning some of the highs.The first high lasted years long:my fling with the Harry Potter series. Like every other Potter maniac i did believe in the existence of a magical world till a certain age and used to keep looking over my shoulder at the window expecting an owl to bring me my letter of admission to Hogwarts.

Then i read Mario Puzo with his slick Italian dons, gun laden Mafia and love i did reading those books.

Now i have fallen for the writings of two beautiful women: Jhumpa Lahiri and Anita Nair.Another woman to reckon with is Agatha Christie.The neatness with which she writes crime stories is unparalleled.To know more about my appreciation of their works click here.

I am still waiting to read numerous other books,to relish a dip into diverse minds and lead several parallel lives in my mind.

For the record my other flings include dance,acting, painting, etc.

One of my more recent ones and a rather 'serious' love is my passion for wildlife. This love for animals was within me but has blossomed over the last few years and now i combine it with my passion for writing and poems.

So i end this with the hope that i am no longer bombarded with questions regarding my love life-all secrets have been revealed today people...there is nothing more to hide;)