NOT FOR ME

I. Hate. Coffee.

These words weren’t supposed to go together in a sentence, if they were linked to me. I mean how could I hate coffee???

In case you don’t relate to this or fail to understand this, let me tell you about myself.

I was three when I took my first sip of this drink that tasted like it came right out of the Angel’s goblet. Hot. Bitter. Sweet. All at once. Wow! I knew I had discovered my addiction, but it wasn’t until I was in second standard that I actually caught onto it. That was the max my Mother could keep me away from my sweet poison.

‘Nandu,’ she cautioned my father, ‘this is not correct. You are spoiling her.’

‘Relax Mona, its just coffee! Besides, we make it mild and of milk only!’ Dad said, a coffee addict himself; and Mom knew she’d lost the battle.

Over the years, my coffee, and me, went through a lot of changes… and now, my coffee was strong, black, hot, and bitter; and I was… well, I was a teenager… What else can I say… What else needs to be said?

So I was now a girl who was always seen in coffee shops, with an espresso, and a cute guy occasionally… But I was waiting for my best friend that day. We were meeting after a gap of seven days… seven whole days! For people who SMS-ed each other first thing in the morning even before brushing their teeth, then called up each other on reaching their respective colleges, then met up in the evening for a cup of coffee, and still argued with their mothers’ sometimes for permission to meet for a late-night ice-cream, seven days was a time unbearable to stay away from each other! So there I was waiting for Ankita, and she came in fifteen minutes late… as usual…

‘Heyyyyyyyyyy!’ she said and spread her arms… and we engulfed each other in a bear hug.

‘Hieeeeeeeeee!’ I replied. ‘How have you been? And how was the tour?’

Oh didn’t I tell you? She had gone to Coorg… as part of the study tour organized by their college. She is doing architecture.

‘Missed you yaar…’ I said as we took our seats. And Ankita did something very uncharacteristic of her; she reached out and pulled my cheeks.

‘I missed you too yaar! We had so much fun! You would have loved it… there were so many photographic locations!! You would have loved it yaar…’

‘I know… ok now lets order first and then I want a blow-by-blow account of what you did!’ I said.

‘Ok, how about we both have espresso? Like we did on our ‘pre-result freak out’?’ Ankita suggested.

‘Sure! That’ll be cool,’ I said.

So we ordered two espressos and started chatting. Now everybody who has ever been to CCD knows what the espresso out there is like… they say if you are sensitive enough and if the coffee is hot enough, you get a kick out of it, if you drink it in one sip, like a Tequila; its so concentrated and bitter.

Ankita started telling me memoirs of the trip, right from the minute they boarded the train. From all that she told me, I gathered the best part of the tour was the two nights they spent in the train! What with everybody staying up the whole night and playing ‘truth n’ dare’… That’s one game I still haven’t grown out of… or we, as in my Old World Friends, haven’t grown out of. I cant remember one time when we all met and didn’t end up playing atleast a few rounds of ‘truth n’ dare’… and as it turned out, it was Ankita’s idea for sure; and everybody loved it.

‘And then at one point the bottle pointed out to Prajak,’ she said.

‘Oh no, not again!’ I said. I hadn’t met even one of her friends actually, but I would easily spot them on a crowded street if I were to see them… such is the magic of Ankita's anecdotes. I already knew them all like they were my friends… who did what, who liked who, who was the idiot, who was the ‘poor me’, who was the ‘wanna be’, and who was the joker… of course, it was Prajak. So I could imagine what must have happened, and I started laughing; but nothing prepared me for what she told me.

‘No no! Listen!’ Ankita said. ‘He chose dare; so one of the guys dared him to pick out any girl at random in our class and propose to her!’

‘No way!’ I said.

‘No really! And you won’t believe, he picked out Pooja, and oh my God! He proposed to her so so sweetly! He got down on one knee and all! We were all dumb-struck! For a moment after he finished, we were all just staring at them. Even Pooja was looking like she’ll drop her jaw to the floor any minute. And then he just got up and went and sat on the seat again, and we all started clapping and cheering!’

‘Really!’ I said; I couldn’t believe it either.

‘Ya…’

And then she went on to describe everything… how they reached an hour late; checked into their hotels, had food and headed straight for their rooms as they were all dead tired; then went on their first study the next day; came back home in pouring rain… and on and on it went till almost quarter to eight. Finally it was time to leave. We paid the bill and went to the parking area across the street. Ankita was waiting for a rickshaw. I opened the dickey of my Activa and threw my wallet in it. I removed the scarf and was tying it around my face when I suddenly heard someone scream out my name. I turned around. It was Ankita. She crossed the street and ran up to me.

‘Are you nuts or what?’ I said. ‘What happened?’

‘Arre I got you something and forgot to give it to you!’ she said. She fished into her hand bag and removed two small packets.

‘What is this?’ I said as I took the packets from her; and answered my own question before she could… the aroma was not one which I wouldn’t recognize, and we both ended up screaming together gleefully;

‘Coffee!’

‘Ya,’ she said.

‘Wow!’ I said and opened one of the packets. I smelled the coffee and within a minute I was in heaven. ‘God! That smells almost divine!’ I said. I smelled again. ‘Yummy!’

‘I knew you would like it! I was hunting for a souvenir for you all over! But nothing seemed to strike a chord… and then on our last tour, we were having food and I smelled coffee. And you won’t believe, I followed the smell and traced it to this really tiny shop, like a kiosk. They were selling hand-ground coffee, and I knew I just had to buy it! So I bought two packets for you and two for me.’

‘Oh my God! That’s so sweet of you! Thanks!’ I said and engulfed her into a bear hug. She hugged me back.

‘By the way, don’t mix them up. They are not same. The one with the red rubber band is ‘Chicory mixed coffee’, and the other is plain coffee,’ she said; and immediately I opened the other packet and smelled that too.

‘Hmm… smells almost the same,’ I said.

‘That ‘almost’ makes all the difference!’ she remarked and I smiled.

‘Wowie, thanks yaar!’ I said. Just then a rickshaw slowed down next to us.

‘Aana hai madam?’ (You looking for a rickshaw?) The guy asked.

‘Haan haan,’ Ankita said as she hurriedly got into the rickshaw.

‘Call me!’ she called out as the rickshaw drove off. I gave her the thumbs up.

I got home and couldn’t wait to finish dinner. Mom was rather surprised to see me in the kitchen after we were done.

‘What are you doing?’ she asked.

‘Making coffee; it’s quite cold.’ I replied without looking at her.

‘Deva! Wachav re baba!’ (Oh God! Save me!) She said as she walked back to the bedroom and closed the door.

I poured the steaming hot ‘Chicory mixed coffee’ into my favourite bright red mug and washed the vessel. I cleared the counter, turned the light off and walked back to my room. I was getting ready to enjoy a late night of coffee and reading, snuggled in my blanket. Mom and Dad were already in bed, trying to sleep as the cold bit into them.

I found my iPod and turned it on. Ah! What luck! My favourite song played on the shuffle list. ‘Perfect!’ I thought as I fluffed my pillow. I arranged the small stool right net to my bed and placed my cell and my coffee mug onto it. Then I got into bed and pulled the cover till my shoulders. I opened the book and took the mug in my hand.

‘This is life!’ I said to myself and took my first sip of the coffee.

I spat it back into the mug.

‘Aaaargh!’ I said as I wiped my mouth to the back of my sleeve. I looked at the coffee like it was poison. I smelled it and looked at it again. I tried another sip, a tiny one this time, and spat it back again. I set the mug aside and immediately picked up my cell. I looked at the watch. Eleven-fifty. ‘I don’t care,’ I said as I opened the message window.

‘wht shit hv u givn me as souvenir? U tryna kil me or wht?’ I typed and sent it to Ankita.

‘wht?’ came the reply, after five minutes

‘wht is tht chicory stuf suposed 2 b?’ I replied again.

‘u din lik it?’

‘I HATE IT MOR THAN ANYTHING I HAVE EVER TASTED! ITS DISGUSTING!’ I replied.

‘thts weird. ppl luv it. funy u dnt… n u say u r adictd 2 coffee.’ Came the reply.

‘YA RIGHT!’ I shouted.

‘Mrunal! Shut up!’ came the reply, this time from my parent’s bedroom.

‘Ya ya!’ I said and threw the blanket off me. I went inside the kitchen and switched the light on. I poured the entire mug right into the basin and flushed it. I rinsed the mug and set it on the counter, inverted, to drain off the water. I opened the refrigerator and took the half finished Dairy Milk bar. I munched onto it irritatedly… but the chocolate soon took over me and I got engrossed in the book and slept off sometime around two-thirty.

For the first time in my life, I got up and didn’t have coffee the next day. It took me several weeks to start drinking coffee again… and for a few days, mom was in heaven. Everytime I looked at a mug of coffee or passed a coffee shop or saw some advertisement of Bru or NesCafe, my mouth screwed up in the most difficult way and I turned away from whatever it was that had reminded me of the coffee.

‘God! What happened to you yaar?’ Ankita asked me, the day after my ‘Chicory mixed coffee’ disaster, over the phone. She was laughing her guts off.

‘Nothing,’ I said; ‘but I hated whatever it was that you gave me. And one thing’s for sure, I like coffee, but chicory is not for me,’ I said, and Ankita laughed more…