Now this story can
safely be told. Every secret has a shelf life and a century, oh sorry,
half a century is enough time for the secret to have outlived its secrecy. Soon
my youngest grand daughter is going to be nine years old, so it is a good
occasion to let one more secret out of the closet or cupboard as it may
be. If you are in the US you would like to call it a closet and in UK you would like to call
it a cupboard and in good old India we will call it an almirah or almari.
This is the story of
Triloki and Varsha who had met while travelling in an unreserved compartment of
the nondescript Patna Ranchi Express, way back in March 1967. Varsha was not
yet seventeen and Triloki was barely twenty one years old. After that journey
of nearly five or six hours, Triloki came to know the name and the place where
Varsha studied. Having gone back to the College hostel he soon took the services of
the Post and Telegraph department of the Government of India and sent a ten
paise Inland letter to Varsha. The letter started with a "Hi", which in those
days was a rather modern way of addressing a person. Then, letter writing was actually considered an art and good formal words were chosen, a good pen was used and the handwriting was usually neat. Remember, I am talking
about a bygone era which existed half a century ago.
So this epistle,
sorry letter, arrived one fine day and Varsha was quite taken aback to get a
letter from a boy. In those days The Ranchi Women's College Girls Hostel was a
fortress and letters both incoming and outgoing were censored. The Hostel Superintendent delivered the letters herself after opening each letter. The arrival of
this letter caused a mild panic attack in Varsha as she quickly went towards
her room which was shared by four girls. All her room mates gathered around her
to see the letter which was read out aloud by them in unison. The letter
which began with a Hi, ended with the name Cuckoo. Now who on earth had the
name of a bird Varsha wondered.
After much
deliberation it was decided that there was no harm in starting a correspondence
and therefore a reply to this letter was sent in an inland letter. The
drafting of the letter was the joint effort of all the four girls. The main
issue in the letter was about the name of the sender. Thus began a spate of never ending
friendly harmless letters between the two, until one day Triloki boldly asked
Varsha if she would like to meet him for a cup of coffee in Ranchi town.
Varsha had never
ever tasted coffee and was a rare tea drinker too. So far she had only been
drinking milk perforce twice in the day. Varsha could never let it be known
that she had never had coffee, so she accepted the offer. Everyone else
in her room too was excited at this invitation. The main problem was of the
escapade that was now to be planned.
The fortress had
very strict rules and these rules were meticulously followed. Four girls were
allowed to go out together twice in a month and that too only on Sundays.
Catching hold of four girls who would accompany Varsha was not a problem, but
ganging up like this was not a good idea, so it was decided that entry would be
made in the register of four girls leaving together, and once outside the gate, two of
the girls would go off on their own and Varsha and one friend would go to the
Coffee House. Varsha and Masuda took a rickshaw and went to Main Road Ranchi. Well, the main road of the town which had the big departmental store
Firayalal's, the mithai shops Jalajog and Churuwala, the Roy Studio and the
Zephyr Studio, three cinema halls and numerous restaurant on both sides of the road was actually named Main Road. I wonder if now it is named after some politician. The Nudine and Pinto restaurants were
close together, Kwality was a little away and Casanova was somewhere in the
centre of the Main Road. Casanova was a new restaurant and Triloki met her
outside the restaurant. When the door was opened by the door keeper who was a
burly six footer, Varsha was petrified as she felt as if she was entering
a cave. The lights were dim and the music was soft. Varsha felt safe with
Masuda and they quickly sat down to order their coffee. Coffee arrived pretty
soon in beautiful fine white porcelain cups with a lot of foam covered with a generous sprinkling
of drinking chocolate. This was called Espresso Coffee.
Even though the
coffee was sipped slowly, it eventually finished. The three of them continued
sitting and talked nineteen to the dozen. Looking back I do wonder
what Masuda my dear escort and room mate may have been feeling then. Friends
in those days never complained and remained very discreet and I won't be wrong
in saying that they almost "appeared" to be invisible.
Coming to think of it, I
don't even know what that cup of coffee cost. Those were the good old days of
chivalry, when if a boy invited a girl out then he paid the bill. There was not
even a passing thought of going Dutch. Well, times have changed, those days have gone
away and now everyone splits bills.
The love of coffee remains with both of us and fifty years since that
day, the memory of those days of sitting with one cup of coffee still remains
fresh in my memory. Even today we sit over a single cup of coffee for
hours but we do not talk much now, because talks do not remain talks they take on the form of arguments. No, we do not sit with our eyes glued to our
phones, we are just lost in our own thoughts or simply watch the world
go by and study the contrast that fifty years has made to the coffee drinking
world which includes us.
