A SMALL COFFEE TALE

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.