A Lot Can Happen Over Coffee!

With deep reflection, one knows that one exists for another.

CCD: The place where the first world people strike conversations and realize that a lot can happen over coffee. A few days ago, I realized what all can genuinely happen. (Maybe not over coffee, rather ice cream and brownies, but never mind!)

I visited the place a few days ago (as previously mentioned) and ordered my dark passion. I paid the bill and took the seat next to the window in the multi storied Café Coffee Day complex. As I waited inside the air conditioned complex, for a cold delicacy to come and greet me, I gazed out of the window, only to find myself at a shallow place.

While I sat inside, away from, yet so close to the scorching heat outside, I saw what we see each day. Stray dogs barked, cows basked their thick skins, garbage flooded the streets and tired and unquenched mouths of several hawkers argued for an extra rupee. The scene was ironic. I had to sit inside the conditioned room to empathise with those under the sun! While I waited for ice cream, out there middle- classed people tried to lower down the price of the kulfi and falooda they wanted to relish.

Kulfi and falooda

When I stared right across the almost empty road, I could clearly see a beer shop. It was named ‘Imported Beer ki dukaan’. The location, the paint, the gate, the surroundings, the atmosphere, all spoke against the name of the shop. But who cared if it spoke against it, or in favor? Beer is beer. The poor man’s ticket to paradise, to heaven! I thought that each evening a crowd would be gathering there. By the time I’ll finish my order and leave for home, a poor beggar from the signal nearby, a wage worker from a construction site, a fifteen year old from a chicken stall and the falooda seller standing nearby would stand there. There, they would wait for their turn for the illegal beer shop to offer them their tickets for less than fifty rupees. Tickets that would take them away from reality, very away.

Sometimes I wonder if the government has the right to shut down the shops. Where the government offers taxes for the tiny bit of property they own and the little income they have, the shop offers them an open chance to curse and abuse to their heart’s content. Where the government wants to annex their illegal carts on the footpath, the shop gives them friends who empathize. Where the government shoves them deeper into the hell of debt, the shop offers them a carefree mind and soul. Where the government tells them that their life is a pain to the economy, the shop makes them feel the beauty of things that circle their life.

Who is better?

Which is better: Death by pain forever, or death by sudden pain with a joyful life? (Talking about the aftermath of drinking.)

In the end again, I finished my brownie bits, wiped the glass cup clean, cleaned my clean hands and mouth and got into the car. I left behind the hungry children, the sore hawkers, the hungry dogs. I walked away like everyone else- maybe a bit better, from the point of thinking moral. But bring moral?

No. Never. Isn’t easy.

And the reflections, the sadness, the urges of care and sympathy drove out of me, as the car drove out of the complex.