Coffee... elixir of life: a measly attempt at gratitude

I consider myself an expert in coffee and coffee related things... coz I tend to overrate myself. But on this topic I am much closer to the myth than I am on others.

I breathe and live coffee... I would trade anything that I have for a cup of good coffee... and if you don’t believe me… try me.

I tasted my first coffee when I was in my kindergarten and have never been as thankful. Since then, in my daily routine, I spend about 4 hours of the pointless 14 hrs that I am awake making and drinking coffee... and to the people who don’t know the norm its about 5-6 cups of coffee depending on how fast you drink it.

In face of these years of experience, I declare myself an authority in coffee and in my authority I see my responsibility educating you regarding the myths and truth of coffee.

Now I know this is a very controversial topic and some of my opinions might be debated and challenged and to those people who do, you need to know that your take on what I say here is as good as an empty cup of coffee to me (and for non-coffee lovers out there it means I am just not interested).

There is a lot that is said about coffee, but one of the most well documented concerns about coffee is its ill effects to ones health. Let us try to reason this out this from logical point of view. There has been no argument that coffee is a stimulant. Apparently it is this property of coffee that raises issues… at least that’s what we have been led to believe.

Physicians find it very easy to blame any ill effect to coffee coz of two reasons. One, almost everyone drinks coffee and two, no one gives it up. So any half brained doctor who bunked classes and spent time hitting on cute nurses instead of learning how to diagnose a cause would find refuge in blaming coffee for it. If coffee was really a cause for concern why would cafeterias in hospitals serve it? Why would doctors themselves consume it? Why doesn’t the govt slap huge taxes on it as in the case of smokes? Why wouldn’t the coffee packs carry a statutory warning?

Think about it… Dichotomy is thy proof.

I know a few doctors would argue that it’s all a matter of regulation.

Believe me… There is no thing as regulated coffee… just as there is no thing as regulated TV… but that again is a whole other discussion.

Coffee chains… now there is an example of stores , or more appropriately of people who ride their success on just a name. Coffee chains are glamorized benches that sell the image of coffee rather than coffee. They are more a lifestyle than a coffee shop. People like to be seen in coffee days and baristas and starbucks and they like to see themselves in them. It gives them a fake sense of what people call hip and hep. These places are about selling coffee as much as statutory warning on smokes is about warnings. I can accidentally spill some coffee beans and milk on the floor and make better coffee than any starbucks or coffee day. If you think I am being too critical then think about this… cold coffee. Who in their right mind would come up with such blasphemy? does that at all make sense to any coffee lover? The whole essence of coffee is to have it dark, have it strong and have it hot. It’s just a clever ruse by the coffee chains to rope in the unenlightened crowd to live their lifestyle. I just have one last thing to say to rest my case on how these coffee houses have no idea about the true feel of coffee… They sell Teas.

In my opinion coffee are very much like women (girls out there can relate the same to guys). A good cup of coffee such as a dawara of filter kaapi is like the wife everyone dreams of having… calm, strong and full of life. I can envision a cup of filter kaapi to be woman of substance, draped in a traditional saree, a mile long hair with jasmine flowers hanging thru its length, a nose ring shining radiantly but still quite not as brilliant as the radiance of her face, long earrings that would shine in the radiance and a bottu on her forehead that defines the perfect symmetry of her beauty delivering the final blow and sweeping you off your feet. If you think that’s too traditional for ones choice... pour the same in coffee mug or a cup… It would still taste the same… just as the perfect cup of coffee the perfect woman will knock you off your feet in any form… modern or traditional. Now that is the true feel of coffee.

Boredom

The generally accepted definition is when you have time to kill but you cant really find anything to kill it with. It is a condition when your brain turns down and refuses to boot up to even think of reasons to be up. A condition where in your reasoning contradicts and logic fails, to make you think sleeping is a waste of time but staying up and wasting time contemplating whether to get under the covers is somehow more productive. Seldom have I overcome this feeling, this vicious recursive sentiment doomed to make you sit hours in chair pondering reasons to get out of it.

It is time I took a stand. Time I broke the shackles and snatched my precious time from gnawing teeth of boredom. You might ask, so many years of servitude to this pervasive being, what hopes do i have now? What gives me the courage to fight it and what inspires me? The truth is that I have no idea. There comes a feeling once in a while that moves me to do something. Most of the times it generally is an itch that needs a scratch but sometimes it is an itch that needs a scratch. for those who dint catch the metaphor, the itch is the feeling of nothingness that will irk and annoy till i scratch it with a epiphany that 'Wait!.. I can do something about it'. So here I am writing about it.

This is a test... a test for blogging. Is blogging the answer? Is it the cure to the cancer of prosaic living? The more I ponder the more do i realize.. nah. Effectively at the end of it all i have managed to do is spend time sitting on chair doing something that amounts to nothing under the pretense of doing something interesting. so what good is blogging for if it is not the answer? I would sit and think about it but writing this nonsensical dribble has put my brain into overdrive and I have managed to bore myself. My brain is shutting down againnnnn

Mission Nuptial

What is it about marriage that gets ones parents more roused up and excited than the one getting married? I am in that stage of life where apparently i need to start thinking about (or like how my family would like it, acting on) finding the right companion for myself.
The most interesting part about this stage is that how a chain of events is set in motion by one small seemingly disconnected thing. a good friend of mine got married recently and my family went to wish him and his wife on that day. This apparently innocent little gathering brought about a wave of ideas and imagination to my otherwise little imaginative family. Well.. when i say family i should probably point out that it was mainly the feminine lot. the men are rarely as creative at seeing past the obvious.
The women figured now that one of my kind (bachelor and oblivious) had opened the can of worms, it was time to go fishing. Even though i could not be there to see my friend bid adieu to his single life, when he spent most of his time lazing through a house of commons, when he and everyone else around him would get inspired by the each other's indolence and when each would try to reach new levels of raw non veg humor, I could see the happenings as they would have occurred.
My so called friends talking to my parents and starting with the cliched and predictable comment "so when are you getting Raghu married aunty?". I did train my mom and sis well to answer "He is not ready yet.. he has some plans" and they would have brushed it off as if it were the last thing on their mind. But knowing my mom and sis as well as i do i know that it would have etched a mission statement on their brains.

I believe them when they say "don't worry. only when u are ready" but going by history i have learnt that moms and sis' have the belief that they know best and the right thing to do. The rest will turn around eventually. My mom is a work-o-holic. Not just office/home work but if she does not have enough work to keep her mind of 'her mind' then she will start getting "ideas". This generally does not bode well for me. Her instinct to get things moving will eventually come to a stage where I have choose between TV, movies, cereals for dinner, fart jokes, satirical blogs, and lack of sophistication and grow up, act like a matured should, and reshape my life to meet suit a lady.
As much as I want to avoid growing up this soon, I have to say that it would be wrong of me to deprive them of their pleasure to repay their gratitude for me. I should let them enjoy their sense of purpose.
There will come a time when I have run out of excuses, when my primitive sense for "Company and Companion" will overcome my common sense when I will have to take the plunge. I will end up matured and grown up leaving the child inside me far behind to the extent I can. I know I will one day end up with a the right girl for me, when I do I hope she can put up with the kid in me who still thinks it is funny to pull her plait and in return I get smacked on the head!