Indiscreet charm of a coffee house

I like coffee houses. To be candid, I like places where people meet and talk for no other reason than they like to talk. Practical people, proud of their practicality, think most talk a waste of good time. A friend chose his company motto: Be a doer, not a talker. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that talking is doing. It is putting our time to good use. How is talking a kind of doing? 

Let me suggest two thoughts. I know of no better way to know a person than to talk (short, of course, of making love to one). I suppose two persons can look at each other and get instantly enamoured, but usually we talk, and talk a lot, to know each other. True we often talk trivial things, Virat Kohli’s bush or Katrina Kaif ’s coiffure. But at times we really connect and get a true glimpse of the other person

Then the miracle of a genuine relationship begins. The other point is less personal, but no less important. However superficially we talk, whether of politics or of office politics, however similar our interests or views, we always leave on the other an imprint of our different take. That difference is like leaven: it has the potential to change the other’s view, a little or a lot. It is for many people the key recurrent source of exposure to a new idea. 

Often we reject the other’s view cavalierly, without giving it further thought. Occasionally, however, the new idea stays, germinates and kicks off a new way of thinking. So I like talk, just talk, nothing useful or practical, perhaps something facile and frivolous, which still helps me connect and learn. I like places where people talk; especially I like coffee houses where robust conversation mingles with the aroma of strong java, and enthusiasm and brio overtake syllogism and precision. 

My first initiation to coffee houses was in Kolkata, to a spacious, bright Coffee Board café conveniently close to both my home and my university on College Street. It seemed forever buzzing with professors and students, journalists and scholars, authors and artists, vagrants and vagabonds. 

The visitors had one feature in common: they all wanted to be heard. If there was a quiet person among them, I didn’t meet him. Everybody talked, in unison and at cross purposes, sometimes cogently and always eagerly, frequently at higher and higher decibels when the discussion got heated. It was a fun place. The stairwell to the hall had cracks and needed repair, some tables were askew and some chairs were in disrepair, but the atmosphere was electric. 

The ambience was vibrant, the people lively if discordant. Even the waiters were just right: they recognized us and received us with amused tolerance, patient with our slow ordering and perpetual penury. I loved that coffee house. 

That affection prompted me to explore coffee houses in the many countries my work took me. From embassies and project offices I strayed into cafés in Bogota to Berlin, Kathmandu to Kuala Lumpur, Paris to Port au Prince, Manila to Mexico City. 

Sitting alone with an espresso, I watched the cavalcade of men and women sipping latte, smoking cigarettes, reading newspapers and, most of all, talking and laughing and sharing. They differed in look and style, but the essential business of exchanging messages and meanings remained unchanged. We all need to talk and connect. Decades later, I returned to Kolkata and, in a salute to my past, walked into another Coffee Board café in Jadavpur, in the CIT Market on Central Road. Compared to sparkling new coffee houses sprouting all over the country, this one retained the oldworld charm of a commodious hall, raucous with debate and discussion. 

The stairwell had cracks, the chairs were often askew and tables were in varying states of disrepair, but the ambience was familiar: people talked, animated and excited, fought over political stands and literary opinions, waved their hands and raised their voices, a strange bonhomie wafting over the hall like a familiar aroma. The coffee was indifferent, but I felt at home.