Coimbatore is starved of yuppie hangout joints..One of my friends in fact went to the extent of saying that the only place where people hung out ( or should it be 'hanged out'?? I wonder....) was a glorified supermarket..Her comment wasn't altogether without basis....yours truly himself has been seen frequenting that place with forlorn eyes and a chicken burger for company...
But Coimbatore does have a few attractions to match that of bigger cities. For instance, it has it's very own Cafe Coffee Day(Henceforth called CCD)!!!!! ( So you think that's not very impressive?? Wait till you get to Tirupathi or my hometown!) And it was to this place that my colleague and I found ourselves. We were looking for a place to just sit and relax. And we were tired of the glorified supermarket.
Now I've been to this CCD quite a few times...and it does have a reasonably decent crowd worth the price of the overpriced coffee they serve there. But on the last couple of occassions I'd been there, they had mysteriously been unable to serve Cappuccino - the cheapest item on the list. Whenever I would ask them, they would say that the machine had broken down or that they had run out of some ingredient..blah blah..you know, the kind of mumbo jumbo that personnel throw at you and then you have to nod your head in profound understanding unless you want to expose yourself for the ignorant customer that you actually are. So whenever they said "No Cappuccino", I would look for the next cheapest thing..that would cost 30 bucks. A Cappuccino costs 20 bucks (if it is available, that is).
So there we were, waiting for the menu card. The guy comes with a card, and I notice that the menu card has dramatically shrunk. Not in size, the card was of the same size. But there was lots more of blank space between the items on the list. There was no mention of Capuccino or any other 'ccino' in fact..Hell!! There was no item below 40 bucks on that list!!!! I very casually and coolly asked about the missing items..Pat came the technically bombastic reply. And equally as pat came two wise and profound nods of the head. The items which were priced at 40 went something on these lines:
Ethiopian Coffee
Kenyan Coffee
and something else..
That was it. Nothing more..the next level started at 50! We dint look further. I asked the guy what exactly was so Ethiopian and Kenyan about the coffee..He mentioned that one of them had a blueberry flavour and the other had a fruity flavour. I hadn't tasted blueberries before so I thought I would go for the one. My friend went for the other. We placed our orders.
20 minutes and a cigarette each later, we were staring down at two huge cups of coffee. However! the coffee filled only half of these huge cups. The cups were imprinted with bits and pieces of, I'm sure, doubtlessly significant pieces of coffee history. They hadn't left the saucers alone either. The saucer spoke of such weighty questions like why Arabs liked coffee and why coffee was called coffee. I am sure that many a CCD coffee drinker would have been enlightened by staring at his cup and saucer. But we werent interested in coffee history, we wanted our 40 bucks worth coffee!!! And this wasn't it. I sipped at my coffee tentatively. I didnt want to finish it all at one go. It tasted like ordinary coffee. Only, it was slightly stronger. There wasn't no blueberry or any other flavour. I asked my friend if his had any fruity flavour. He was relieved that I asked. He was wondering whether he was the only one with tasteless taste buds. This was ordinary coffee. Nothing remotely Ethiopian or Kenyan about it. It probably hadn't crossed the borders of Coimbatore leave alone reach the shores of distant Africa.
We stoically drank our cups of suffering all the same. I was determined to atleast have my share of people watching (OK OK!! I rephrase that. Woman watching!Leching! Call it what you want!!!!)
When we asked for the bill, the guy comes up and asks, "Sir, do you want the bill?" My friend and I can't believe our luck! "Not really..." I volunteer..The server grins sheepishly and says that he has misplaced the bill but that our bill has come upto 83 bucks. It wasn't enough that they were serving coffee for 40 bucks, they were even charging us for the fact that they were overcharging us. They called it service tax!
A coffee at our roadside tea-stall costs 5 bucks. CCD makes me pay 35 bucks more. And what do I get in the bargain? A chair, a round table, an absurdly huge umbrella over it, a roadside view and a glimpse of some of the fairer sights in town. Is it worth the price? I must admit:
YES!!!!
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