Chetta - two coffee

As a child, one of my favourite pastimes was the consumption of good quality tea and coffee.

So, when I moved to Chennai for college, I was eagerly awaiting easy access to quality Tamil filter coffee - maybe even Kumbakonam degree coffee.

Day 2 at the hostel, and I enter the mess (quite groggily) at 7 am. I make a beeline for the counter dispensing hot beverages, and am instantly awake.

In lieu of coffee decoction, I am confronted with a dark, burnt tasting liquid that resembles the 'liquid smoke' seasoning used in barbequing more than coffee.

Despondently, I fill up my glass halfway with the liquid, and add some milk and sugar. When mom calls, I grumble over the phone, complaining about the inaccessibility of the most fundamental staple of life - filter coffee. 

Switching to tea did not result in a better outlook. The tea was overly sweet, and lacked any flavour which could demarcate it from sweetened and heated milk.

Something had to be done - the great Beverage Quest had begun.

I started with the popular 'gazebo' in college. I placed an order for a 'strong coffee', and waited with bated breath. Only to be disappointed at the sweet beverage placed in front of me, which to it's credit did occasionally taste of coffee.

With it's array of chaat and snack vendors, the cozy nook behind the academic blocks seemed to be a more promising location. I, however, had forgotten the age-old saying - the higher the rise, the bigger they fall. My expectations were shattered (along with my teeth) by the veritable payasam I was given. 

Readers- at this point, I must introduce to you the love of my life. The one who has always been there for me, the one who truly has never let me down.

Cothas Coffee (not sponsored, by the way).

My earliest memories of coffee are of the heady aroma of this filter coffee powder spreading through the house, in the mornings, as my parents had their morning coffee.
The company even has the tagline - Once Cothas, Always Cothas.

So when I found a vending machine, ostensibly dispensing Cothas Coffee, I felt like my prayers had been answered. And - they were!
For the princely sum of 15 rupees, I had a paper cup of filter coffee that tasted mostly right. And after my evening theory lectures, standing in the corridor, basking in the evening sun with my Cothas coffee - I felt, just for a moment, back at home.

When I left home, I expected to be hit with homesickness. I expected to feel the pain of losing my homely comforts, to feel the pain of separation from my parents.
And I was hit by them - but I could deal with it, for I was prepared.
What I wasn't prepared for though, was the sudden pangs of sadness caused by inconsequential minutiae.

What I really wasn't prepared for was the way I clung on to these minutiae.
That Cothas Coffee machine didn't just dispense coffee - it drove away homesickness, and stress, and sadness. Talking to my mom over the phone with a cup of coffee - I could pretend that her voice wasn't being transmitted from a thousand kilometres away... and that made life a little easier.

As I forge ahead, through my second year at college, I find myself relying less on these floatation devices - the coffee in the mess is tolerable, and I ended up keeping a stash of tea bags to accompany my breakfast.
But - when I am in the vicinity, I do pay a visit to that coffee machine.

It's funny, what habits and quirks we pick up through our lives, isn't it?