A rabbit and the Art of brewing a coffee

i daresay i understand a bit about coffee. after all its been over 5 years since i began tinkering with expresso. so when i drove into coorg last week for further exploring coffee i felt as if i would be on familiar grounds.

nada. 

i was somewhat certain in my knowledge that extracting a great brew was all about the 15 bar pressure, the right grind, freshest bean, the roast date, good water, a clean machine and all that... i loved the inherent complexity, it felt as if i had a special skill, to get it all exactly right.

it seems all i really need is a simple filter cup, some hot water and ground beans. 

and time. 

in this last essential ingredient lies not just the secret of a good cuppa, but also the entire approach to life itself.

back home i would take a mere 4 to 5 minutes from switching on my machine to pouring out an expresso. out here the filter coffee takes nearly an hour as it slowly drips drop by drop. 

so whats actually happening...

way back when i was a wee little lad, i had a pet rabbit. frisky little fellow. but he had a rather bad habit. he liked to run and hide. when i  got back from school and he would go run and hide it was all fun and games, and i loved it. but at nightfall when i had to go fetch him indoors, for his own safety, mind you, and he went and hid behind this pile of tiles, it wasnt fun and games anymore. 

i would crouch and cajole and entreat, but the bugger squeezed himself deeper, always just a little beyond my reach. and i wud get really upset. it wud end up with me somehow reaching in and yanking hard at his ears, often bruising my wrists on those sharp tiles. 

then came diwali and with it came phatakas and kids being kids i found a solution to my nightly troubles. if it was taking too long i simply lit a cracker behind the tiles and the poor rabbit shot out from his hole, shit scared and half out of his wits. job well done, time to go home.

now lets think of the tiles as a coffee bean, and my rabbit as the delectable brew. and the point of it all was to extract the rabbit out of the tiles. 

the 15 bar pressure expresso machine is the equivalent of a lit cracker. light it up, hear the angry hiss and voila, the brew is pouring out. almost instantly.

the filter cup is the equivalent of me waiting patiently till the rabbit in his own good time wants to go indoors.

the question i am asking, is my expresso back home just as shit scared and half out of its wits??? 

Moon musings

i feel that the reason moon ranks so high among the things romantics cherish is that its glory, its mystique, its beauty, all, all of it is based on a reflected glory... the light that lights it up is not its own, not something thats within. it is entirely from someone else...

i am just a rock, floating around, barren and dark... you come around and fill me with light, with beauty, with purpose... and now the world finds me beautiful....

thats the very core of being in love ..

Essense of being a chauffer

its that kind of day when one wakes up and  knows for certain its going to be a good one. something in the air, maybe. but in my case its something in the room. well, two things, to be precise. aj is home from college and she and her delectable mom, mj, are busy fussing over the clothes for the upcoming cousin's wedding. having these two in a room is reason enough for my day to go well but things were destined to reach higher. i got promoted. the women needed to be at several places, shopping and stuff, and i was to be the chauffeur !!! happy happy... 

my duties were simple enough, drive, take them places, and then be out of sight till its time to drive again. that 'be out of sight' business is steeped in history. on a shopping trip i was once asked for my opinion on something simple... dont remember exactly, but something like what goes well with what... i gave it a thought and then gave my opinion. aj was shocked, mj was shocked, the shopkeeper was shocked, so was his assistant and also this ramdom shopper who happened to be there. pretty much everybody, truth be told. 

since then the stipulation that i drive and then disappear is pretty much part of the whole being a chauffer business. take it or we will uber it. 

well, one cant have everything, can one? life is like that. and i am taking it. happily.

Mystical Mist

i was young, in love, and desperately in need of some privacy with my loved one, and nature played cupid. years later we still reminisce the 'dhund wale din', the magical time in winters when nature enveloped you in a white sheet and nudged you to dare in plain sight. that the best we did was hold hands, or neck a bit may seem silly now, but back then that was being really brave and stupid. and we got our rushes. no denying. 

its years later now, this morning as i was driving i sensed a fog envelope me, it was the season's first and i smiled. its still holds the same mystique, the same romance. and as if on que, google music played 'yeh zamin ga rahi hai, yeh aasman ga raha hai, saath mere yeh sara jahan ga raha hai...'

it was a moment of pure magic