You are a dog lover too, beta?,” she asked, just as I was discreetly smiling at the Shih Tzu pup who was seated snug on the chair a few feet away from me—all decked up with a pink tee, two ponytails and a happy smile on her face. “Yes auntie,” I quietly whispered back in a slow, shy tone—awkward, as if I was caught trying to sneak a piece of chocolate away from a neighbouring kid’s plate.
Everyone who knows me also knows that while I’m all for social conversations, I’m awfully quiet otherwise. Yet, the two hours I spent recently in the midst of four complete strangers left me with a memory to last a lifetime. The best part? It all started—and ended—with hearty laughter and mugs of varying forms of coffee.
A month ago, I stepped out for what was to be a morning meeting in Delhi’s Greater Kailash area. Even as I wrapped up my meet, the fresh breeze of gentle post-winter sunshine was too inviting for me to just head back home. Instead, I chose to head to the Blue Tokai cafe at the corner of the M-block market of Greater Kailash, and settled at a bright, sunny outdoor table to begin with.
As I matched the cheery weather with a coffee tonic and a butter croissant, I was joined at the adjacent table to the left by a young couple settled down to wait for a friend of theirs. We were subsequently joined by an elderly couple. Eventually, we found ourselves deep in conversation with each other. My coffee lay forgotten as I found out more about them—and the more I did, the more I shared too. It reminded me of a time when such interactions were normal.
Through that afternoon, I found out about how the young couple were set to get married soon. The elderly duo were, in fact, not a couple. They’d both lost their respective partners over the years, and live alone in their own apartments since their kids live in other cities all around the world. The gentleman grew up in erstwhile Calcutta, and reminisced a childhood of savouring his first beer at the iconic Trincas bar in Kolkata’s Park Street. “I have always been a stickler for good food, my dear. And Calcutta, you know, was the best city if you wanted a fancy meal—or something super cheap,” he told me.
His companion joined in to say that she was, for the most part, never too fond of food. “After I lost my husband two years ago, I began seeing videos online and started experimenting with food. Then, my friend here—who’s been sampling my food for a year now—said that we should also find out what the big deal about cafes is nowadays. That’s when we discovered the quiche here—it’s quite fun,” she said with cheery eyes.
I’ve gained very close friends at cafes, for example at Mayur Vihar’s unsuspecting Freakin’ Beans. It may not serve the highest-grade coffees, but you simply cannot deny its charm, and the old-school vibe of regulars all knowing each other. On the flipside, a conversation-starter cafe is nestled within the inimitable bar, Sidecar. On its first floor, Subko Coffee’s first tryst with Delhi is housed in an ambience where you’re tempted to sit and read by the large windows or strike up a conversation at the bar counter that flaunts the best of Subko’s coffees. In each such coffee joint, there’s a unique conversation to be found. To top it all off, none of it is ever without a hearty chat on comfort food. No wonder, then, that we spend so much of our times at our favourite corners around town.
Vernika Awal is a food writer who is known for her research-based articles through her blog ‘Delectable Reveries’