London Diaries - Tinder Box Cafe

I really did not bother looking at the Café until my friend started working here.
Honestly, I never knew it existed despite my numerous visits to Paperchase – an upscale stationery store which housed the Café on its first floor.

Now seriously, who would want to walk into a stationery store, get your hands on some fancy fountain pens and head straight for a cup of coffee?

Apparently, not many did that.

It was the warmth of the coffee that held people close.

My first visit to Tinderbox was quite unintentional.
My friend, Anupa, a ball of happiness, insisted that I get out more often and enjoy the sun. Arshad, another friend of mine who is an architect, thought it was a great idea to fire up his synapses of creativity.

The walk down Tottenham Court Road has always been refreshing. It is unlikely that you don’t bump into a bunch of students talking about the sordid reality of tight coursework submissions. We had University College London located on one end, AA School of Architecture which was right around the corner & the Shoppers’ paradise Oxford Street just a stone-throw away to feed on the patronage of mentally disturbed students.

So you enter the store...walk past the aisle of greeting cards…go up the stair case to a viewing gallery of fountain pens…resist your temptation to buy one…walk right away in the opposite direction to enter the café.

Now, the tilling machine usually looks black & white like above, unless it is Nithu taking your order. For all those who are unaware, Nithila ‘Nithu’ is my short haired friend who is full of smiles & colour. A Barista by the day & an architect at night, she is the Batgirl who juggles multiple roles (oh and she dresses up in black as well!).

Being the low lives that Anupa had dragged us down to, we decided to have some fun.
We started off complaining about the lack of creativity in the menu when we could not spot Sambar Vada. Nithu being the darling she was, did not chase us away.

I asked for some Ice tea with extra ‘love’. The damsel was nice enough not to charge me for that :*.

But you see, ordering at Tinderbox can be quite frustrating.

You have Nithu with her gorgeous dimples looking right at you. You have Elena who is working on the coffee machine thingy making that ‘Krrrrrrrrrrr’ noise from the steam valve which is ever satisfying to hear. You have the aroma of freshly prepared coffee that forces your eyes shut but a split second later, the caffeine kicks in and your eye balls pop wide open. Boy oh boy!

We collect our orders and walk down the seating area with the sunshine on our backs.

A sublime reality is what I can define my time there.

I look out the viewing gallery to see people walk out of Goodge Street Tube station. Meanwhile, Nithu was kind enough to supplement my Iced tea with a warm hug because she did not conjure a heart shaped foam like she did for Arshad (I know..Iced tea doesn't have foam and I was probably her meanest customer). 

I hate to make this comparison, but London reminds me so much of Bombay.

Crowded city, people always on the run and a dense network of public rail system which forms the lifeline.

Oh baby!
Come back soon.

Have Mercy!

For 8 years my mind was free of chaos. I used to call myself a free stallion and moved where the winds took me. I felt safe, sound & secure. I assumed there were fewer things that could stop me. Until I met the Leopardess.

Most men desire for a woman who is a Lioness.
They expect her to walk with majestic grandeur. They want her to stick to her pride. They would want her growl at other males who are ever trying to mate with her. But she isn’t one of those.

She is elusive and moves fast. She gives you time just enough to get a glimpse of those spots on her perfect shiny fur. She can lure a man just by locking her gaze and hence doesn’t find the need to have a partner. She is desirable and moves like a mirage.

You try to reach out, hold her in arms and before you know it, she is on top of you and goes straight for your throat. You wished you had never met her!

She is unlike any other woman I have met. She strikes fear in the hearts of the men who seek her like the Moby Dick of the Deep seas. Some fear she would never be theirs. A few have (or had!) the privilege to fear she might walk of their lives.  For most…they fear that she isn’t real & whatever is happening is bound to end soon.

She pumps you with greed like how the Venus fly traps works. You yearn to get close to her and want to know what it feels like to be inside her. She pulls you close by the whiff of her shampoo & Eau De Toilette. By the time you think you are going back for more, you realize you forget to breathe.

She ruins your sleep and makes you go berserk like she is cocaine. You want to grip her clothes & hold her close not because you want her. You are addicted to the image of her breathing into you. You feel like there is nothing more in this world that can ever make you happy. You try to pursue her and end up staying up till dawn.

My dear Leopardess…Please have mercy.
 Let me go...but not yet!

I pray that you are bitch!

I take a vow to never look at you.  I try not to gawk at you. I take a stand to ignore you but you say, ‘Hi’. I am speechless and back to square one.
Moving on was never this difficult. I pray that you are a bitch.

I swear to never think of you. I am determined not to fall for you. I take a stand to ignore you but you make eye-contact with me amongst a dozen others & give me that smile. I am smitten & back to square one.
Moving on was never this difficult. I pray that you are a bitch.

I want to be mean to you. I want to fill you with rebuke. I try to look at you with disdain but your puppy dog eyes tell me you are hungry. I can’t help but prepare a warm meal for you & get back to square one.
Moving on was never this difficult. I pray that you are a bitch.

I try to be a dick. I stop looking at you saying you aren’t curvy enough. I avoid you saying you aren’t voluptuous enough but then you tie up your hair & brush away your forelocks. My jaws drop open & I get back to square one.

I am determined to be a dick. I swear not to entertain you. But you tell me you like Ferrero Rocher & I suddenly wish I had chocolate syrup oozing through my veins. I got back to square one a long time ago!

Moving on was never this difficult. I pray that you are a bitch…but you are such a darling!

Move on?

I have often been told by my friends to move on. 

“You need to let go…she doesn’t really care about you”
“You are wasting your time”
“You would have been dating someone by now had you moved on”

But life being what it has always been - complicated & confusing, I have been unable to take that step forward. I tell my friends that it isn’t as easy as it looks like. Then somebody told me this.

“Moving on is difficult for people who have been in a relationship…not for somebody who was ok with staring at her until she telepathically got the message”.

I couldn’t help but laugh at what was said. For the first time in my life, truth was bitter sweet.

Thing is, I could never really decide what I enjoyed more – Whether to bask in the hope that she will someday come around, or to be lead on in an endless abyss of her pursuit knowing that she will never be yours.

To be honest,I did try my best to move on.

I woke up one fine day, swore to never think about her & put on my best I-don’t-care-about-the-world look. While she did the exact same thing (not to think about me or give a damn), the mere fact that she locked her gaze with mine for an arc second changed it all. I was back to being obsessed with her again. I felt like a man curled up in a dark chamber who is ever happy by the small glimpses of sunlight than the bright meadows outside.

It is never a question of her being the ‘right’ one. In all probability, she isn’t. In majority of the cases, she is perhaps the one biggest mistake you need to make to turn your life upside down. Yet…she is the only person who could fill up that void which you had always hoped to fulfill. You would miss her for the rest of your life even if you had'nt met. You could have all the riches, loads of luck, abundance in adventure & yet your life would fall short if she wasn’t a part of it.

Should I try any harder?
Nah. I think it should happen as it goes.
Life feels perfect with her occasional smiles & millisecond glimpses. Why bother ruin it in haste or move on?

Back to School!

I was walking back to the tube station along with Manny when he suddenly asked, ’So how does it feel like…getting back to school?’.

Honestly, I was unprepared to answer that question. It was something I myself dreaded to ask my conscience.

Doing my masters’ in London happened quite by chance. I never really wanted a postgraduate degree to tell me what to do with my life. But alas, it was the only way I could start over, so here I am. Alone, all by myself & armed with nothing but a fake smile which I am forced to flash for the rest of the day…the same way I started my undergrad 8 years. Only things were different back then.

When I was 18, I never went around asking people if I could add them on facebook or linkedin.
When I was 18, I never had trouble remembering names no matter how weird they got.
When I was 18, my classmates knew I was one of them when they saw me gawking at a girl’s ass, not because I had an opinion to share about the markets.
When I was 18, I had the liberty to punch a guy in his face & could expect the same from him.
I am now 25…a seemingly better man than what I was 8 years ago…but feeling claustrophobic than ever. Growing up to a mature outlook has never been such a pain in the ass.

A great deal of academic institutions give importance to classroom diversity. Apart from the global perspective of classroom participation, there is an underlying (or rather much superficial) motive to let people network across hemispheres. I had a very dear senior of mine who said it would be an experience of a lifetime.

But with so much of emphasis on ‘networking’ & beer weekends, I ask myself ‘How many of them are actually willing take a walk with me instead?’, ‘How many would rather choose to count the stars with me & still not get bored?’ & more importantly ‘How many would be willing to act as my wingman to ask my crush out for dinner?’.
I doubt if there would be any. Why?
Cuz we are supposed to be big boys (& girls)!

Since when did making friends become that difficult? Or am I really making friends out here?
Have I reached a stage where I am diminished to a stage of an asset where people are willing to invest their time subject to ‘returns’?

No wonder people need a software to keep track of who I am & what I do.

I had the courage to admit to Helen that of all the people I had added in facebook in the last few days, fewer actually gave a f*** about me.

She just smiled.
Perhaps she knew what I meant. Perhaps she agreed with me on some level.
I am guessing it is probably the same with each of our friends on facebook.
Looks like we have been trying too hard to diminish ‘genuine’ human interactions.

She is the Third Kind

It was a warm summer evening in the winding streets of Cuffe Parade, Mumbai.
It is filled with old couples going out for a walk whose wrinkles are always full of life. A simple ‘Hi..’ to a Parsi lady in her 80s is invariably bound to earn you a vibrant smile in reply. Sundays are always the same.

Just when I thought it couldn’t get any different, I saw her for the first time.

She was out for a walk, a rather unusual thing for a woman her age who normally prefer to jog.

She was plugged to her Ipod making her oblivious of the world around.

Her smile was peculiar. It was as if someone was whispering something to her she had been waiting to hear all her life. It seemed so everlasting which she refused to take off.

She was dressed in sleeveless top & shorts – All blue from head to toe.
Who could ever relate the colour ‘blue’ to melancholy & depression!
There was so much exuberance when it floated around her.

But her hair…I couldn’t really make out. It looked all smooth & fluid like that of silky hair. Yet her confined pony tail made it look all curly.

There are 2 kinds of women who can charm the daylights out of men at sight - One who allures all those around while radiating her clear-cut glamour & the other who merely hints her beauty leaving people guessing.

She was the third kind - A siren of charisma which left me guessing if she could look any better.
My question was answered when I met her at a party soon after. I was shocked.

There was no sign of grandeur. No more flashy colours. Her perfectly mould slander legs where obscured by her skin tight jeans which looked distinctly normal. Her florescent pink top did not seem enticing whatsoever. But her smile…she wore it like a medallion and flashed it around like an heirloom. She made it look all effortless and rammed the prestige of every single well-dressed woman around her. I couldn’t help but thank god for gifting me with vision.

Like I said, I was curious!
What was it about her hair? Curly or Silky?

I was looking for excuses to talk to her…or rather get close to her. I would try to wait behind her in the buffet queue, crack some lame jokes and laugh out loud leaning forward so I could get to feel her hair or maybe even dance with her hoping to see her whip her hair in rapture. But alas no L.

It was finally time to say good-bye & there was loud music playing.
I knew this was my chance. I took my shot.
I placed my palm on her back, went within an ear-shot to say good-bye while trying to feel her jet black locks of hair. It felt hazy all of a sudden!!

The flavour of shampoo knocked me out.
I took a deep breath of the aroma sucking in every bit of euphoria and lo…she was gone!
It would really take a man of might to shower her neck with kisses while trying to resist her scent of intoxication.

She left me guessing…along with all the other men at the pavilion.

One Last Chance

Dearest Sunshine,

Although it’s been ages since we spoke, I have always found excuses to make sure you lingered in my memories. Neither am I one of the fortunate few to greet you at work every day nor the guy who can be ‘physically’ present to hold the door open for you. Yet, that never stopped my subconscious from manifesting you in my dreams & the world around me. Distances can barely erode away your memories and your physical presence in nothing more than a mere jackpot for my senses. It is a great feeling to know we are still part of the same bio-sphere where the same stars that light up your night sky lull me to sleep every single day. That pretty much keeps me content with what I have in life.

However, I am no Buddhist monk when it comes to your pursuit. Happy with our brief association though, I still have an insatiable thirst to make you mine forever. Not because I wouldn’t be able to live without you but having your around in my life makes it so much more worthwhile.

That said, for the sake of smiles we had shared, I ask of you to grant me the privilege of one last chance to set things right as below –

• Give me another chance to walk down the corridor and greet you for the first time in school. I swear I will try my best to stifle my blush which had me gaping at your bright red ribbons.
•  Give me a chance to thank you for borrowing that pen. I was so obsessed with stealing it away from you so I could keep it as a souvenir.
• Give me a chance to sing for you one last time. I shall try to look you in the eye this time & sing my soul out, instead of doing it through a telecon.
• Give me a chance to make it better on Valentines’ day. You were sceptical & would only accept a single white rose back then. I shall respect your thoughts but fill your lunch bag with a bouquet of bright red roses this time, making my intentions amply clear.
• Give me another chance to fight with you & apologize. I want to enjoy the pleasure of bowing down my loved one.
• Give me another chance to listen to you when you are giving me an earful. I shall hold you close and kiss you instead.
• Give me a chance to gift you another teddy bear for your birthday. I shall dress up as one instead so you can hug me all day long.
• And lastly…give me one last chance to hold your hand while you trip. Come what may, I will never let go this time.

Smothering you with hugs & kisses,
Always yours,
Krishna