A loud brass band was blaring out Bollywood tunes in the maidan (field) where the wedding celebrations were taking place. Uncles and aunties were dancing around brass trombones. Uncles were dancing by bending backwards precariously (sometimes losing their footing and coming too close to a drum stick in mid air, about to land on a drum or them) or kneeling on the dusty grass depending on how agile or old they were or perhaps how drunk. I didn't know at the time that uncles drank: I was born in a teetotaler family and the only alcohol we saw as permissible and safe was a bottle of brandy which came out every winter. A couple of times in December or January, we were given a disgustingly bitter spoonful of brandy with warm water. Of course, a spoon full of khund (raw sugar) would follow. Drunk uncles used to be just funny uncles till they told me that it was the dreaded drink that made them funny. That piece of information turned those funny uncles into people one needed to avoid at weddings and gatherings.
The auntyjis were also dancing around the band and while some were just shuffling their feet to pretend they were part of the happy party, others were in their element: fixing their falling saree pallas while managing a thumka or two while ordering their brood to go eat dinner. All this while keeping a keen eye on their respective husbands (the backward bending unclejis) lest they follow a better looking auntyji home.
I had planted myself next to the coffee stall at the wedding party. I was going to have my first coffee (mine and not shared) today.
"Bahiya... ek expresso." I asked for a cup.
The maker of coffee served about three adults who came to the counter after me before he fizzed up a white china cup for me. I could see the top of the cup from where I was standing. Its froth jigged a bit as he sprinkled chocolate powder on top. Something must've gotten stuck because he banged the steel beaker with holes on top which he was using to sprinkle the chocolate on my cup of coffee, against the counter. It banged dully, through the stiffly starched table cloth and a split second later, started raining a mini chocolate shower on the froth.
He placed a saucer under the cup and placed it (with some force I thought) on the aluminum tray that was lying next to the big steel coffee machine. Rings and spills of previous coffee cups had made little puddles in the tray so that when I picked up my cup and saucer, a few drops of the tray residue fell on my brand new frock. I had to hold the saucer carefully with both my hands to keep the froth intact. I wanted to lick it all myself. I didn't want a single molecule of it to escape and drop on the saucer or my hands. So I decided to think about the drops that had obviously stained my frock later and just focus on walking up to a chair with my coffee and drink it.
Everything zoned out: the music, the crowd, the family, everything. My first cup --all by myself , not sips from Mummy's or Daddy's, no sir, my very own cup of expresso (yes, that's exactly how I called it-- ex-press-o)
First, I licked the tiny chocolate blobs with the tip of my tongue, then I slurped the froth. I kept rotating the cup to make sure the froth was being licked equally from all sides. Soon, a little coffee moon appeared in the middle of the cup. It was very tiny and little bubbles of froth were surrounding it like an eager crowd. I took a big sip.
Ah! Too Hot!
The top of my mouth and the back of my throat smarted with the scalding coffee but it didn't matter.
'Ffu...ffuu...ffooo..' I blew into the cup.
The tiny coffee moon got bigger, the bubbles danced away from my breath and little by little, the coffee cooled as I sipped. It was sweet like nectar and the burnt mouth would lie forgotten that night when I would end up back at the coffee stand for another cup.
Only next morning I'll tell my mother that I won't be able to drink any tea because, 'mera talu jal gaya kal.' (I burnt my mouth yesterday.)
Years later, I will find out that my expresso is actually a cappuccino and that in fact it's correct pronunciation is espresso.
And you can imagine the shock I got when I ordered my first espresso at Waterloo station and received the tiniest cup of beverage I'd ever seen! I had paid almost 2 pounds for that drop of liquid! The year was 1992 and I was converting pounds into rupees all the time. I could've bought an entire outfit from a patri (road side stalls) in Janpath or Sarojini Nagar for the price of four drops of coffee!
I miss my cup with froth and chocolate dust:the kind one used to get at Indian wedding celebrations in the 70s and the 80s, the kind that almost always burnt your impatient tongue, the kind that whooshed out of a shiny machine that hissed and spluttered steam and foam.
******
How do you like your coffee?
And just in case you've not come across an Indian wedding brass band, here's a melodious example:
They are playing an old and popular Hindi film song which was released in 1963.
Tradition lives on in tubas:
And just in case you've not come across an Indian wedding brass band, here's a melodious example:
Tradition lives on in tubas:
