Not Jewel Box

At Rs. 16 a cup,
the coffee seems a bit steep.
Fish and chips at Rs. 150
seems grossly over-priced.
Especially for a place that looks like
maintenance involves
washing the floors every second Saturday,
and changing the furniture
once every century.

Of course, by that argument,
this city with its half-price roads,
trade-reject infrastructure,
power-cuts and barely-there footpaths,
should have been deserted years ago.
Bearing no resemblance
to abandoned towns in B-grade Westerns,
both city and coffee shop flourish.

The old furniture is not glamourous
as any one of the elderly tubelights will tell you.
Neither is the ground you walk on.
I wouldn't call it squalour,
but squalour's distant cousin
starts on the floor
and crawls all the way up to the ceiling.

The proof, they say, is in the pudding.

Those who breakfast here, eat heartily.
The lawyers and government officials at lunch
know best why their lunch break is interminable.
Come evening,
groups of pensioners get off buses,
college kids shriek into corners,
bruised and beaten office-goers
sink into comfortable shadows
of themselves.

Most do it for a lifetime,
and not without questioning themselves.
The answer?
Perhaps a little too trite
for a shop owned by a man named
Prem.

Love, then.

A cup of coffee after work,
a wholesome family dinner,
a tankful of pop-eyed fish,
beer with friends on a rainy afternoon,
barely audible fingers of jazz
touching you from fuzzy speakers,
sharing a cruel joke
with a brass-buttoned waiter,
regulars observing regulars.

A newcomer wondering
what the fuss is all about;
an old-timer throwing up his hands,
mystified.