A Coffee Date to Cherish

Nothing beats the streaming sun on a cold November morning, even before you’ve sipped your first cup of coffee. So it was in one if the most popular coffee houses in Pondicherry: The Lé Café.

There are fancier and pricier coffee shops in Pondy, but this one’s always close to my heart. It overlooks the beach, grandest attraction of Pondicherry. The ambience of the cafe is mesmerising, during the sunrises and the sunsets, in particular.

I was glad to be there, staring at the sun and sipping my Cortado.

cortado

What’s in a Name?

One of the most loveable things about Pondicherry is the city’s multi-dimensional name boards. The streets are so well-paved that you’d choose to walk rather than drive. And while you’re walking, you’ll come across plenty of abstract names in fancy fonts. Many a time, I stopped in my tracks to get a picture of those name boards. I didn’t know if they were shops, homes, or cultural centres, but they were all beautiful.

pondi

Respecting the Maker

Craft is a wonderful thing. The crinkled eyebrows, the watchful eyes, and the delicate fingers all make a craft what it is: a magnificent and complex piece of art. It demands the maker’s energy and time and unlike any other physical activity. It’s one of those things that drain you just even if you’re just sitting in one place with your head bent low.

To an observer, the craftsman is a scientist; a microbiologist. One who’s got eyes for nothing and no one around them. And that’s the beauty of a handmade object. It’s a part of a human’s life that they give away to someone else.

I saw a craftsman in Pondicherry a while ago. He was a shoe and footwear maker. He, along with the owner of the shop, makes and delivers custom footwear for customers about an hour or two after they place an order. But they also have a gallery of ready-made designs to can choose from.

handmade-footwear

While the owner was busy showing us around his little shop, the craftsman huddled with his tools near the pillar outside the shop. His eyes moved in tandem with his hands that stitched together leather and leather.

While his skin exploded with sweat, inside, the quaint shop exploded with colour. Yellow, red, and green straps crisscrossed with brown, black, and grey soles. I saw straight straps on one shelf and curled straps on the other, plain ones lying about and fancy ones folded up neat. The costs varied, too, from a few hundreds to a few more hundreds.

handmade-footwear-2

My friend raised eyebrows at the prices. It was a sad sight. Because there never is a fair price for the labour of human hands.

It’s human to first look at the product and then flip over the tag to check the price. Whether it’s a shirt or a shoe, we consider the price and weigh its worth.

It’s an instinct, yes. Still, when it comes to handmade crafts, what we think is high is never too high. Though we drool at a craftsman work, every time we roll our eyes at the price, we undermine the maker’s efforts. We need to realise: In this age of our lazy bones and sitting on our asses, it’s taxing to work through hundreds of needles and stitches every day.

craftsman

That’s why we should learn to respect the ones who do, because, in a few years, no one will have the patience to dedicate the scrutiny involved in making handmade pieces.

A Chocolate Haven

Call me old fashioned but I fancy chocolate over any other fancy flavours. Whether it’s a hot drink or an iced treat, I’d always go for chocolate. And no matter how much of mint, white chocolate chips, slivered nuts, or trickles of orange you blend with it, plain chocolate (coated with chocolate) has an unmatched taste of its own.

That’s why I felt like stepping into paradise when I stepped into Zuka. It’s a cafe in Pondicherry that celebrates chocolate as much as I do. Even as you walk towards the entrance, a whiff of fresh chocolate reaches out to you, teasing your most determined dietary restriction.

Well, that may be an exaggeration, but you get the idea.

zuka-chocolate-cafe

Stamped on the door was a seal of their brand, in an unsurprising shade of chocolate. And on the inside, they display a shameless amount of chocolate treats, pastries, and cakes. From flavoured tarts to dark-nut truffles, marbled candy to marvelling cakes, every inch of the cafe’s offering reeks chocolate.

It was beautiful.

In various shapes and colours, they sell shortcuts to diabetes. All around me were cars, bunnies, chunks, disks, and brownies—all of them chocolate. And as if that wasn’t enough, there were even melting pots of chocolate. I couldn’t have been happier.

And for the caffeine addict in me, they even had chocolate-espresso mousse, topped with a coffee bean made of chocolate. And to go with that, a coffee-flavoured cake, with a coating of chocolate goodness.

The place wasn’t large. But it was cosy. As soon as you walk in, you’d know you want to grab a chair and spend all day staring at the goodies behind the glass. From its plaided walls to its polished posters, the cafe would’ve made anyone liven up their moods and lighten their wallets. Such artistic interior with everything paying homage to a miracle bean.

I had found paradise in that little cafe. And to add chocolate to chocolate, they seemed to agree with what I profess:

happiness-is-chocolate

Zuka has made it to my list. The next time I’m in town—heck, I’d go into town just for this place.

A Long Walk to Realisation

I love to walk among dense trees, seeking, yet not knowing what I’m seeking. There’s something about unbound nature that makes you wonder while you wander. And I have the perfect friend who’s always willing to go an extra mile to catch a sight. Since our first walk in the park at Vandalur had been a great experience, I was eager for the next one.

When my friend suggested the Botanical Garden in Pondicherry, however, I was a bit skeptical. Our time in Pondicherry was limited to just over 24 hours, and the garden crept into the agenda only the previous night. According to Google Maps, we’d have to go out of our way to find our way to the garden. We’d had to walk a long walk before walking into the garden—just to walk some more.

My friend insisted, though. And since I owed her one for enduring my occasional assholery (I’m a pain, my roommates would attest), I obliged.

I don’t regret. For the most part.

When we stepped into the entrance of the garden, a large board welcomed us with an outline of what to expect in the garden. Trees, trees, and even a musical fountain. The garden spread across a massive area of land and, from where I stood, I saw patches of greenery punctuating patches of barren land.

It was a cool, cozy and empty. Well, almost.

Under the shade of what looked like a hundred-year-old tree, two women police officers opened up their lunches packets, chatting away as the leaves rustled in tune to the breeze. A few feet away were a young couple leaning on either side of yet another grand tree while a little further, their photographer friend crouched peering into the lens of his DSLR, demanding that the couple shift towards the light.

The ground was strewn with grass, and moss, and insects of all sizes. Branches the size of my arm loomed over us, forming arches and making a convincing case of becoming wedding hosts. Flowers looked down from their tree thrones above, their petals downward and their honey dripping earthward. Mid-day sunlight gleamed through the artwork that spiders had weaved all morning. Little creepers clung to their poles teaching us a thing or two about survival among the giants.

There was so much to see in the garden and yet so few to see them.

botanical-garden-pondicherry-1

We stepped over the railway tracks of a toy train that would run around and within the depths of the garden. With no one to appreciate the mass of trees that amassed the garden, the train had no apparent reason to operate that day. And yet, from somewhere deep within came the ghost of an echo of the chuck chucking of the toy train. And with it, the excited screams of non-existent children.

I passed a couple of kids fiddling with smartphones.

Crunching the dry leaves on the pathway, I strode along. And just when I thought I had ended a glorious walk, something in a corner of the garden made me stop short. Remains of human presence littered the area, the plastic lunch packets and empty paper cups reminding me of the hollowness that humans contribute to nature.

We have one job, one duty. And to keep our nature natural we had to just keep away from their way. Yet somehow it’s become too hard not to interfere, not to meddle with the order of things. I thought I was hard to live with, but now I understood that people, in general, are hard to live with. We are a bunch of spoilt, selfish brats that take everything around us for granted.

I appreciate those who tolerate my assholery, but after that walk, I’ve grown to appreciate nature even more than before for tolerating an entire race of assholes.

As I came to that disgusting conclusion, I realised I had walked around the entire garden. There was nothing more left to see. And if there had been anything, I had no mood for it.