The perfect coffee 5

I think I might have spoken too soon. 10 rupee Viman Nagar coffee was good and set a benchmark which was shattered yesterday. Golden Lounge at M.G.Road is THE place to go for great coffee. The coffee costs 25 rupees so is easy on the pocket and on the tastebuds. It has the right mix of sweet, strong and milky. A double thumbs up from me. And the funny part of the whole thing is that this place is right down the road from Barista :) If only M.G. weren't so far away :| Perfect coffee, I have found you :D

I recommend never to drink the coffee or the hot chocolate from the stand just outside Adlabs. The coffee is watery and the hot chocolate stinks, literally and metaphorically.

The coffee from the Nescafe Coffee Corner at Dorabji's at M.G. Road again, is good. It's the usual Nescafe coffee. It costed 20 rupees and wasn't anything special.

So the old benchmark no longer exists and the new benchmark is set. This one is going to be hard to match up to.

Onward for more coffee :D

The perfect coffee 4

I think I may have found it. At a small place right here in Viman Nagar, I may have found what I've been looking for. The place has no name. And it's tucked away out of sight, but its coffee is great. It costs only 10 rupees and it's so amazing. It's milky, it's sweet, it's strong. I tried nitpicking and maybe I still am, but there's no denying the fact that it's a great cuppa.

This in no way means that I'm stopping the search. The search still continues. The only difference is that now I have a benchmark for the others to match up to. Maybe I'll find something better somewhere else, right :)

Wishes...

Sometimes I wish I could walk my thoughts away.
I wish I could walk my hurt away.
I wish I could walk away.
Walk on and on and on and continue walking forever.
My music and me together.
I wish I could just walk off the face of this planet.
Walk out of people’s memories, hearts.
I wish I could walk my memories away.
Walk slow, walk alone, walk away.
Walk without pain and sorrow and fear.
Forget.
Stop hoping.
Walk till I can’t feel anything anymore.
Walk till nothing else exists.
Walk till I touch the horizon.
Walk the soles off my shoes,
And continue walking after that.
If only I could,
Just walk away..

The perfect coffee 3

I went to Fergusson College Road yesterday. Still looking. Ended up at Vaishali. Now this was very close to what I am looking for. I finally found South Indian filter coffee. The only hitch was that it was too watery. The sugar was just right, the coffee flavour was strong.. If only it wasn't so watery, this could've been IT.

We walked further down FC Road and reached this small place called Amu coffee. Recommended to me by Vishal Menda, for its amazingly cheap, really good cold coffee, I was expecting a lot. And the place delivered. Only 10 rupees and we got a glass of cold, refreshing, great coffee. Now I had to try the hot coffee too. It costed 8 rupees and was milky but too sweet. But I would definitely recommend this tiny place tucked away in a corner of FC Road for it's cold coffee.

Haven't found it yet. I actually think that now even if I make my own coffee I won't think it's perfect :D Maybe I'm expecting too much from one cuppa.

Well, the search continues...

The perfect coffee 2

So I went to German bakery today, still searching for THE coffee. And turns out, the coffee's not bad. Not perfect but very close to it. I had a cappucino with a chocolate doughnut and then a coffee cream cake with no coffee flavour in it. I had a great time. Stuffed myself silly and didn't find IT but no regrets :D

So it continues...

The perfect coffee

The perfect coffee. It can be magic and no, I’m not talking about the company. I am talking about that one completely perfect cup of coffee. That perfect blend of strong, sweet and milky. That is what I’m looking for. I’ve made it a quest to discover my perfect cup of coffee here in Pune. And if it is cheap, then nothing like it. True South Indian filter coffee is definitely the best, but I am willing to settle for anything else that matches up.

Getting that perfect blend is an art. It takes skill to brew that coffee. That coffee which can sweep you off your feet. It does things to you, a good cup of coffee. It warms you up from the very core. It can make a headache disappear. It can literally carry you away with its flavour. It can make your taste buds dance to its tune; literally create music. It can make the worst day better. It is the perfect companion on a cloudy day. It is a good book’s best friend. It can be as great as a big hug. It’s well, beautiful.

I’ve tasted coffee at 6 places so far. The coffee at the college canteen comes from a machine and it’s not great but it’s cheap. The coffee from Fasos also comes from a machine, costs only 7 rupees and is actually quite good, but it’s not IT. The coffee at Kalyani veg, a south Indian restaurant, cost around 15 rupees and was strong but watery. Venkatraman came highly recommended but disappointed; the coffee was bland and a disgrace to south Indian coffee. Cafe Coffee Day’s cappuccino came very close to that perfection. It was a little heavy on the pocket though. The coffee at St. Laurn, a hotel at Koregaon Park was again bad.

I was so desperate to satisfy my coffee craving that I actually walked into Cafe coffee day and had a blonde moment. I walked in with my friends and then wondered out loud, "would they have coffee here?" Yes, I did it, but I meant the perfect coffee and just forgot to mention it :D

There are many more places to go and I will not rest till I’ve found my perfect coffee. Till I’ve experienced that blend which can play havoc with my taste buds, magic in a cup.

I will keep updating as to my progress.

May the force be with me :D

Her

Sameer Dattani gave me the concept and asked me to build something around it. I tried my best and this is what I could come up with.

I close my eyes
And find her
Her eyes
Her smile
Her fingers
Picture perfect.
Her image etched on the back of my eyelids.
An image
Created bit by bit,
Colour added slowly
Over time.
Drop by drop
Tint by tint
Fermented like wine.
As she grew closer
As she made her way in
Promising never to leave.

The picture,
I held so close to me.
The perfection
I believed existed.
But then she changed.
The image no longer the same.
The image still dear,
But dearer than her.
Flawless as marble.
As fleeting as a gust of wind,
But as permanent as the sky.

The admiration faded away
The flaws stood out like white on black.
The love died away
And she left
Just like that she left,
Leaving a hole
Where she had once promised to stay.

But the picture remained
She was long gone
But the picture stayed
As clear as crystal
Still flawless,
Her beauty still spellbinding.

But that is what she became,
A PICTURE.

Selflessness

Being different is the in thing. Everyone wants to be abstract, weird, random. It’s not COOL to be plain. It’s not COOL to be sober.

I wonder, in this rush to be different, aren’t we all alike? In the very fundamental desire to be unique, aren’t we all similar? Is there really a person out there who is completely unique? I think not; because at the very core we are all exactly the same. All of our relationships are need based. All of us are desperate for acceptance.

We can cry ourselves hoarse saying our relationships are selfless, but that doesn’t change the inherent fact that we NEED social contact. The whole concept of selfless love seems unbelievable to me because the very fact that you call it selfless proves it is selfish. Selfish because you NEED to tell yourself it’s true. Selfish because you NEED it to be true. Selfish because you NEED it to be selfless.