The ICH

Ok..I got a day off from work today after slogging continuously for 3 weeks at a stretch, Today was election day in Banglore. So me and my roommate decided to exercise our right to treat ourselves to some fun and good food .We headed to the Indian Coffee House in MGRoad . Spending 200 Rs on auto for masala dosa and coffee from ICH should get you the idea of the ICH fanatics we are . I always take credit for introducing her to the glorious ICH.ICH in MG road is a dingy smoky room in the middle of an array of other shops.we occasionally go there , when we need a change from the usual fancy restaurants . we reached there to see the place locked .Upon some enquiries found out that the place is closed down forever!!! My roomie ( disappointment has already clouded up her face ) wondered aloud " Why the hell did they do that??" . Well , now i found out from certain forums that they got a notice form the high court to close down the place and yeah , the usual hue and cry to save the place . I hope it stands the test of time.

ICH is an institution in itself , a modest place run by modest people serving modest food to modest and not so modest people, for modest prices! The waiters in ICH dressed in ill fitting once whitish uniforms with an elaborate tall hairpiece or sometimes with the Maharaja kind , spotting red belts gives you the first impression of the menu in store. The menu ranges from dosa items to cutlets to bread toast .ICH is a place where decor takes a backseat , its a place where people does not turn nasty if the orders are placed a second late and where nobody cares about the cheap wooden tables , wobbly chairs and stained tablecloths. The waiters do no look down on you if you just order a coffee and hang around for hours , and they would not judge you by the tip you leave.

As Tom Hanks says in You Got Mail “the whole purpose of places like Starbucks is for people with no decision-making ability whatsoever to make six decisions just to buy one cup of coffee. Short, tall, light, dark, caf, decaf, low-fat, non-fat, etc. So people who don’t know what the hell they’re doing or who on earth they are can, for only $2.95, get not just a cup of coffee but an absolutely defining sense of self.” This is exactly what ICH is not . You only get coffee there , no frills nothing fancy.Only Coffee , NO confusion! . Its a place reputed to have cultured intellectuals , where people met up to discuss politics, thoughts and where idealisms brewed . As they say a lot did happen over a cup of coffee but not in ac rooms and on heavily cushioned couches.

Back home. theres two ICHs. One in the town and one close to home . We always frequented the one in town though . Its a dilapidated building , a house converted . A very faded green paint adores the walls . One foto of Indira Gandhi and under that a mammoth wooden table welcomes you . From the time i visited the place , theres two plastic containers on the table in front of the cashier who sits on a tall chair . One container has milk sweets and other has Cadburys. If ICHs has a frequent visitor award like airlines have for frequent flier , theres a fair chance that me and my brother would grab it . On usual days our order includes a masala dosa , a veg cutlet and coffee , which i think by now the waiters there know. On lavish days we would order another mutton omelet or a fruit salad . Fruits in the salad has more of bananas which have turned black by being in the cold storage and the cream is full of ice. The real fun is when all of us go there after a temple visit or just an outing . Mindless chatter and Masaladosa!

Its a place trapped in time where all the cigarettes people smoked all these years have clogged up the ceiling and sometimes that time happens it has to make way for the newbies, and we are left only with void if we happen to travel back in time.

Summertime!

Summer is here .. and as the guy in the radio said so are cute girls in short skirts. Although i do not share his excitement on the topic, I have my own reasons to be happy about . Summer is not fun like it was 5 or 6 yrs ago , but I still feel elated when it is summertime , probably since I associate good times with it. All I get to see now which makes me realize its summer is the rising temperature in Bangalore,tensed kids studying at the backseat of their dad's bike on the way to the exam or with their eyes lost in books at the bus stop. On the other day ,I even saw a girl flipping through a hefty book in a mall while her parents were busy shopping ..

Back home though it was a completely different story ..Summer is when it rained mangoes at home , it still does . We would have mango juice, mango jam, mango pickle, mango curry with rice , sweet mango, sour mango , cut mangoes with vanilla ice cream....What Not! .As the day comes to a close we all kids smelled like mangoes .Then there was the much awaited summer holidays when all we ever did was play for hours in the blazing sun , climb trees , jump fences , cycle race in the colony and play carroms or watch horror movies in the night . It was during one summer I had my first crush :D .He was my neighbor's cousin who was visiting and who came to play cricket with us. The crush stayed for exactly one summer until he knocked the front tooth out of our wicketkeeper ( :P ).Again one of the major attractions of summer was the festival in April . This was the time when all the kids made some serious pocket money , all later well spent on badminton balls or ice mithai.

Hmm...I think I am one of those people who is still stuck in the past and craving to be blessed with the same simplicity of childhood.. *Sigh*!

Now when I relive all this to my little cousin sister with some sort of a ridiculous grandmom getup , she raises an eyebrow , lectures me about the zillion bacteria in the mud ,the UV rays from the sun or the pleasure of watching POGO . But I tell you she aint having no fun!!