COFFEE MOMENTS:
Coffee is one of the charms in my life. May be for others also.But from my childhood,I enjoyed my coffee
breaks. Fortunately when we were children, there were no chocholate drinks, or malt varities.But there were homemade kanji mavu. But fortunately my mother did not try them for too long. Hence we had the enjoyment of drinking coffee in the morning.
Unlike these days coffee mugs were not there. all brass tumblers. later some thirty years back we have seen eversilver tumblers. Along with brass there were weighty vengala tumblers. They will be washed clean and they will looklike golden tumblers, sparkling yellow and poured in with the brown color coffee with foam,
will be an instant attraction, with the aroma of coffee surrounding you.
The only hurdle for the enjoyment of the first coffee of the day will be brushing with karuvelam podi, or gopal palpodi, and washing your face with cold water, then the important step of going to pojai room and smear vibuthi over you forehead, and pray to athu pillayar and other gods, with enchan namaskaram.
When my mother calls,all of us for coffee we will be ready for the moment, and she will come out from the kitchen to the hall with the grace of a goddess, with a big vengala uruli, and a karandi, with one of us bringing
the tumblers by her side.
Her grace and fondness towards us along with the aroma of coffee will fill the air with joy,
and as she pours coffee in our tumblers,( everyone will have a specific tumbler) we will enjoy drinking them to the last drop, and even inspect several times inside the tumbler whether a single drop is left out.
Sometimes we will put our finger inside the tumbler, and wipe it for the left over coffee spreads with foam and lick it. That will be yummy
There were times, when we use to quarrel with our mother for pouring more coffee to someone of us,
and yet we will not miss our coffee, and drink our coffee with tears rolling down in our eyes...My mother's
favourites will always be jeyaraman and ranjani...
Looking back now, I could realise , how intelligent, my mother was. She knows when to tap the
favours from my father. One of the occasion will be the morning first coffee time. She will always
give the first coffee to him. That will be very special. Unlike for us, it will be prepared with the undiluted
milk, with strong decoction, sugar added to the measure , my father likes, and at the right temperature.
She will place it before him in the hall, where my father will be sitting on the floor with a well decorated
wooden box (his lifetime favourite} (NO dining tables those days} . He will look very majestic, with vibuthi in his forehead and kumkuma over it. In the morning twlight, with a bulb, (NO tube lights) in the hall, with my mother by the side of him is a frozen STILL in my memory.. He will sip every drop, and along with him I will also feel I am drinking the coffee, and my mother will settle her scores on all her demands.
But I also remember that, my mother never had coffee with a relaxed mood. She will always work like a machine attending to all of us (7 children and appa) . She will drink her coffee in the middle of some work
always. Now I feel that I have denied her coffee pleasure. May be it is our ignorance on such matters.
coffee moments will continue....
