And my inadequacy could be dangerous too. What if I were taken hostage by a
maniacal burglar, a diehard lover of his daily cup of joe, who orders me to brew
him one? I imagine him staring at me with his menacing eyes, clutching a fork
that he keeps threatening to run through my entrails if I delay a second longer.
I would tremble and put the saucepan on the boil, eventually serving up a tepid
concoction neither milk nor water (and by no means, coffee) that would disgust the
likes of Honoré de Balzac. The French writer should know. He’s said to have imbibed
50 cups of the strong stuff every day.
There’s hope in my life yet. My cousin Rose. She brews the kind of golden-brown
coffee that you see in television ads, sloshing around in pristine white mugs
in delectable slow motion. Where your taste buds applaud in unison as you
savour the first sip. Your eyes are closed and you imagine yourself in paradise
with wallpaper adorned with arabica and robusta beans. You ooh and aah as life
takes on new meaning with the trinity of Bru Instant, Milma and a spoonful of sugar.
I am a devotee for life.
“Your children are lucky to get to drink this every day.”
“They don’t drink coffee,” she says.
I knew it. Genius is wasted on GenZers.
The problem is Rose lives in Kerala. The 2,576 kilometres (1,600 miles) from India’s
capital seem insurmountable. Travelling to-and-fro for coffee seems excessive,
even if I were Elon Musk.
I have my Eureka moment. I will videotape her and I’ll be in on the trade secret.
Rose agrees, trepidatious as she preps and measures and pours as my phone
camera gawps and gazes and records.
The verdict is announced five minutes later.
“The first cup was better.”
“You made me nervous,” she says.
Back in New Delhi, the office coffee sucks and I depend on Nescafe’s premixes to
get my daily fix.
“Don’t drink this palm oil and sugar syrup,” says Mom, when she sees me
reaching for the sachets at home. She has a point. My HbA1C is now significantly
higher than the IIT GPA of Chetan Bhagat’s Five Point Someone.
“Try this instead,” she says. “I know it’s not as good as Rose’s.”
Mom hangs around expectantly as I take my first sip from the mug.
“How is it?”
“It’s hot, for sure. And it has water, so I won’t die of dehydration. And it’s
white as snow, so I won’t run short of calcium I suppose,” is what I want to
say.
“It is lovely. Thank you,” is what I say instead.
The Shah Rukh Khan dimple on Mom’s right cheek appears. She has bought into the
lie.
“This is why you should get married.”
“Achcha, and what if her coffee is as bad as the one I make?”
“Then both of you will order in a flask from Chaayos.”
“What if Humayun Saeed makes really bad coffee?”
“Don’t bring Humayun into this.” (Saeed is the Pakistani actor who appeared in
The Crown as Princess Diana’s friend Dr. Hasnat Khan, although Mom likes him more
as the doggedly devoted husband in Pakistani dramas)
I have rarely gone in for fancy coffee. Not a fan of espresso, americano,
macchiato, affogato (although hold the press on that last one, how bad could a
scoop of ice cream in coffee really be?) I briefly had a Starbucks card and quaffed
Java chip frappuccinos weekly, until a kind soul pointed out that each of these
contained 15 spoonfuls of sugar.
I have tried the French press and other coffee machines and now they lie
rusting at home since I can’t abide ‘black or white’ (as Michael Jackson sang
in 1991). I always come back to the sugary mud-brown of my south Indian heritage.
“I might as well shift to Bengaluru.” I tell Mom. “The office filter coffee
there costs just 15 rupees and it’s divine.”
“Why don’t you just drink tea instead?”
“Can’t. I am a tea-totaler.”
Toe Knee Unplugged
Tuesday, August 20, 2024
I can’t make a decent cup of coffee. Neither can my mom
Thursday, November 16, 2023
Mom met her schoolmate and friend again - 56 years later
November 1965. The second India-Pakistan war had ended.
Mankind had yet to conquer the moon. A group of schoolgirls (seven of them from
Infant Jesus, Aranattukara) take a train from Thrissur, Kerala, to India’s
capital to receive the President’s Guide Award from Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan.
Annie and her friend Jolly are among the wide-eyed teenagers on the trip, chaperoned
by two nuns. It takes three days on the train to cross India’s hinterlands. The
girls are thrilled by the unexpected vistas and smile shyly at the handsome soldiers
in the railway carriage.
In New Delhi, they camp in tents alongside other
awardees from across the country and take baths, albeit reluctantly, at dawn. Unaccustomed to the winter chill, Annie borrows a spare
sweater.
The girls wolf down chapatis paired with spicy cauliflower. For the seven Keralites
- Annie, Jolly, Thresiamma, Kochuthresia,
Elsy, Alphonsa and Sybil - it is their first taste of the north Indian flatbread.
At a grand ceremony at the Rashtrapati Bhavan, the schoolgirls are ushered to the carpeted dais by liveried footmen. The president says something to her but Annie doesn’t register it, nervous and stunned by the flashbulbs going off.
From their camp in Delhi, the schoolgirls travel to Agra, some 150 miles away, for their first glimpse of the Taj Mahal, the monument of love. And all too soon, it is time for the train back home.
They find themselves heroes when they set foot in Kerala. Feted with flowers and firecrackers at the Thrissur railway station and taken to school in a convoy of jeeps festooned with garlands.
Giddy with excitement, the girls whoop with delight as the parade of jeeps goes past Tharakan’s, their rival boys-only school in Aranattukara that hasn’t won an award. At Infant Jesus, the school nuns lead them to a feast and a parade in their honour.
The rest of the school year, and then another, goes by in a blur. Annie takes her national school-leaving examinations and on a summer day in 1967, her parents arrive, taking her and her trunk back with them to their dwelling in Maninagar, Ahmedabad.
This is not the age of the internet, nor are landline telephones common yet. No mailing addresses exchanged either, their naïve minds haven’t thought of it. Annie and Jolly drift apart, their once unshakable bond now a dissolving thread as time and distance take their toll.
March 2023. Annie, who now calls Delhi home, visits her school in Thrissur 56 years after she left with her parents. Tucked away in a home for nuns, a building where she lodged for ten years as a pupil, she chances upon an old woman who recognises her.
Mary, the cook for boarding school pupils, cups Annie’s face in her hands in disbelief and sheds tears of joy. She retired just a few years ago, when her frail body could no longer keep up with her constant fussing over the young girls who studied there.
Mary, now 88, hasn’t forgotten Annie or her shenanigans in this cradle of four
walls where she grew up among nuns, and where Annie has returned more than half
a century later for another memorable day at her alma mater.
A wave of nostalgia comes over her as Annie gazes at the older buildings and
gardens, including a rocky nook where several decades ago the resident ducks
had quacked and chased the seven-year-old, pecking at the hem of her skirt with
their beaks, until a nun had rescued her.
The school’s nuns from the 1960s are long dead, but Annie wonders if she could still
meet her friends. And Jolly, who is also a distant relative. A cousin comes to Annie’s
aid, tracking down a WhatsApp number for Jolly, who has settled in nearby Irinjalakuda
after marriage.
The long-lost friends speak on the phone, promising to meet in person when
Annie visits Kerala. Both have relatives in the suburb of Ollur, Thrissur, and coordinate
a rendezvous coinciding with the Feast of Saint Raphael at one of India’s
oldest churches.
October 2023. Annie and her son (yours truly) brave the sun as devotees holding
aloft golden crosses and ceremonial umbrellas trudge past in a procession. Jolly
lingers by the entrance to her daughter’s house. Celebratory fireworks go off as
the long-lost friends reunite.
The words come thick and fast, tumbling out as if it is just an interrupted
conversation, not a six-decade hiatus. Both say it is like they have never been
apart. Annie and Jolly have been rekindling their friendship ever since.
Saturday, March 06, 2021
"For fitter, for fatter" free to download until March 10
Download here:
Wednesday, February 24, 2021
WARNING: Shameless self-promotion for my ebook
I have self-published my new short story as an ebook on Amazon. ‘For fitter, for fatter’ is free to read if you are subscribed to Kindle Unlimited. If not, you can download and access the story via the Kindle app on your phone/any device.
The ebook is priced at 49 rupees in India, 99 cents if you are in the United States and at similar prices elsewhere in the world. You can even download the first few sample pages and buy it only if you love it.Looking forward to your feedback, bouquets and brickbats. Grateful if you could rate the ebook and leave (an honest) customer review on the Amazon website. If you do like it, please spread the word or buy it as a gift for readers in your social circle. Just search for ‘Tony Tharakan’ in the Amazon.com search bar and it should be the first result that shows up.
Direct ebook links:
Amazon India
Amazon US
Amazon UK
and similarly for other country editions
Wednesday, January 27, 2021
Living with sarcoidosis
Sunday, September 08, 2019
Book: Room by Emma Donoghue

My rating: 4 of 5 stars
"Room" (2010), a powerful novel by Emma Donoghue, was later adapted into a Oscar-winning film. The story is told from the perspective of five-year-old Jack, who has lived all his life in a room with his Ma and has not known life beyond its four walls. Recommended.
View all my reviews
Book: Asymmetry by Lisa Halliday

My rating: 3 of 5 stars
"Asymmetry", the debut novel by Lisa Halliday, is a well-crafted work that may seem like two novels in one but explores asymmetries in a relationship between a celebrated writer and the novice he is sleeping with, between the West and the Middle East, between youth and old age. This is an intriguing work of art.
View all my reviews
Book: The Mammaries of the Welfare State by Upamanyu Chatterjee

My rating: 2 of 5 stars
I haven't read "English, August" yet but perhaps I should have.
"The Mammaries of the Welfare State" (2000) doesn't seem to have the wit and narrative flow of Upamanyu Chatterjee's most celebrated work. The sequel (parts of which I found quite tedious) continues its satirical exploration of Indian bureaucracy, partly from the point of view of Agastya Sen - the protagonist of the 1988 novel that is very much on my to-read list.
View all my reviews
Saturday, August 24, 2019
Spain Diaries - Part 2
The summer sun seems to shine brighter in Leon than in New Delhi. One doesn’t sweat as much though and a breeze flits among the trees, their leaves casting dancing shadows as I walk on dappled pavements.
Where are all the young people of Leon? The university is far from the city centre but I am still flummoxed by the dearth of 20- and 30-somethings. I see old people in droves - ambling, stretching, jogging, dawdling, ruminating, pushing wheelchairs with nonagenarians staring vacantly at shop windows. Google tells me the province of Castile-Leon loses most of its youngsters to emigration as Spaniards seek work abroad, leaving behind an armada of granny nannies.
At the outdoor gym along the Bernesga river, grannies and grandpas hog the exercise equipment - keeping an eye on toddlers playing in the park. A pair of wiry, athletic seniors dart past as I head to the riverfront McDonald’s for an ice-cream sundae. No, I am not embarrassed. I’m here on vacation and refuse to acknowledge my perennial out-of-shapehood. A pair of affable retirees are painting a section of the McDonald’s store as I sidestep the recien pintado (wet paint) signs. I spot another old man with a Glovo (food delivery) box zooming past on his scooter. With few youngsters on hire, there is obviously no ageism here.
At the Espacio Leon mall, a middle-aged woman supervises a footwear store, metamorphosing rapidly into helper, picker-upper, cleaner, cashier as I (egged on by my mother) bug her with questions - Are these on sale? Can I get these in a larger size? Where’s the other of this pair? Do you get these in black? But the manager is unfazed and responds to all my queries with a smile. Ten minutes and a forex-card swipe later, my mother is the owner of a comfortable pair of walking sandals.
On the eighth floor of my apartment block, an elderly woman is climbing the stairs and huffing. She is lugging a wooden plank too big to fit in the elevator. I offer to help. Necesitas ayuda? She says no. Just one more floor to go, she says. Gracias. But she breaks into a smile and seems grateful that I asked. Labor costs are high in Spain and life would be difficult here for yours truly, accustomed as I am to the middle-class luxuries of maids and handymen in India.
My mother is back from church. The elderly parish priest, spotting an unfamiliar devotee among the pews, spoke to her after Mass. The two didn’t make much headway, insulated as they were in the cocoons of their respective languages, but my mother was able to convey that she is from India. The priest’s face lit up as he heard the word. Que bonito pais! My mother, who found solace in Catholicism after my father passed, nodded along to the priest's babbling, wishing she could understand Spanish or, even better, that the clergyman could speak English. The only word she knows apart from Hola! is salida (the departure/exit signs at airports) - which has limited uses in ecclesiastical conversations.
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