Coffee woes in Coffee Day's hometown

On a rainy evening in the end of April, my friend and I caught up at her Infantry Road office and walked to Mast Kalandar for a bite.

Interesting: our choices on the menu card were simply not there, and the staff didn't seem to care.
So out we walked, to our `good old' coffee day a few yards away.

A man in his mid-40s was perched on the sofa by the counter, and got busy writing a report on plain paper, as his wife watched bored.

We settled down, in spite of my friend's anxiety to rush home to her baby. ``God knows how long it's gonna be before we catch up again...''

Five minutes. Ten minutes. The boys wouldn't turn up. We tried catching their eye. And they tried avoiding eye contact. When we did manage, my friend gestured to ask how long it would take...the staffer, instead of hurrying up requested for more time! Whew! It never never happened at Coffee Day before!

My friend was prompted to walk out. We wondered aloud who the guy there was. `Some big shot or their big boss I guess..' Speculation time. Was he `the great Siddhartha' who owned the Coffee Day chain? Am sure we'd not have been so unsure if the real Siddhartha (Buddha) was around. A few more minutes flew by. The staffers still didn't care. `It's probably their appraisal...pay hike or not kinds...' we continued speculating.

I mean, why would they be bothered if their customer was a mother wanting to rush home, and still hoping to catch up with a friend over coffee? Even if they didn't, they should have bothered to take an order.

``You know what, let's just leave. I am in a hurry,'' my friend decided finally. We walked out and noticed that those insensitive guys blankly watched us leave. It just did not seem to bother them! We were shocked. ``Look how nasty! I am not going to come back here,'' my friend declared, hurt like crazy by this.

I was undecided. A week later, am in Chennai, reading the Business Today cover piece on Coffee Day Siddhartha. It says he plans to become the market leader and add many many outlets more globally. Sigh! My friend who's seen the cover too swears it WAS Siddhartha at Cunningham Road Coffee Day. Am still not sure.

I've been a Coffee Day patron for ages and a loyalist specially when out of Bangalore. Does the man really care? I stuck on to Coffee Day despite the deteriorating service attitude over years. Call it that Namma Mannina Maga (our son of soil) sentiment. Looks like CCD just lost a customer though. (Or is it more?)

PS: Watch the Ranbir Kapoor starrer Rocket Singh once, for lessons on service in the market.
Pic Courtesy: CCD website

That 50:50 feeling

Today, my dad retired, two days short of his 41 years' government service. His boss, a no-nonsense person, described my dad, an `icon'. Must admit it's a proud moment one hears this about a parent.

Two days' on, my second innings at work begin, after a two year break.

On the same date as my dad began my first innings, 41 years back.

For the woman who I am, brought up fighting stereotypes, this is a moment I've waited for - when a parent leans on you for support. Yet, when the moment dawns, fear overwhelms every other possible emotion.

Can he, who rarely stayed away from work, manage without it! His colleague joked this evening, ``Welcome back!'' They know he'll rush back to work first thing after this. Still, official `super-annuation', as they fancifully call `retirement', is the thing.

As for me, it's divine forces that got me back to where I belong - work. And I officially re-start now. Whether fear of the new workplace is bigger, or that of shouldering responsibility back home, is hard to tell.

There's happiness too. When he received accolades from the boss of his organisation, I was not away at a workplace and pining for leave, or crying over not being there for him.

Despite this, swinging between fear, fervor, and joy, I look at the tired eyes below the grey mane that rest for the night, worry-lines intact.

Miles to go...before I sleep.

have not really been away

A great many have wondered aloud about my `absence' from Writing on Sand. I must admit I have opened the URL many a time, but something would deviously turn up just as I'd mull typing those golden start words.

In the meantime, have opened blog meant largely to put up my earlier pieces from Tehelka, and probably my future pieces. Starting May, I will officially return to what I love the most, journalism in a daily newspaper, although it never really left me in the two years that I've stayed away from newsroom frenzy.

It's strange that with the second innings too, I am as jittery and nervous as when I began, exactly 10 years back. It's all the more reflective when I note, that I'll join my new organisation exactly three days after my dad officially leaves his organisation after serving it for over 40 years! Hard to think of such a service span in these years of hop-happy professionals.

This time round, am counting on family support. When I was fresh from college, it was flight from family that triggered dreams. Will key in more in the coming days.

Finally, a home

At the moment, am sitting before the screen, surrounded by cardboard cartons still waiting to get unpacked.

A window by the workstation and a window ahead of it. The flowering branches of mango tree crown it close enough for a peaceful view from my second floor, a coconut tree and a curry leaves tree flank it.

It's a home my husband and I virtually grabbed. For, in this part of Chennai, a home advertised today is gone tomorrow. It's that time of the post-recession phase when companies begin recruitments `cautiously' in official terms, but robustly, in my view. The settlers arrive, despite a humid weather that keeps you perennially hungry. The settlers, are quick to grab homes, ideally closer to their workplaces. Adyar, Tiruvanmiyur and Velachery - this belt is the closest to the IT City near Sholinganallur. And represent what Koramangala went through in Bangalore a decade back.

Home rents, have shot up over the last six months. We had that bitter experience, of losing homes we really liked, while it took a couple of days to arrange the money.

We walked through 10 homes before settling for this one. The difference between them all and this, is that it has a soul. After a tired day, I can find peace here. It is airy, with even the kitchen boasting of three windows in all, besides wardrobes in the bedrooms.