Filter Coffee And Manna Dey

Today I made my amma proud. Learnt how to brew coffee. FILTER COFFEE!!! The sign of a true Southie. Amma flinches when i talk about Barista and Coffee Day. Coffee ain't coffee till it is M. R. Filter Coffee. Hehe, but it IS true. Filter Coffee is Filter Coffee!!!

The entire exercise was real neat i think. That old steel filter, the aroma of spilled M R Coffee powder in the kitchen, my harrowed mom, amused papa. The coffee dripping through the filter, sloshing some on the counter while pouring it in da mug, the mess...

And how does Manna Dey figure in the equation? Its sumthing bout Coffee at 2 in the nite. The part of me who had fun making coffee and found it darned cool, didn't want to share it with Bryan Adams or The Eagles, they just wouldn't understand. No offence guys, i like you at other times...but something as....as...as deep as the night and silence and the quiet and ofcourse M.R. Filter Coffee, a Laaga chunri mein daag...seems more fitting or a Zindagi Kaisi Hai Paheli or even a Chalat Musafir from Teesri Kasam...

Had a friend over (i called her up to make her try the coffee i'd made *wink*) , and had some more of Manna Dey playing even then and I told her, Ain't he cool??!!!?? And she was like, who is Manna Dey? Trust me...my jaw dropped to the floor and my eyebrows disappeared in my hairline!!!!! Many haven't even heard of him!!!! Now with him being awarded the Padma Bhushan, there ought to be a li'l more awareness I guess. Its kinda sad, i thought once she left after a detailed explaination from me , my sis and even my mom about da kinda songs he sung, the bengali songs, how he landed up in mumbai...blah...blah...poor Vidhu, a coffee brewd by me and lesson in Music by the ladies of N family...well good thing, bet da next time she gets my call saying come over 4 coffee, she is gonna think twice!!

So here I am, at 2 in the night listening to "Laaga Chunri Mein Daag..."with that silly grin on my face and steaming hot coffee (da 3rd mug...i can make good filter coffee huh) and feeling nice. Nice might be too inadequate a word. But then that is precisly what I am feeling-NICE. Content. And there is just music. In its purest form. Manna Dey singing alankaar...and me blogging. And there is the night, silence, quiet. And there is Coffee. Window half opened, just a ray of moonlight falling across FB and the shadow of the night lamp. And the sense of...no, just the sense, the feel...of just being. Suspended in the time. Its so magical, it is almost unrealistic.Don't even wanna think, or word. The flow, as seamless and as smooth as the voice and as rich and as delicious as the coffee. The essence swirling in my mouth, my mind, my being. There is lathargy but there is alertness. Drugged senses but supersensitivity towards sound, voice, light, taste...*smiles* I wonder if this is what they call a high...

"woh duniya more babul ka ghar...
yeh ghar duniya sasuraal...
haan jaake babul se nazreen milaoun kaise....
Ghar jaaoon kaise...
Laaga Chunri mein daag......."