By Neeraja Srinivasan
Early in the morning, sunlight swarms into our yellow kitchen. There’s always brewed coffee
decoction on the counter; I can even distinctly remember the whizzing of the machine,
accompanied with other usual kitchen noises: spices sizzling in hot oil and vegetables being
chopped against a cutting board. I wouldn’t go to the extent of calling my parents coffee addicts,
especially because they’re doctors and it’s not the best look for them, but in some sense, they are.
My parents, and our household in extension, functions as a the-world-could-be-falling-apart-but-
there’s-always-coffee-on-the-table type of household— one where sicknesses, sorrows and
afflictions are remedied with a mug of coffee. Bittersweet drinks to conquer bittersweet feelings;
the perfect cure.
My mum always seemed angrier when she cooked and my father and I would always
conveniently find other things to do when she was in the kitchen. I’ve never really asked her why
being in the kitchen frustrated her so much— all I know is that it has little to do with her affinity
for cooking because she’s told me so herself. The sweat-inducing stuffiness of our kitchen,
especially in the midst of sputtering oil, boiling hot curries and humid Chennai afternoons makes
it cumbersome for anyone to be in a particularly happy mood whilst cooking, so of course, I
don’t blame her for her kitchen specific moodiness. Every time I’d see her in there, I’d
understand why she didn’t want me potentially ruining its careful arrangement and organization.
I can’t talk about my mother and our kitchen without acknowledging grief and guilt over the fact
that my freedoms and privileges exist as a result of my mother’s sacrifices. Maybe that’s what
this anger of hers and many mothers amounts to; a love-hate relationship with the kitchen:
blackhole disguised as a place of refuge. She would often ask me to help with chopping
vegetables, a task that I’d be itching to finish and run off as quickly as possible. Onions had to be
grated into small squares, tomatoes into thin circles and green chillies chopped finely. There was
an imaginary clock at play; the vegetables had to be prepped and ready to be fried on the pan as
Ma gathered other ingredients and brought the gas to a slow simmer. The oil sputtered and
crackled as my imperfectly diced up vegetables touched its surface. Patience is key to cutting
well-proportioned vegetables, she said to me. Lessons in chopping vegetables slowly became
good practices for restraint and tolerance.
Coffee-making, on the other hand, has always been my father’s domain. If I had to draw a
caricature of him, it would be of him smiling and playing the guitar, with a mug of coffee placed
next to him. The space Appa occupies in our kitchen is defined by his role as our family’s
primary coffee-maker. My father’s coffee is crisp and calming, a reflection of his own
temperament and his process is quick, because his genre of coffee is usually consumed on the
run. He makes it all look so easy, so musical; he heats up milk, and carefully waits for it to boil
up to the brim. As milk comes furiously rushing up the vessel, he turns the stove off. He hums an
old Beatles song and fills two mugs up with hot milk. The proportions of sugar to coffee brew
are his secret, a caffeine themed corner of his mind that only he has access to, which conjures up
the perfect beverage for all of his recipients, but especially my mother. Each evening, he presents
to her the labour of his love, and she’s equally as impressed every time. This is all to say that my
parents love each other and me the way they love their coffee; unconditionally and indefinitely.
My father has a dream, one where he retires to write a book about coffee. It’s my favorite,
sweetest story to tell— my uni friends and I played a question game called We’re Not Really
Strangers once, a game meant to empower intimacy and invoke nostalgia. One question asked us
all to recall a fact about each of our fathers: anything about them. I tell everyone about Appa’s
coffee-fuelled dream, and there’s a collective hope we reserve for his sake. He’s spent a
significant chunk of his life fulfilling his eternal search for the perfect mochas, lattes,
cappuccinos and espressos, in Chennai, the UK, Singapore, essentially every single place we’ve
traveled. Our vacation souvenirs always tend to be beverage related; colorful coffee flasks, all
sorts of ceramics and the nichest of coffee powder brands always made their way into our house.
The coffee mugs of our kitchen are treated like the nation’s greatest treasures; if one of them
breaks, we react like we’ve lost a soldier. Each of my friends back home have a mug preference,
one that is duly followed when my dad serves them his special concoction. When I think of
home, I think of my parents’ mug collection— pastel shades and cheesy slogans that were
witness to Amma and Appa always finding their way back to solace, their beloved coffee.
My parents taught me that something as effortless as coffee can be so warm, so ethereal. In
Sonipat where I study, there exists a perpetual need for coffee-making and drinking, a practice
that embodies itself through sleepless nights and morning-afters. Once, I woke up unexpectedly
early on a winter morning and made it to Sunday breakfast. Dining hall breakfasts don’t have
much to offer, but I didn’t really need much that morning. I picked up toast, along with two steel
glasses of hot milk, coffee powder and sugar. This isn’t my usual breakfast ritual, but the cold
was biting into my skin and I knew some heat was all I needed. I mixed coffee powder and sugar
into my glass of milk, watched it slowly melt and create a milky way in shades of brown. The
clinking of a spoon against my glass, metal against metal invoked a longing that didn’t exist
before. One of my courses this semester examines the intricacies of caring and loving, and I
couldn’t help but think of Amma, Appa and coffee when my Professor’s lecture touched on the
unraveling of the self, in the face of the inscrutability of the other, and how that is the
fundamental feature of caring and loving. What does it mean to be undone, what does it mean to
be willing to be undone? Accepting a cup of coffee made for you is an act of letting yourself be
loved and cared for. To me, my parent’s language of love is coffee and that is how they attempt
to love and understand each other. That day, my glass of coffee saved me in a lot of ways, but
more than anything, it rid me of a certain heartache and weariness that I didn’t even know I held.
Much to the conventional caffeine lover’s dismay, I like my coffee sweet, made like a milkshake,
with a touch of hazelnut and a whole lot of sugar. Maybe even accompanied with vanilla ice
cream. I didn’t inherit my father’s fondness for the drink or my mother’s reliance on it. I like the
act of making coffee, slow and calm, more than I do consuming it. I found a routine that I fell in
and out of comfortably: at home, my neighbors and I would pop in now and then, make the
occasional tall glass of cold coffee. Coffee isn’t a daily ritual for me, but whenever I miss home,
I picture my parents laughing over endless mugs of frothy filter coffee. Our family deals with big
heartbreaks and happinesses with small doses of coffee. Sometimes, when my father isn’t home
during the evenings, I make coffee in an attempt to recreate his efforts, chasing a liquid specific
warmth. It’s adequate, but there’s something missing. Maybe it was never about the coffee, as
much as it was about the coffee-maker.
Neeraja Srinivasan is 20 years old and currently studying Literature, Creative Writing and Political Science in Ashoka University, Delhi. Her work has been published by the Museum of Material Memory, The Remnant Archive, Brown History and Paper Planes Magazine, amongst others. She loves anything remotely related to books, art, research, food and writing. One is likely to find her with her nose buried in the pages of a book, at any given point in time. Fresh acrylic paints, color-coded spreadsheets, documenting the everyday, vintage architecture and chocolate mug cakes make her soul happy. You can find more of her musings over on @neeruslists on Instagram.
Hot Pot Magazine 