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Chennai
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Coffee and culture
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Be it Chennai or Paris, coffee houses mean much more than the brew
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ONE EVENING, I walk into a cafe on a quiet street in Chennai. It is not so much the aroma of the brew that greets me as the notice board close to the door. Pinned on it is a variety of scrawls with a bewildering array of messages. Some want to say just hello to some they secretly admire. Some are letters of information, a change of address or mobile phone number. Some seek help, a room to live in. Others are trying to sell a computer or a piece of furniture.
Incredible, cafes are beginning to perform a task they did three centuries ago. In the 1700s, one could — at a European cafe — for the price of coffee get news pamphlets. You could catch up on the latest happening on the Rialto, and the spirited gossip that followed in the crowded confines often seemed heady, the strong flavour wafting out of the tiny china cups adding to an almost delirious state of existence.
Mind you, it was not always gossip without meaning: European cafes witnessed inspiring scientific lectures and animated literary debates, and, sometimes, the sealing of business deals.
A friend of mine, who works out of home in Chennai, tells me that he often gets into a cafe mid-morning to "work". Even many years ago, I remember an executive working for a Chennai firm conducting his 11o'clock conference with his sales team in a cafe.
Nothing new, though, for a coffee-house in Kolkata saw such "meets" at the lunch hour, when leather-bag toting marketing men would get together to talk shop over endless rounds of coffee.
But, Kolkata's more renowned coffee-house was on College Street, close to the city's "Latin Quarter". That coffee-house made and unmade innumerable poets, played Cupid to lovers and saw the first stirrings of student revolt. Some say that the Naxalite movement was brewed in Kolkata's little China of coffee on College Street. I would not know that for sure, but political arguments coloured the musty-looking corners of the coffee-house.
As they did in 18th Century Paris. It was at the Cafe de Foy that Camille Desmoulins roused Frenchmen with a spirit shattering plea: "Aux armes, citoyens". Two days later, on July 14, 1789, the Bastille fell, and with it the fortunes of some of the country's arrogant men and women.
Can one think of such passion in Chennai's coffee-shops ? Doubtful. Even in France — which could be termed as the centre of cafe culture, despite the fact that coffee-houses were also a way of early life in London and Venice — the habit to stop by for a steaming gulp of this hot drink, it is feared, is declining.
American cultural invasion has just contributed to this slide. Not quite satisfied with battering the French celluloid screen and the French belly with its own brand of cinema and cuisine, Starbucks has just raided the very bastion of the Gallic nation's soul. The American chain of cafes has opened its first outlet in Paris hoping to wipe away an age-old French tradition of espresso coffee and croissants spiced with dignity and class.
But, they were not always so. Or, at least, they were not so viewed by the ruling elite. For, cafes did not always promote polite conversation: they were not always establishments of philosophical contemplation and commercial innovation. They attracted unruly political fermentation and dissent.
As for Chennai, its cafes are hardly known to evoke political passion. The closest one of them came to bridging the Chennai-Paris divide on a rainy evening when a French singer lisped Indian movie songs of the 1950s, 1960s and even the 1970s. He began with an all-time favourite, "An Evening in Paris", which Shammi Kapoor and Sharmila Tagore had used to set aflame the 1960s hearts.
Did the French vocalist excite the motley crowd in Chennai? Yes, there were many who seemed elated over the musical notes escaping the Frenchman's lips.
Likewise, Chennai's `filter' coffee may well find a marvellous match in Paris's cafe culture. Maybe with innovation.
GAUTAMAN BHASKARAN
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