Black coffee mornings...

I’ve stopped having tea in the mornings. I avoid milk as much as I can. I don’t feel like having one more of anything when it comes to food. But I do have a renewed affection for black coffee sweetened with jaggery. It is the flavour of days long past.

My father loved his black coffee. He could drink it at any time. He could drink any number of cups of it. He even used to joke that his dark complexion came from the coffee and told me he used to be fair as a child. I found that quite funny. For me it was a forbidden drink when very young so I ached to try it.

I was a very odd child. Knowing that mornings were my best time, I woke up early and took out my books. I must’ve been 14 or 15 then. My dad woke much earlier than me and seeing me up, would make black coffee for both of us. It was a ritual. We didn’t speak much. We sipped our coffee and he would walk to the Ashram while I would study for an hour or so. The rest of the household woke much later.

Today, as I sit sipping my black coffee and wonder why I have lost the will to wake up early and enjoy my day, I wish I had my Acha around just to tell me that it will all be ok. I wish I could see him enjoying the first of endless cups of coffee. I wish I could wake with the sound of his prayers in my ears and in my heart. I wish so badly that he could see his granddaughter for he had passed by the time she was born. She too loves coffee in a tea-drinking family. As I cradle my morning black coffee, I feel connected to my father for a few fleeting moments and I can almost feel his roughened hands stroking my hair as he passes by on his way to somewhere else.