Costa Coffee

Some time ago, a fellow Hopkins student in my cohort sent us all an article about how expats always habitat cozy starbucks-esque wifi-enabled imported-coffee coffee shops wherever in the world they are working. I laughed it off thinking about how assimilated I am since I drink Chai instead…

I have been wondering why I have not been performing at my 100% over the past four weeks. I’m generally a pretty poor sleeper, as most people know, but I can bounce back from lack of sleep fairly well - especially here in India - where I wake up a lot earlier and fresher than I ever have back home. I usually get out of bed at around 7:30, but after supervising my maid’s cleaning and the cook’s cooking, getting myself ready via bucket shower, rikshawing out of my congested market to the main road, waiting for my spoonfed-by-mom friends to pick me up, and then getting out of the city to get to Gurgaon, I’m actually sitting at my office desk around 10:30. In that time, my morning chai can no longer keep me up and the car ride has tired me out - my friends’ favorite hobbies are 1. teasing me, 2. teasing me, and 3. playing trance music at 9am.

It recently occurred to me that I might need to reconsider my lack of caffeine.

In true junkie fashion, I pressured my buddy, R, to go to Costa Coffee (coffee shop in cybery city where all the firangis (foreigners) hang out) with me before work the other day.

Now you’ll find R and I at Costa Coffee every “morning” (10am). The funniest thing of it all is that I’m not so sure if R has ever drank coffee for anything more than a dessert drink. He, being Indian, will buy a meal of a large fu-fu-fancy cold coffee with chocolate and whip cream, a muffin, and some warm pastry while I get my small black Americano. This is our morning routine now... I think he’s hooked.

The cool thing about this coffee shop is that everyone that works there except for the man at the register is deaf and mute. It’s pretty amazing how they communicate because they definitely do not use American Sign Language. There’s a lot of pointing and acting. R doesn’t really pay much mind to it, as Indians rarely pay much mind to anything, but I find it fascinating.