You And Me And A Lot Of Coffee

My grandmother told me that she couldn’t get up and work in the kitchen without having a cup of tea.

So, she made herself half a cup of tea every morning, as soon as she woke up and got herself to work. But, she still had a full cup of tea with my grandfather once he got out of bed.

They barely spoke. There was more space to breathe and feel each other’s presence than there being any scope for conversation.

That was love, back then.

–

Aryan and I go to our favourite café for coffee, once in a while. I love coffee way more than what he does. But, I probably love him more than I love coffee.

Our coffee is rich in chocolate sauce and a scoop of vanilla ice cream swims in it. I love to scrape off the thick chocolate sauce off the sides of the glass and gulp it down with the coffee.

I scrape it that way for Aryan too, sometimes. We fight over which glass of cold coffee has more chocolate sauce and he wins it. He has won my heart long back, so winning the better glass of cold coffee is too easy for him.

He’ll take the cold coffee with extra chocolate sauce and we’ll look at each other for a while. Then, I’ll look at his coffee and he’ll catch me staring at his coffee. Then he’ll give me his coffee to sip for a while and gladly, take mine. With him, I can’t ever remember sipping only my coffee and I can’t remember him sipping only his own coffee either.

He’ll call me ‘ugly’ and I’ll call him ‘mean.’ We’ll tell each other, “I don’t like you” and “I don’t like you, either.”

And, if I play with his hair, he’ll totally mess mine. If I call the baby crows closer, he’ll only shoo them away. And, if I show him the Moon, he’ll turn his face away. This is how he is and this is how I am.

We’re just friends. Him being mean is a part of him and him being mean to me is a part of me, I’ve grown to accept. After all this, some days he’ll hug me and make me the happiest me. But, I can’t deny that he’s an idiot and for me, he’ll always be.

My grandmother told me that she couldn’t get up and work in the kitchen without having a cup of tea.

So, she made herself half a cup of tea every morning, as soon as she woke up and got herself to work. But, she still had a full cup of tea with my grandfather once he got out of bed.

They barely spoke. There was more space to breathe and feel each other’s presence than there being any scope for conversation.

That was love, back then.

–

Aryan called me last night and hesitated. When I asked him, “What is it?”, he told me to go and look at the Moon. I know what love was, back then. Is this what love is, today?