Evermocha

One of my favorite sayings is, “When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.” When applying this to my morning rituals, I’m like Bluto in Animal House. I’ll just hang out where it’s comfy as teachers come and go and someone has to threaten me with expulsion.

In Bombay, my morning ritual has always been to have my coffee at Café Mocha, a short walk from my hotel down Veer Nariman Drive. I know the walk by heart: where the sidewalk dips, where to step over broken cement blocks into patches of dirt, the paan vendors, the massive shading trees. On the first day I was back, city workers were cutting down one of these trees.

I think it was a sign.

Mocha is no longer the café I once knew. Instead of being able to find a quiet outdoor table among the few travelers and students, the place is packed almost exclusively with young students – four and five to a tiny table – alternately puffing on hookahs and talking into their mobile phones.

The word “evergreen” is typically used to describe something that is timeless. It’s a word many Indians use to describe film acting legend Amitabh Bachchan. Interestingly, he’s been in the news lately – not just for buying his son Abishek a Bentley for his 31^st birthday this Monday. The Big B has been in a largely media-fueled feud with Bollywood mega star Shah Rukh Khan over statements that SRK was trying to fill AB’s shoes.

SRK fired back this week saying, “I’m not saying he’s old, but I am young... I’m hip and sexy.” Mr. Bachchan responded that everything SRK said was “absolutely right.” He added, “I’m old. He is young. I’m not sexy. I just play sexy...” He said it wasn’t fair to compare the two men; he’s twenty years older than SRK. The media should wait until Shah Rukh is 65 and see how he fares against the current Bollywood box office hero.

Well played.

So, yesterday, as I sat in my ever-favorite Mocha, squeezed in between a pack of giggling students as I tried to form complete sentences to write in my journal, I finally came to the realization that I may have outgrown Mocha.

I think I’ll call The Big B my teacher on this one.

P.S. My iPod is on shuffle and just broadcast Joni Mitchell’s “Chinese Café/Unchained Melody”: Nothing lasts for long, nothing lasts for long...

You can’t plan that.