An overdose of Mocha

Mocha has featured pretty prominently on my list this weekend. For those who are wondering, it's a "happening" coffee place in Hyderabad. Pretends to be more intellectual than Barista or CCD. Went there three days running. Not out of an intense desire to be there or anything, but mostly because of the company.


Mocha has the reputation of being the place to be seen at. That was not my reason to go though. "Let's go to Mocha.." someone would suggest. "Ok Let's go" has been my take on it this whole weekend.

The idea of a place where you can sip a cup of coffee and just lounge around is very appealing. The idea of spaces - each of which has a different theme is appealing as well. The idea of the coffee shop bazaar where everything's for sale is also interesting.

But why then did I want to simply redecorate the whole place? And improve the air-conditioning, which was hopelessly inadequate. The bazaar was just too jumbled up. The hookah lounge was hot and the furnishing had been quite obviously picked out by people of varied tastes.

There were modernistic cushions with cotton covers, and nobility was represented in zari and silk. And among them were embossed American Velvet ones in garish colors looking like a cheap stage set. The modernistic stained glass lampshades against the dull steel blue background. My eyes ached and my aesthetic sense was so hurt, that if it wasn't for the company, I would have so run away. The company included a large American who had us in splits with his observations and anecdotes of his life here.

Mocha on Saturday was better, for we sat outside and I loved the chairs, though the lanterns with red bulbs and covered with some sort of netted material gave me the heebie jeebies. But my mind had been already numbed by Crash (the movie) and popcorn and general goodwill towards the world. And I tried to be less judgmental of Mocha.

Rhea thought since I had been there twice and cribbed so much in shades of grey, she needed to share in my pain and make up her own mind. So we went again on Sunday. We sat in a room that was possibly representative of a ship's cabin with quotations on the walls. The Old school was represented by William Blake's Imagination - "To hold infinity in the palm of your hand and eternity in an hour." Modern Thought was represented by Jim Morrison's A Crystal Ship. My favorite though (and I have no idea which school it is the output of) was "I am what I am. There is no Plan B." Again, Moroccan style glass windows spoilt the ship effect. You'd so expect to see a porthole. So the dissatisfied feeling continued.

But whatever Mocha did for me, it did good things for Rhea, for she was very tulli after we left. She insisted that we walk on the divider in teh middle of Road Number 7, with her hands on my waist, singing romantic numbers at the top of her voice and kissing me at intervals. The whole could potentially have been romantic but I so don't swing that way. So it was merely amusing. I should bring her to Mocha more often. Getting drunk on coffee? That's a new one for me.

In any case, we provided amusement for a lot of men on bikes who said things that we could not catch. She was too high to care and as for me, I never care anyway about what men call out from speeding bikes. Anyone who wants to tell me something should not say it while passing me on a speeding bike. I sometimes don't even get it when they stop and stand opposite me and hold a conversation. So the long and short of it is, that I didn;t get it and didn't care that I didn't. And I haven't developed an antipathy for Mocha though there is no "pro-pathy" either.. In any case, I went home and slept with Wimsey again... This time in Have his Carcass.