ON THAT NOTE

Suresh Menon is a writer based in India. In his youth he set out to change the world but later decided to leave it as it is.

A new convert to the pro-coffee movement, Suresh Menon talks of its many benefits.

For years and decades, in fact for over half a century, I lived a morningcoffeeless life, even on occasion snorting derisively at those who couldn’t open their eyes (or their mouths) in the morning without first sipping a cup of coffee.

I made jokes about coffee-dependence, and when staying with friends shocked them by not having a cup of coffee first thing in the morning. I was either sub-human or super-human, they concluded.

And then one morning it all changed and I have now become a spokesman for the morning coffee – hot, black and inviting. The Turkish proverb says coffee should be black as hell, strong as death, sweet as love. Mine is strong as love, black as night. I don’t think the Turks will mind if I don’t have it sweet. With the passion of the recently converted, I am toying with the idea of writing a regular coffee blog, but will give the coffee time to settle down first.

I am thinking of buying a coffee machine so the morning feeling can last through the day. Also, I have become a bore on the topic of the importance of morning coffee (nothing becomes important till we do it ourselves), and how it civilises us. T S Eliot might have measured out his life with coffee spoons, but the remainder of my life shall be measured in coffee mugs. The morning coffee mugs, which, as every coffee lover knows, is different from those used the rest of the day.

Someone once said that our culture runs on coffee and gasoline. Maybe he was right, even if in some places they sometimes taste the same. The mathematician Paul Erdos said that a mathematician is a device for turning coffee into theorems.

By extension, a writer is a device for turning coffee into books, and a composer is a device for turning coffee into music. I speak of Voltaire and Beethoven

Someone once said that our culture runs on coffee and gasoline. Maybe he was right, even if in some places they sometimes taste the same

respectively, legendary coffee drinkers (upwards of 50 cups daily).

All this is a strange new world for me because I was a coffee-drinker for years, converting coffee (with milk and sugar) and cigarettes into newspaper articles. But no morning coffee, thank you. Till now.

There is something about the aroma of fresh coffee early in the morning that stands alone as an example of mankind’s refined sensibility. You can have tea, of course, but for aroma-seekers and positivityhunters, it doesn’t quite make it.

Coffee has a spirituality that sets it apart; first thing in the morning it is a prayer, a thanksgiving and a looking-forward exercise.

There is, I am told, an anti-coffee movement too. I imagine people sit around in an anti-coffee shop, sip hot water and discuss anti-sport.