tree beard cultivation

‘i’d like a “sweet turmeric”, please,’ i tell the owner of aboo ayn cuisine, the small cafe on chaandhanee magu near iskandhar school. as he explains the ingredients and their effects on the body, he sounds almost like a doctor, and he wrings his hands anxiously. he wears a shalwar kamees, a black thaakihaa, a long beard streaked with grey. i get a friendly, slightly nervous vibe from him.

i’m with thakuru again. he really wanted to come here and not least because it’s a haabee cafe. sampaafulhu pronounced the place safe, however, and i am inclined to believe her.

yet it hasn’t dispelled all doubt.

we sit at a table near the plant-filled divider – it really enlivens the interior: though small, the space is green and tasteful.

our juices are placed before us. i have a taste and here i am on the beach, my feet in the sand, looking on the starry sea.

‘wow,’ i say. ‘just fucking…wow.’

i raise my hand (as many of us are wont to in cafes) and the owner appears.

‘how’d you sweeten this without sugar?’

‘oh, you see, i juiced some overripe pears and mixed it in, you see?’

‘oh man!’

when he returns to the kitchen, thakuru asks me if i want a taste of his drink.
i have some and i’m in the deep of a jungle: wet grass, loamy earth, green feels.

‘holy moly!’

i hand thakuru his drink and sip my turmeric juice. i try to do it slowly but my efforts are for naught. this juice is truly raveworthy.

and worth raving about.

i sit back and notice there are no air conditioners. yet it’s not stuffy at all. i mention this to thakuru.

‘this place is clearly aimed at a particular type,’ he says.

and soon, that type materialises.

two women fill the cafe with their presence and conversation. with their cropped grey hair, short-sleeved office-wear and vaguely british accents, they are obviously NGO people. there is almost no pause to their conversation, and they seem to know the proprietor, too.

‘within these humble walls, we seem to have achieved a kind of model society,’ i tell thakuru. ‘with a basis for coexistence: health food. and not just co-existence, a symbiosis.’

‘ahh, they cancel each other out!’

we pay a very reasonable price and turn to leave.

and in the sweltering heat of noon i declare my love for aboo ayn.

‘you’ve taken the first step towards conversion.’

‘i don’t care. our drinks were divinely inspired. hear me?’

and we retreat into the midday traffic, becoming one with our terrible city.