Indian Coffee House

Smell the coffee..

Food

Service

Atmosphere

There is a place in Calcutta where it’s still circa 1975. Indira Gandhi is still prime minister and the cold war still rages on.
                 That place is the old Indian Coffee House on College Street which seems to be stuck in some kind of a socialist time wrap. Black-and-white framed photographs of Jawaharlal Nehru, Mahatma Gandhi, and Indira Gandhi adorn the walls of the coffee house. The interiors are shabby; the waiters are dressed in uniforms that look like props from an old Indian movie. Their elaborate headdresses are usually a metaphor for the type of service on offer: clean, starched and upright, or limp and ill-fitting. The lemon water still comes with seeds floating in it, and the cold coffee is exactly the same as the hot coffee, except that it is served cold. Nothing has changed in thirty years. Yet, despite the coming of many trendy new coffee joints, the old coffee house holds a unique place in the hearts of the people of Calcutta.
                 Here the coffee comes as coffee, no frills, no fancy names. And it’s delicious. For a handful of rupees per cup, you can’t complain. For these and other reasons the coffee house has been a favourite Calcutta hangout. Its cups of coffee have fuelled many a lengthy discussion on politics or cinema or literature…. or simply who the prettiest girl in town is. And even if you order just one cup of coffee and use it as an excuse to sit and idle away an entire afternoon, nobody really minds.
                 The coffee house operates as a worker’s co-operative and is unmolested by the cynicism and profiteering of the corporate world. And for better or worse, it shows. Maybe it’s a place trapped in time. But perhaps it’s a place in time that people of Calcutta prefer.