Find Out The Secret Charms Of Thanjavur

The city of the great Brihadisvara is a pilgrimage.  

 

- Nayantara Patel

 

 

It all began with a dream about coffee. Davarah-tumbler, a rich brown liquid, quite sweet, slightly bitter, only as hot as the tongue can take—a sort of platonic ideal of coffee. The dream was framed in tubelit blue, the backdrop an entirely natural distress finish. The air was light, the smiles were bright, there was a faint scent of jasmine. Vaibhav and I had been walking around Thanjavur’s main market for half an hour. We had made frequent stops. I, distracted by a compulsion to buy little bits off the piles of gundu milagu and vatthal as well as by the dazzling white smiles of women who closed their mouths only long enough to frame giggling replies to my pidgin Tamil. Vaibhav, intent on his photographic duties.

“Kaapi kadai engey, please?”, “Ingey daan, ma!”, “Anda roadle, kadaseele, ma!”, and so it went, from street to little street. Till we turned a corner and there it was: Coffee Palace, Kasi Kadai Street. My dream was not a dream but a memory, the sight shot with that same joyful blue, the coffee exactly as I thought I had dreamt it. We had two servings each and stopped only because we were a bit dizzy with the perfection of the moment. We had only met the day before, but Vaibhav was just as overcome as I and we nearly hugged in happiness.