Closed Curtains Open Windows

A waste of time

A new café had opened up near my Apartment complex, opposite to the main entrance. I wanted to try it out, or rather, I felt like I needed to try it out. From the looks of it, there wasn't anything about it that caught my eye, or my attention even. It was just a small café with a weird, borderline hippy billboard that said "The Vibe Tribe".

After returning from college, I took a cold bath, watched random YouTube videos for a while and headed out wearing the same track pants and blue T-Shirt that I believe I've worn enough times to be mistaken for a cartoon character. It was dark outside, time really flies when one watches random YouTube videos. As I approached the main entrance, I noticed a few guys arguing with the security guards. The sight made me smile a little. It reminded me of myself from two years ago, when I had to make bullshit excuses to sneak in my friends because the guards had bullshit rules against outsiders, especially women. They had made it compulsory for every resident (who is a college student) to have separate Apartment ID cards. They had other silly rules about separate entrances for students and residents that changed as often as the guards guarding the entrances, that one didn't last very long.

Their response to every legitimate criticism was "It's for your own protection". Fat lot of good their protection was when a bunch of goons knocked down the door of my apartment and thrashed my room mate or that time when someone's arm was broken by an outsider or the time someone's ear was cut off or the time someone was murdered. The only people who needed protection were the security guards' parents, if you catch my drift. Sometimes I hid my ID on purpose so that I could have an altercation with the guards and then make them look stupid by showing them the ID after wasting their time, not that they had anything productive to do with their time in the first place.

After the argument came to a conclusion, I stepped out. Don't ask me who won, I don't care. I almost collided into a rash motorcycle driver driving on the wrong side of the road. It would be generous of me to call it a road, it was merely a collection of potholes who got together and decided to have a party! Despite the dim streetlight, I evaded all the animal faeces on the road and made it to the café with clean flip flops, unlike last time. I climbed up the stairs as carefully as possible to avoid waking up the dogs sleeping there. The café looked bigger on the inside (no, it did not look like a blue police box), but empty nonetheless. It had a total of ten tables, each having one of those fancy glass bottles containing water and a plastic vase shaped like flowers with real flowers in them.

The walls had pictures of food and disproportionately drawn faces of famous people painted over a light green background. The lighting of the restaurant was both hippy and trippy, an excellent tactic used by cheap bars and pubs to hide how unsanitary their place really is. The cashier table was just a few planks of wood nailed together, was that the trend back then? The kitchen was separated from the rest of the restaurant by a thin velvet curtain. By the looks of it, the entire staff consisted of two people, one of them took orders while the other played PUBG like his life depended on it.

I sat down on the table nearest to the kitchen. Five minutes later, the waiter came up to me to take my order. After he apologized for not having the first five dishes I was craving for (which was on the menu by the way), I settled for a plain cheese pizza. The waiter yelled at the guy playing PUBG and dragged him into the kitchen. I heard a cow moo outside and a dog bark in retaliation. Out of boredom, I checked my phone for messages and stuff because over a period of time, the human race grew accustomed to looking at their phones while alone in public, a lot of times even when they're not alone. Any deviance from this behaviour would be deemed weird. People always look at their phones, laptops, iPads and sometimes even at newspapers, magazines or books, but rarely at each other.

Fifteen minutes had passed but my pizza wasn't ready yet. Well, there were only two cooks, so I decided to wait a bit longer. My phone's battery was low so I had to switch off my mobile data, which made waiting all the more boring. I stared blankly through the transparent glass door. I saw delivery boys from Zomato and Swiggy every five minutes, somehow showing up with the same kind of bike. Stray dogs sniffed the parcels containing food and wagged their tails only to be chased away. Messy looking guys with even messier beards and some attractive women had come to collect their orders. A group of students sitting on plastic chairs kept outside the teashop next to the café cursed about their wretched college life and ex-girlfriends over tea and cigarettes. The Rikshaw drivers on the opposite side of the road sat in a circle and gambled, while behaving like ruffians. It's chaotic, but it's home, for now at least.

Fifteen more minutes had passed and I grew impatient. I walked into the kitchen to ask them how much longer it would take them. They replied with the most common phrase an employee uses when talking to customers, "Five more minutes sir".

With that, I went back to staring blankly through the glass door, consumed by thoughts such as, What am I even doing here? Why did I even come here? I could have eaten tastier and more filling dishes at cheaper prices in literally any other restaurant or café. I'm not even that hungry, I just saw pictures of food on Instagram. Also, I'm broke as hell this month! The electricity bill was way too high, very much like my room mates. It bled me dry! I have only 500 rupees left for the rest of the month, with 25 more days to go! I also have a very important job interview coming up, I should be preparing for it. The longer I waited, the more I regretted going to the café.

Five minutes later, I could smell the aroma of cheese, oregano and other herbs emanating from the kitchen. My mouth watered in anticipation. From the conversation in the kitchen, I could tell that my pizza had been plated. I hope the pizza is as tasty as it is costly, I thought. When the PUBG guy emerged from the curtains, I set aside all my other thoughts and was prepared to devour the pizza as if I hadn't had one in years. On the way to my table, he tripped on something, perhaps a crack in the tiles or his untied shoelace and dropped the pizza on the floor. I looked at him for a second, my eyes shot him the most judgemental look I could muster. I got up and got out of there. What a waste of food! There is a lesson here, I think, figure it out yourself.