Black Magic percolates and serenades

Ah, the black beverage was never so charming. When coffee shops were news in the city, they were these swank outlets perfect for that glitzy first date or even a cool birthday treat. However, ever since they invaded unconventional spaces, their avant garde charm floored us all.

A guitar (sorry Eagles, eat your heart out) to woo your fiancée is no longer a hip thing at a Café Coffee Day or a Barista. Call it black magic; the black drink serenades the city in myriad ways.

The coffee shops in Kolkata embrace Rabindra Sangeet and Jazz, Bhadralok and Haute couture with equal elan, a paradigmatic change few would have considered earlier. Café Coffee Day charted the trend with The Bard's Muse in 2004, an event scripted by actors Sudip Mukherjee and Parambrata Chattopadhyay. It featured recital of monologue plays of Rabindranath Tagore. No wonder, it had huddling in the audience-public relations expert Rita Bhimani, theatre artist Bijoylakshmi Burman, television stars Sudipa Basu and Chandrayee Ghosh.

Tagore and coffee -- and now coffee and films. Michael Kurtiz sure would have been tempted to have Bogart sip the black drink in the club of Casablanca.

Nirmalya Majumder, who runs a film club in the city, finds the idea of screening short films at coffee shops fascinating. "The audience is perfect, the ambience cool. I am talking to a couple of chains for screenings," says Majumder.

If films are on way, can fashion be far behind?

The Café Coffee Day chain recently hosted a designer collection show amid the attentive gaze of the fashion savvy youth, also the potential buyers. You need not be a fashion expert to imagine the charm of watching a fashion show over the percolating drink.

"Fashion events are yet to trickle down to the common man. But inside a coffee shop, it comes within his grasp. It does not make fashion sound outlandish and beyond reach," said Poroma Mitra, an engineering student who was at the collection launch of a designer.

Academic institutions are catching up, too.

The British Council Library is the latest institution to romance the drink. The library has recently gone for a makeover, installing a full-fledged coffee shop on its premises. Rianka Roy, a post-graduate student of Jadavpur University, finds it a refreshing change. "I have been coming to BCL since my undergraduate days. The coffee shop has made BCL a cool place to study during exams. As you immerse yourself in books the whole swanky feel of the coffee shop takes tension off your mind," explains Roy.

And of course, at malls, coffee shops are a mega-hit. People like Rajarshi Bose, an employee of IFB India, however, find coffee comfy in bookshops. Crossword Bookstore, for instance, houses a coffee outlet, a favoured haunt of book-lovers who want to catch a cuppa as they flip through the classics. Or Cha-Bar at the Oxford Bookstore, Park Street. "The tea joint is a novel concept. It has changed the fundamental philosophy of buying and browsing. Bookstores with such features encourage quality browsing and not just fast hand buying," says Juthika Mullick, a school teacher in South Kolkata.

For puritans, who fume at the black drink pervading hallowed bookstores and academic institutions, much before alcohol, coffee has symbolized rebellious political activities across the globe. Go back to a Sartre or a Camus in a Parisian coffee shop, the dear emblem of avant garde. Also remember, Many of Nirmal Varma's characters savoured coffee as they delved into existential questions.