Madras Cafe – Rishikesh

Madras Cafe is near Ram Jhula in Rishikesh. Their masala dosa was not that great for a South Indian, but their cold coffee was our only refuge. South Indians drink filter coffee and I am fussier possibly than anyone I know with the possible exception of my mother.

All that walking and no coffee was making me very tired. Then we saw a Madras Cafe with a banner that said that it was recommended by many international guide books. We took a chance on the cold coffee and life kicked into my cells. In the Divine Life Resort where we stayed, pot coffee meant, boiled milk in a jug and packets of nescafe instant and sugar.

All the dishes we ate reminded us almost but not entirely of  good food eaten in our distant past in resteraunts that were now no longer open or accessible to us. So we regularly haunted Madras cafe till the end of our visit. We did try the Pav Bhaji at Chhotiwala and it was good and we drank Shikanj on the street for the first time in our lives and that was good too. (He washed the glasses specially for us, which is more than he did for his other customers, because we enquired about plastic cups!)

Photo Credit: All Rights Reserved: Satya Sarada Kandula

Most of the visitors there were either white or South Indian (read Telugu). We saw one particluar white middle aged man look very distressed when a band of high spirited Telugu Girl Himalayan Trekkers burst into madras cafe in their Rs10/- rain coats, bought on the side streets, order coffee and yell happily to each other and to us.

I have seen the same discomfort registered in the face of a retired white Dutchman who has been a resident of Rishikesh for 4 years when looking at the high spirited Kavad log. Many of the white people who come to Rishikesh for spirituality and quietness, do not know how to deal with or participate in the high spirited group devotion, which Indians can very quickly dissolve into. We are after all, just One. I asked the Dutchman why he didn’t stay in clean and quite Europe when he knew that Rishikesh would get crowded for 4 months a year. He said something about environment.

Why did I travel to Rishikesh when God is equally present in Bangalore and the weather is better here? One answer is the Ganga. The other answer is that I was looking for a spiritual place as my final “Vanaprastha” abode. My pen-ultimate place of quietness before the final exit from the mortal coils. I too was looking for an environment that would help me tune myself to the presence of God, better than I could in Bangalore. Of course, I didn’t understand this until I went to DevaPrayag but that is another story.

Rishikesh tends to be a place for the very rich or the very poor, there are not many good middle places as you get in South India. Since we didn’t have the physical health, immunity and endurance to lie on the open ground next to the bridge on a Rs5/- mat, and since we did not have the money to live in the Rs 5000 a night hotels where rich foreigners stayed, we found some compromise places of existence where poor white people and middle class Indian people stayed at about Rs 1000 to Rs 1500 a night. So we didn’t stay as long as planned and returned early.

Anyway back to Madras cafe for our last visit, we asked to see the International Guide in which they were mentioned. They showed us a copy of a book called Yoga School DropOut with the passage about Madras Cafe underlined. Their claim to fame!

Copyright Notice : Content and Images:  All Rights Reserved : Satya Sarada Kandula