Tea at Tifanys at 00:00

It was sort of a sacred ritual. Unknowingly forced upon us by the institute. As soon as Internet would shut down soon after 12 midnight, I would head straight to Tifanys for tea. It was a ritual that we (Me and Ravi) followed closely for five years that we spent at IITM. The library also closed down at the same time. And most of the people from library would head straight to Tifany's. 

The atmosphere was quite social. It was a good time to catch some people especially the maggu (i.e. studious) kind. Arvind Ajoy (a.k.a Tatha) was the most frequent visitor. I can hardly recall a Tifany's visit when I did not meet him. Sometimes Tifany's visit was a break in between a night long study session. This was true for end-semester exams and right before project submissions. You had to ensure that you arrived soon after 12. If you reached at 12:10 or 12:15 chances were that you will find at least 25 people in the queue and by the time you reached counter, tea would be over. Then you had to satisfy yourself with coffee. My northie (slang for people from North India) tongue never could develop a taste for Chennai filter coffee. And then Tifany's coffee suspiciously tasted like some industrial chemical. It was definitely very potent at keeping you awake for hours. The taste would do that. Some really hardcore people, like Joshua Soans, would often have it without milk. 

There was always an option of going to Cafe Coffee Day, just a few meters away from Tifany's. But it started closing down early in my later years. I used to have a hard time ordering anything there after 12 midnight. I stopped going there soon after. My devotion to Tifany's tea only grew more intense.I would visit it twice a day. Once in the evening and then at midnight. Considering that if I spent 14 rupees per day, and spent 200 days in a year at the institute (it was definitely more than that, since I never used to go home in winter vacations, but I am making conservative estimates) I must have spent at least 3000 rupees per year on tea alone.

I am repeating the same ritual at IIM Bangalore. We have a night canteen here and bang on at 12 midnight, I feel the urge to go for a tea. The atmosphere is not very social though. I normally meet only a few people. Mostly it is empty and people prefer to take their food to rooms. I seldom meet anyone in the corridor to strike a conversation. Students usually stay indoors and study a lot. The campus and the corridors are dead silent at night (unless some poor soul has his/her birthday. Then the entire section turns out to give 'hooshing' which is very nosiy). I also do not have a friend like Ravi to give company every time and to engage people in interesting conversations.