I started reminiscing my days in my office when I was a fresher, while I was having my brunch today! A cup of tea and a sandwich!!
The basic sandwich with a green chutney spread with onions and I go a long way back to 2010 – 2014! There was a time when a sandwich and a biggg cup of tea (in my NetX360 coffee mug ;)) were my quintessential food for breakfast for days, particularly on days I was early to office. The shop’s name was “Vopilla” which translates into “incomparable”. It was located on the ground floor of Tidel Park, Chennai. And, it did live up-to its name, in my opinion at least. The tastiest ever yet a simple sandwich.
It was an interesting choice of name and spelling, which took me a while to understand that it was even Tamil. There were days I read it as “Voip-illa” when I only took a fleeting glance at the shop, before I became a regular shop visitor.
It was quite easy to not take a notice of the shop as it was so small and ‘sandwiched’ between other two comparatively bigger shops and barely had a space for two persons to stand in the shop at the same time. But it did draw quite a number of people for the tastier coffee they served.
The conversation would always go like this at 8.45am:
Me: “Anna, oru sandwich” (“Anna, one sandwich”)
That Anna: “Time aagum ma” (“It will take time ma”)
Me: “Naan wait panni vaangitu porenna!” (“I will wait and take it, Anna”)
That guy would have got definitely pissed off of me pestering him for that sandwich, even before the shop was open fully. 😉 Oh ya! 9am was wayyy to early for anybody to even be at the office. And to be in an almost deserted office was another pleasure (ok.. not so good feel on weekends ;)) that I allowed myself to enjoy only on Fridays (the day of homeward journey :))
Want to get to office fast in Chennai? Take a share auto and clutch the auto seat or the person next to you (as there wouldn’t be anything to hold on to :P) for the dear life. The auto drivers in Chennai should have a feel of flying a flight. Ending up going to the place you want to, safely without a bump or a scratch at least was a rarity. Those were the days the cab services like Ola and Uber were not that popular. Or even if they had been a widely used means of transport, would I have paid like I do now.. Hee hee.. Never!! So, after such a ordeal and having had gotten ready for the second time (yeah.. by the time I reached office I would have a look of a coal miner at the end of his busy day), to actually start my day at office, a cup of hot tea and the ‘vopilla’ sandwich were a bliss to the tummy.
As all good things come to an end, the shop was closed one day! Things change.. And we grow up.. Move on.. Anndd find another nice shop 🙂
And here I am now.. doing something entirely different. And can never be more happy!! 🙂 Eat what you like and do what you love!!
Until next time.. Godspeed! Happy Reading!! 🙂