Samovar

Its chairs have borne many an artist, the fans have cooled many burning passions, the outside fuses with the indoors through its barbed wall - and we thought that's what fences make.

Samovar oozes an ethos of the 80s' elitism-meets-flower power-hippie culture. It's where iced tea is just that, not some corrupt concoction of flavours suited to PMSing tempers. Its lampshades hang in no perfect symmetry except their uniform face.

I want to do to you what spring does with the cherry trees

This evening was a memory of a previous one. Same time - time of day, time of year too, perhaps - or at least it breezed like it. A picture of Neruda hung by my table - some of his lines beneath the grinning black 'n white portrait. This one stuck, "I want to do to you what spring does with the cherry trees." Ananda Shankar played unintrusively loud, sinking all traces of work, scatterbrain emotions, the mundane din of traffic at Kala Ghoda.

I'd walked in with lemonade and samosa in mind. I also ordered tea at the end for sake of the old memory.