Coffee-Shops and Inky Madness

I love to read and write in coffee-shops.In the middle of the smell of baked goods, brewing coffee, bad metal music and the general din. I can spend hours in a coffee-shop, reading, writing and sipping some cheap-ass drink. Although I like to work together with friends or colleagues, often times, I just want to hang out alone in the coffee-shops, while reading and writing. I don't want the disruption of having to engage in a chit-chat or casual conversation. A friend of mine had once asked me why I like coffee-shops so much, and I had answered, Because I can be alone in there. The moment I said that, the irony of the whole thing struck me a little too much. Besides, there is no way I would ever go to Indian Coffee House, either in College Street or in Jadavpur in Kolkata, to read and write. I go there to meet with my friends, chat with them, and I have no desire to work in there. So, I often think about the notion of privacy that haunts us when we bring our work to cafes. I know, I work in coffee-shops because it provides me with a break from the monotony of my matchbox-apartment, it allows me to enjoy a private moment which is also intensely public. Similarly, often times I think about the racial dynamics in coffee-shops. How intensely white sometimes they are in this country!

And I keep thinking, wouldn't it be cool if someone does a project somewhere on the history, sociology, cultural studies of coffee-shops? Like, I would say, without hesitating at all, that the emergence of the coffee-shops in most Indian cities is inextricably linked to the emergence of neo-liberalism.

Shining Coffee-Shops=Shining India

But, I am not so sure of the social history of the coffee-shops in here! But just writing this post makes me think that currently I don't have any stories which are set in coffee-shops! It might actually be interesting to try to write one over the summer or at some point in my life. Speaking of which, I am thinking: writing indeed is a form of memorializing. So, I am wondering, what's the role of writer's own experience, or experience in general , in writing? I guess, it's a very old question. But the way I think about it, it's still a relevant one, something which every writer has to think through while figuring out one's own craft, aesthetics and politics!

What do you all think?