Where: Royapettah
What you get: Coffee and short eats.
 Amethyst is located inside a beautiful bungalow, one of the many heritage buildings which have been converted into art galleries, eat outs, etc. Amethyst has a
coffee shop, which was previously called ‘Mocha’, and has a few boutiques. If you are a college-goer, then it would be a good idea to just stay put in the open and eat than go
shopping. The stuff here is hugely expensive, small wonder as the clothes and other things on sale are designer wear and wares.
The place was calm and you could park in the cool shade of the trees inside the premises. Almost all the guests who dropped in on this particular day were youngsters.
My friend and I went there on a lazy afternoon and we had not met in a good while. I had never been to this place before though I had heard of it. My friend was treating me to this ‘meal’, and I let the choice of place be hers. After scanning the menu a hundred times we decided to go for the Greek salad which seemed to be pretty interesting with cucumbers and cheese,
paneer tikka, cold coffee with
ice cream, and iced
tea.
 The prices seemed a bit high to me but it doesn’t seem to deter the youth who hang out there. Our order took considerable time to reach our table, but since we had time to kill, we decided to catch up on each other’s lives. As we played with our food, we were not in the mood to eat; we saw a hookah being brought to the table next to ours. Pretty cool, I thought. Nice centrepiece. It took me a few minutes to realise that the hookah was not just to look at but to smoke as well. We watched as the small group smoked rings in the air. Yup, this isn’t a non smoking area. You could happily
smoke away on the nicotine stick too.
 I went window-shopping and saw brightly-lit
boutiques which did have some good stuff. I made a mental note of some things I might buy someday when I become very rich.
Soon it was time to leave and it was as if someone snapped me back to reality, as the serenity of the premises makes you forget that the very hyper busy, arterial Peter’s Road is just a few yards away.
Strangely, in a place like this, the various ring tones on the
mobiles seemed musical.
The people here don’t ask you to leave and they don’t shoot you funny glances if you stay long. You can choose to stay until closing time.
If you feel like you want some time alone, pick up your favourite book, if you read, choose a quiet corner, or sit in your car, munch and/or guzzle… you feel like you are the only one for miles around, i.e. if you are one of the many who enjoy these moments to be with yourself.
The atmosphere may transform you into a writer, a poet, a diehard nature-lover, anything. Anyway, alone or with company, you will love to hang out here.
chinmayi
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Amethyst
