What do you think?
Rate this book
Coffee@4:00
In an ideal arranged marriage, parents choose partners for their children; boy and girl get married, have kids and live happily. However, things are much more complicated in real life.
Ria is married to Sunil. She feels that her existence is boring and routine but then suddenly things take a different turn when she starts getting strange clues about Sunil’s life.
She has two very special friends Geeta and Ryan who she meets every Thursday in a cafe. They both are victims of circumstances and had to overcome a lot of hurdles in the past to reach where they are now. They think that they have seen it all but destiny changes their path and they come face to face with their inner reservations.
Will these friends be able to cope with what life has to offer?
Ria is married to Sunil. She feels that her existence is boring and routine but then suddenly things take a different turn when she starts getting strange clues about Sunil’s life.
She has two very special friends Geeta and Ryan who she meets every Thursday in a cafe. They both are victims of circumstances and had to overcome a lot of hurdles in the past to reach where they are now. They think that they have seen it all but destiny changes their path and they come face to face with their inner reservations.
Will these friends be able to cope with what life has to offer?
213 pages, Kindle Edition
First published November 19, 2010
2 people are currently reading
34 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
March 6, 2015
Beside the bad narration and grammatical errors throughout the pages, the concept of this book was great. I rated this a three star due to the basic dialogue presented. Although there was much anticipation written in the story line due to the nature of circumstances to each character and the book's idea. Ironically, I could not put this book down. The conclusion of this book lacked clarity leaving me with assumptions, but it did bring me thoughts of how true integrity, love, and forgiveness prevails over any negative circumstance. Somehow finding truth in people makes you more aware of yourself; consciousness in terms of bringing happiness into your life rather than denying yourself happiness and living through a lie.
July 8, 2011
A superb yarn.
February 27, 2019
‘Coffee @ 4.00‘ is a rather unusual story about three friends who meet every week for coffee and mutual emotional support. So far you can be forgiven for thinking it’s a bit ‘Friends’- inspired.
Geeta was orphaned at a young age and brought up by her uncle and his unkind wife. She made a short and unhappy marriage to a man with a serious drug addiction whom she left when he brought his boss home and told her to sleep with him.
Ryan escaped his life as the son of a shop-keeper after the advent of mall-culture in his home city drove his father to alcoholism, bankruptcy and an early death. His determination to seek his fortune in Mumbai and to try to make money to dig his family out of their debts was entirely believable – how he chose to do it was less so.
The third of the threesome was Ria, a sad housewife and mother married to Sunil, the Finance Director of a big company. The spark has gone out of her marriage and her friends want to help her to reignite the doused flames.
All of this was revealed in the first few pages before the bombshell went off at the end of that chapter – Geeta and Ryan are high-grade escorts, people who sell sex for money but only it would seem for large amounts of it.
My bullshit detector was twitching instantly. In a city like Mumbai where sex can be bought and sold for just a few rupees, two of the protagonists have found themselves not in a slum being exploited by violent pimps and down-at-heel clients riddled with all manner of unpleasant social diseases but somehow by great good fortune they’ve landed at the top of the tree.
Geeta has crawled out of the chawl (a typically multiple occupancy Mumbai tenement block) and landed comfortably and profitably on her back on the high thread-count sheets of Mumbai’s top hotels and fine apartments just by dint of an opportune meeting with a lady called ‘D’ on a train. Do high-class madams in Mumbai go by train? I think it’s as unlikely as a poor girl hitting the jackpot.
Ryan’s entry into the world of the gigolo is via his work colleague Prem, a man who shows him how to escape the life of tea-boy and rake in the cash by delivering a rather different type of ‘refreshment’ to bored middle-aged ladies. Ryan though stays sober and true to his loathing of alcohol and unlike Prem somehow manages to make a living without having to ‘bend over for the boys’.
The world in which the characters move is one of spacious luxury apartments with their own workout rooms, company directors and top hotels. I’m sorry to say that I just wasn’t buying the idea of quite such meteoric social advancement.
They say that most first novelists stick to the world they know and I wondered to what degree that could be true. I can potentially believe that the author knows nice hotels and fancy apartments (although I have no biographical info to support that) but I’d stake my salary on her having absolutely no experience of the world of prostitution – high-class or not. There is you see absolutely not a jot of sex – paid for or freely given – anywhere in this book. It’s just not there. Ryan’s favourite client is a lady with whom he spends most of his time watching old movies rather than testing out the mattress.
If I wrote a book set in the middle of a war zone and didn’t research weapons, military behaviour and battle strategy, it couldn’t be more obvious that I hadn’t a clue what I was talking about. The ‘escorts’ go through life choosing nice clothes, hanging out at parties and going to hotel rooms or apartments
with people who pay for their company but we never get anything about the mechanics of their work.
The style of writing is simplistic, the plot is rather a nice gentle love story but the positioning of two of the characters in the sex-trade was just too silly for words. I’ve read that when the Julia Roberts and Richard Gere film ‘Pretty Woman’ hit the big time back in the 1990s, it spawned a generation of young girls who thought that prostitution was a glamorous and valid career choice. I fear that the sort of saccharine approach to prostitution shown in ‘Coffee @ 4.00‘ reflects a naivety about the glamour of a world that’s more typically characterised by violence, drug addiction, exploitation and power games than it is about nice clothes and fancy handbags.
I read it, was happy for the characters when their lives improved but I had a nasty after-taste left in my mouth when I finished – and I don’t think it had anything to do with the coffee. Kavita Nalawde is not a bad writer but this is a bad book. I hope she won’t be completely down-heartened by my review but I would advise her to step away from the dark side and keep to a world she knows and that readers can believe in. Sensationalism won’t work unless you can really deliver the goods and nice girls really shouldn’t try to play dirty.
Geeta was orphaned at a young age and brought up by her uncle and his unkind wife. She made a short and unhappy marriage to a man with a serious drug addiction whom she left when he brought his boss home and told her to sleep with him.
Ryan escaped his life as the son of a shop-keeper after the advent of mall-culture in his home city drove his father to alcoholism, bankruptcy and an early death. His determination to seek his fortune in Mumbai and to try to make money to dig his family out of their debts was entirely believable – how he chose to do it was less so.
The third of the threesome was Ria, a sad housewife and mother married to Sunil, the Finance Director of a big company. The spark has gone out of her marriage and her friends want to help her to reignite the doused flames.
All of this was revealed in the first few pages before the bombshell went off at the end of that chapter – Geeta and Ryan are high-grade escorts, people who sell sex for money but only it would seem for large amounts of it.
My bullshit detector was twitching instantly. In a city like Mumbai where sex can be bought and sold for just a few rupees, two of the protagonists have found themselves not in a slum being exploited by violent pimps and down-at-heel clients riddled with all manner of unpleasant social diseases but somehow by great good fortune they’ve landed at the top of the tree.
Geeta has crawled out of the chawl (a typically multiple occupancy Mumbai tenement block) and landed comfortably and profitably on her back on the high thread-count sheets of Mumbai’s top hotels and fine apartments just by dint of an opportune meeting with a lady called ‘D’ on a train. Do high-class madams in Mumbai go by train? I think it’s as unlikely as a poor girl hitting the jackpot.
Ryan’s entry into the world of the gigolo is via his work colleague Prem, a man who shows him how to escape the life of tea-boy and rake in the cash by delivering a rather different type of ‘refreshment’ to bored middle-aged ladies. Ryan though stays sober and true to his loathing of alcohol and unlike Prem somehow manages to make a living without having to ‘bend over for the boys’.
The world in which the characters move is one of spacious luxury apartments with their own workout rooms, company directors and top hotels. I’m sorry to say that I just wasn’t buying the idea of quite such meteoric social advancement.
They say that most first novelists stick to the world they know and I wondered to what degree that could be true. I can potentially believe that the author knows nice hotels and fancy apartments (although I have no biographical info to support that) but I’d stake my salary on her having absolutely no experience of the world of prostitution – high-class or not. There is you see absolutely not a jot of sex – paid for or freely given – anywhere in this book. It’s just not there. Ryan’s favourite client is a lady with whom he spends most of his time watching old movies rather than testing out the mattress.
If I wrote a book set in the middle of a war zone and didn’t research weapons, military behaviour and battle strategy, it couldn’t be more obvious that I hadn’t a clue what I was talking about. The ‘escorts’ go through life choosing nice clothes, hanging out at parties and going to hotel rooms or apartments
with people who pay for their company but we never get anything about the mechanics of their work.
The style of writing is simplistic, the plot is rather a nice gentle love story but the positioning of two of the characters in the sex-trade was just too silly for words. I’ve read that when the Julia Roberts and Richard Gere film ‘Pretty Woman’ hit the big time back in the 1990s, it spawned a generation of young girls who thought that prostitution was a glamorous and valid career choice. I fear that the sort of saccharine approach to prostitution shown in ‘Coffee @ 4.00‘ reflects a naivety about the glamour of a world that’s more typically characterised by violence, drug addiction, exploitation and power games than it is about nice clothes and fancy handbags.
I read it, was happy for the characters when their lives improved but I had a nasty after-taste left in my mouth when I finished – and I don’t think it had anything to do with the coffee. Kavita Nalawde is not a bad writer but this is a bad book. I hope she won’t be completely down-heartened by my review but I would advise her to step away from the dark side and keep to a world she knows and that readers can believe in. Sensationalism won’t work unless you can really deliver the goods and nice girls really shouldn’t try to play dirty.
February 28, 2012
No book is all bad. Even the best has ways it might be improved. I'll get the good out of the way upfront. Almost all of the words were spelled correctly. The story concept is a good one, and the glimpses I got of Indian culture and tradition added spice, and were something I'd like to have seen more of. There were glimmers of potential. I think the chances are good that, given enough time and practice, the author has some good books in her. But she has a long way to go.
I won't attempt to be comprehensive in describing the issues I found, but will give a few of the heavy hitters. Some of the examples given may have other problems beyond what I mention.
My first issue is that the syntax of sentences often seemed mangled, with words seeming out of order. Often it feels like a word doesn't belong ("...had seen so much of trouble ...") or that a word is missing ("her effort had not gone waste"). Yet other times the word seems wrong: "... kept the phone down" instead of "laid" or "put [it] down" when a character is ending a call. It occurred to me that perhaps differences in English as it is spoken and written in India might account for some of this perception and, keeping in mind the post I'd done on regional language differences, I tried to cut Nalawde some slack. But this happened even with colloquialisms; for example, referring to a precise time as "dot at 2:00" and "sharp 2:00." There were too many issues with basic grammar, perhaps because English is a second language. Improper verb tense, using the singular where a plural was appropriate (also the reverse), and homonym errors were a few of the additional grammar problems I found. A copy editor could fix these issues, but there are other, more serious problems.
Clichés abound. "Their life was never the same," "broke into a thousand pieces," and "with two paths ahead of her" are a sampling of some I spotted. The road less traveled didn't see much traffic in this story.
However, the biggest problem of all is captured in the old writer's saw that says "show, don't tell." I believe this is an overused and often misunderstood critique. Showing everything can make a story drag. Sometimes summarizing what happened or describing how a character feels rather than demonstrating it through action and dialogue is best. But usually, especially when what is happening is critical to the story, showing is preferred.
This issue was obvious from the first paragraph, with the novel starting with an "info dump." An info dump is giving a large amount of back-story, in this case pages and pages, as a narrative, with little in the way of action or dialogue. Just the facts M a'am is right for nonfiction, but too much at a stretch in fiction bogs the story down. When it happens at the beginning of the story, before readers have a chance to get drawn in, it is a foolproof way to insure that many will abandon a book before the end of the first chapter.
However, the urge to tell didn't end after the info dump. It permeated the book. For example, "Pam had become very emotional recollecting this story and Ryan gave her a hug." Don't tell us Pam became emotional. Show us some tears. Have Pam's voice crack. Or in this instance, have faith in your writing. This sentence followed several paragraphs in which Pam related a story about her son that was obviously an emotional experience for her. If the reader doesn't understand this is going to make Pam emotional, her telling of the story needs work.
Another example is when Ria suggested a family vacation to her husband Sunil, an idea he rejected. He left for work and in the next scene Ria stumbled on evidence that Sunil was taking a vacation without her and the kids. Ria thinks, "Just this morning she had suggested going to a resort somewhere outside Mumbai and Sunil had straightaway rejected the idea." This might not qualify as telling; Ria thinks it, but as the narrator of this section it might. What is certain is that there is no reason for saying this. The reader already knows. This barely happened. We're smart enough to realize Ria is also making the connection. Show her reaction; explaining why she reacts that way is redundant.
I could continue, but think it best if I don't. "Coffee @ 4:00" isn't ready for prime time.
**Originally written for "Books and Pals" book blog. May have received a free review copy. **
I won't attempt to be comprehensive in describing the issues I found, but will give a few of the heavy hitters. Some of the examples given may have other problems beyond what I mention.
My first issue is that the syntax of sentences often seemed mangled, with words seeming out of order. Often it feels like a word doesn't belong ("...had seen so much of trouble ...") or that a word is missing ("her effort had not gone waste"). Yet other times the word seems wrong: "... kept the phone down" instead of "laid" or "put [it] down" when a character is ending a call. It occurred to me that perhaps differences in English as it is spoken and written in India might account for some of this perception and, keeping in mind the post I'd done on regional language differences, I tried to cut Nalawde some slack. But this happened even with colloquialisms; for example, referring to a precise time as "dot at 2:00" and "sharp 2:00." There were too many issues with basic grammar, perhaps because English is a second language. Improper verb tense, using the singular where a plural was appropriate (also the reverse), and homonym errors were a few of the additional grammar problems I found. A copy editor could fix these issues, but there are other, more serious problems.
Clichés abound. "Their life was never the same," "broke into a thousand pieces," and "with two paths ahead of her" are a sampling of some I spotted. The road less traveled didn't see much traffic in this story.
However, the biggest problem of all is captured in the old writer's saw that says "show, don't tell." I believe this is an overused and often misunderstood critique. Showing everything can make a story drag. Sometimes summarizing what happened or describing how a character feels rather than demonstrating it through action and dialogue is best. But usually, especially when what is happening is critical to the story, showing is preferred.
This issue was obvious from the first paragraph, with the novel starting with an "info dump." An info dump is giving a large amount of back-story, in this case pages and pages, as a narrative, with little in the way of action or dialogue. Just the facts M a'am is right for nonfiction, but too much at a stretch in fiction bogs the story down. When it happens at the beginning of the story, before readers have a chance to get drawn in, it is a foolproof way to insure that many will abandon a book before the end of the first chapter.
However, the urge to tell didn't end after the info dump. It permeated the book. For example, "Pam had become very emotional recollecting this story and Ryan gave her a hug." Don't tell us Pam became emotional. Show us some tears. Have Pam's voice crack. Or in this instance, have faith in your writing. This sentence followed several paragraphs in which Pam related a story about her son that was obviously an emotional experience for her. If the reader doesn't understand this is going to make Pam emotional, her telling of the story needs work.
Another example is when Ria suggested a family vacation to her husband Sunil, an idea he rejected. He left for work and in the next scene Ria stumbled on evidence that Sunil was taking a vacation without her and the kids. Ria thinks, "Just this morning she had suggested going to a resort somewhere outside Mumbai and Sunil had straightaway rejected the idea." This might not qualify as telling; Ria thinks it, but as the narrator of this section it might. What is certain is that there is no reason for saying this. The reader already knows. This barely happened. We're smart enough to realize Ria is also making the connection. Show her reaction; explaining why she reacts that way is redundant.
I could continue, but think it best if I don't. "Coffee @ 4:00" isn't ready for prime time.
**Originally written for "Books and Pals" book blog. May have received a free review copy. **
August 4, 2011
A quick read, it was available only in an e-book format, hardly 145 pages. It's a very bold book about three friends, each of whom have their own devils to fight, a couple of them being escorts and the third woman suspecting her husband of having an illicit affair. I call it 'bold' only in an Indian context, nothing alarming if we read it with an open mind.
September 8, 2012
This book is one of those that endear the reader to the storyline. I was mesmerized and could not stop reading it. I was so caught up that I forgot about day to day activities until I was finished. This is a book that I recommend for everyone to read.
Read
September 26, 2012 Basic basic writing. Only read to the end because it would have been a waste of 79p not to have done so.
December 28, 2012
Very well written. Easy to read. Writes about a different aspect to the world of escorts and shows them in a human light. No lecture "baazi" or pretentious stuff.
Am waiting for her next book.
Am waiting for her next book.
January 21, 2014
Was an excellent read.
October 18, 2012
Sensitive topics in the society narrated in a sensitive manner....
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews