Suresh Menon: A shot at the mug

I broke a coffee mug this morning. It was an accident (of course), and in the larger scheme of things did not matter at all. I mean, the US government has shut down, there is trouble in Kenya, pirates roam the high seas, and to top it all, the mug had a one-word message on it in capital letters: THINK. It was, you will agree, asking to be dropped accidentally. Still, it was like losing a pet.

Thomas Jefferson might have said that coffee is the favourite drink of the civilised world and Albert Camus might have asked, “Should I kill myself or have a cup of coffee?” But not too many have pondered over the mug itself (except for one of mine that says simply, ‘I am a coffee mug’, as if you could mistake it for a carrot or a multi-storeyed building). Does it really matter?

Is the mug the one that contains the coffee or the one that is holding it?