In Bodhgaya, everything begins with a room. Uncle Peter had just arrived with Linda on the 21st of March and was given a big, cold room by Papa. It was spacious, sure, but it had no windows. And Peter—being Peter—could never survive without windows. "This room feels like a meat freezer!" he cried, rubbing his arms dramatically. So, without a second thought, he decided to return to his old faithful room near the roadside. Now, this room was the complete opposite: hot as a bakery, with sounds of cows mooing, chickens clucking, neighbours fighting, and auto rickshaws honking all day long. The roof wasn't even properly cemented—just those tin sheets like factory roofs. But it had windows. That was enough for Uncle Peter.
He even claimed, "These sounds aren’t noise—they’re music!" And believe it or not, sometimes when the neighbour ladies had their full-on verbal duels, Peter would stand by the window and do a little jig. It was his kind of jazz. While the rest of us preferred morning or evening walks, he chose the bold path—afternoon walks in the blazing Indian heat. Forty-plus degrees didn’t faze him. "The sun is my friend!" he’d say while wiping off sweat with a handkerchief that looked older than the cafe building itself.
Linda, meanwhile, was busy doing laundry and cleaning their room at our Taj House. She’d taken on that responsibility fully, especially after she found Peter’s ancient pant that he’d been wearing for ages and ages. Without mercy, she threw it in the dustbin. Good riddance. Her next target was his infamous white Moses robe—Peter’s treasure, that made him look like a wandering prophet. She called it ugly. Peter, being the cynic he is, called it character.
Now here comes the real chaos.
Uncle Peter had always had a beard. Not just any beard—a magnificent, wild, philosopher’s beard. Maddy, his daughter, had never seen him clean-shaven. Not in person, not in baby pictures. In fact, legend says he was born with a beard. He was the kind of man who could be easily mistaken for Charles Darwin, Karl Marx, or a skinny Santa Claus who'd seen better days. Add to the list Rasputin, Dostoevsky, and that one ancient wizard who lived in the hills (probably).
But everything changed because of one absurd idea. Linda, my father Shamim, and I were casually chatting about how funny Peter might look if he ever shaved it all off. Linda, ever the instigator, dropped the bomb: "You should go full clean-shaven, Peter." My father backed her up, and I, planning to get my own shave, agreed—mostly because I didn’t want to go alone. For two days, Peter kept skipping the mission. So I went alone to Prince Saloon and got myself shaved. Guess who walked in right after?
Peter.
In a moment of pure cosmic absurdity, without giving it any thought, he sat in the chair and let the barber do the unthinkable.
Beard—gone.
Moustache—gone.
Hair—gone.
And when it was done, and he looked into the mirror, there stood a man he didn’t recognize. Not Uncle Peter, but… Gandhi. The only thing missing was the iconic round glasses. Shocked and confused, he turned to me and said, "Why did I listen to you guys? I should have never done it."
He looked like a stranger to himself. He was sad. All the way home, he was cursing me, Lin, and my father—silently in his mind, of course.
That night, he couldn’t sleep. He kept looking in the mirror, turning his head, making faces. The next day, he had an idea. He put on suspenders, smiled awkwardly, and took a picture with some monks to celebrate his new look. That photo was sent to Maddy in the UK. When she saw it, she was shocked. She had never seen her father without his iconic beard.
Back at Cafe Nexus, our dream project was unfolding beautifully and absurdly. We were making collages and posters, setting up shelves and tables while listening to classic songs on the record player. Peter brought along some precious items from his lifetime collection, including an Arabic Coca-Cola sign from 1988 which he got in Egypt and had kept sacred in the UK. Now, finally, it belonged where it should: our Cafe Nexus.
He also had a poster of Pangong Lake, the iconic scene from 3 Idiots, part of the “Incredible India” campaign. And one day, while watching the new movie A Complete Unknown based on Bob Dylan’s memoir in the UK, Peter came across the official poster outside the theatre. He asked the staff what would happen to it after the movie run was over. They gifted it to him. That poster now proudly hangs in our cafe.
There’s more. Uncle Peter gave me a book about the Roswell UFO incident, which I absolutely loved. And when we looked at that Pangong Lake poster, he said, “Let’s add UFOs to it.” So we did. We printed out a big A3-sized alien and stuck it into the scenery. It became our Mona Lisa. And we became the Leonardo da Vincis of absurd cafe art.
Peter and Papa play chess every evening. Most of the time, Peter loses. But he takes it with grace… and occasional growls. Some days we watch films together. Recently we watched Jude, based on Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy. It was full of tragedy after tragedy, so bleak and depressing… we absolutely enjoyed it.
Linda has started reading novels again. We recommended Empire of the Soul by Paul William Roberts, which both Uncle Peter and I loved, but she didn’t enjoy it. Instead, she went off reading some silly novels. But that’s fine—let her enjoy what she enjoys. She’s toothless for now—thanks to a dental surgery—but her smile’s still sharp, and her ideas are wild.
Through it all, Cafe Nexus continues to grow. Every absurdity becomes a story. Every moment becomes a memory. And somewhere in the middle of it all, stands Uncle Peter—beardless, smiling awkwardly, like a misplaced Gandhi surrounded by UFOs, jazz chickens, alien posters, and the weirdest little club cafe Bodhgaya has ever seen.
It’s chaos, it’s creativity, it’s our theatre. He sleeps around 5 a.m., wakes up at noon or 1 p.m., drinks coffee, smokes a cigarette, and then we get to work. We buy paint, wood, frame posters, and print absurd artwork. Recently we framed a photography piece by our friend T.P.—a photo from 90s Kolkata showing a dog standing on tin, balancing on two legs. We love that photo. We love T.P.
Inside the cafe, we spend time making collages, cutting posters, designing random absurd things while listening to Leonard Cohen, The Beatles, and sometimes Boy George.
The books? Oh, there’s no order. I purposely scattered the books by the same authors in different shelves across the cafe to make things wonderfully confusing. I made a digital collage with Kafka in the centre-top, and below him is Uncle Peter smiling in his beard with arms wide open. Around them are my friends, authors, singers, philosophers, aliens, and artists like Salvador Dali, Frida Kahlo, and some Indian celebrities. This chaos is our art.
Cafe Nexus is not just a cafe. It’s a club. A madhouse. A philosophy temple. A concert. A theatre stage. We might shift the chessboard soon and build a billing cabinet near the darts. And while I don’t know if I’ll ever make a documentary on this madness, I do feel like I should. Maybe I will. Maybe I won’t. But we are enjoying every single moment. Cafe Nexus is alive. And for Uncle Peter, everything is theatre.
And maybe that’s enough.
Maybe that’s more than enough.
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