Only someone pursuing a vocation in the arts can truly understand the journey of a fellow artiste; the trials and tribulations of not choosing a "conventional" career, the ordeal of trudging along and not being able to make it despite the talent. This empathy became the foundation for the friendship between Harry, a novelist, and Jake, a photographer, in Ira Lewis’s Chinese Coffee. And the glimmer of hope towards the end of the play, "which epitomises the hope of every artiste who is trying to do a good job", is what drew Danish Husain to the production, which premiered on Broadway in 1992 with Al Pacino and Ben Gazzara playing the lead characters.

But between the opening scenes featuring the two friends and the ray of hope before the curtain call, runs a gamut of human emotions from camaraderie to jealousy, hatred and despair that Chinese Coffee is all about. Harry has been fired from his job, and he remembers that he had loaned a sum to Jake. It apparently seems that he has come to get back the money, but he wants to know Jake’s thoughts on his manuscript, too.