MY FAVORITE "TEA"CHER

“What is an ideal morning” Deepa, thinking, after opening her eyes and turning off the alarm at 5.30 a.m. On one hand, she didn’t feel like getting up as it was a weekend, but on the other hand it filled her mind with excitement as her taste buds were becoming restless to touch that flavourful cup of tea. Even though every morning this was the same routine for her but she used to get so delighted to pick her favourite coffee mug from her massive mug collection of various shapes and sizes. She had planned one mug for each day of the week and did not like sharing the mugs with guests.

She placed the milk pan on the stove, poured water and the tastiest tea leaves. While waiting for the water to boil, she inhaled the flavours of the tea, having bits of dried ginger, tulsi, pepper and thought to herself “this is what I call freshness”. When the water turned dark brown in colour, she poured some milk over it and waited for it to rise so that all the aromas get absorbed and she watched for the right colour to come out- neither too dark nor too light, rich flavour but not bitter and bingo-the ideal cup of tea was ready. She strained it into the mug and added 2 cups of sugar. Then from the big cookie tin she picked her favourite digestive cookies, without which the morning is incomplete.

Deepa, relaxing on her sofa, glanced at her beautiful mug and clicked pictures from various angles for her mobile wallpaper. She used to admire pics portraying a cup of tea in the rain, or , besides a book in a lovely café etc and daydreamed of taking pics like this someday.

Dipping the cookie in the hot tea, she felt proud of herself as she always knew the correct period for which the cookie should last in the tea-neither it should turn too soft and fall in the tea itself, which she hated like anything nor it should stay hard as she wanted the biscuit to absorb the taste of the tea. She nibbled 5 biscuits one by one, each one melting in her mouth, slowly taking its own time as if the biscuit wanted to stay there for some more time. Then she took the first sip and said, “AHHAA. The tea tastes so fantastic today. Actually, why do I say the same thing every day”, patting her back. The tea wanted to get into the gaps in her teeth and, yes, this is the perfect start to the day.

While having each sip gently (so that it doesn’t get over soon), Deepa wondered “nowadays there are so many kinds of tea-green tea, yellow tea, black tea etc etc, and I absolutely don’t understand how people enjoy these kinds of flavourless teas and claim it to be healthy. There is nothing like the typical Indian masala chai (spiced tea) with a powerful kick of ginger, pepper and tulsi.”

Deepa, laughing at herself “Oh, why am I over thinking about this??” She used to be very particular about the time of having tea in morning and evenings. Any delay in it made her feel as spoiling the daily routine. She took her empty mug and washed it carefully, thinking about the time for the next tea, which mug to use and the snacks to eat alongside.

That evening, suddenly it started raining and Deepa woke up from the quick afternoon nap looking at the clock. It was 4 and here was a loud sound of thunder. It was raining so heavily. She came to the balcony and smiled, seeing the water droplets falling on the leaves of the gigantic trees and the cool air touching her face. The rain always brought along with itself so much happiness. She turned on the radio and started listening to her playlist. Then kept on looking at the rains lashing around. A thought came to her mind “Why not make fritters and have my favourite tea alongside” Although she was feeling lazy and just wanted to sit and watch the rains, but she was feeling hungry too and this was not the time for her evening tea. “Why am I so particular about this? Can’t I be a little flexible? What if a time comes where I live in a city where one doesn’t get tea?” Deepa, closing her eyes as she couldn’t even imagine a situation like that. Tea was like her family, her closest friend with whom she can share irrelevant thoughts and feelings which cross your mind. While thinking all this, she started making fritters as an accompaniment. The hot fritters danced in the oil and looked yummy.

Then, yet again, she took another of her pretty mugs and kept the milk pan on the stove. To her surprise, she saw that the tea powder was over and there was no extra stock at home. She felt angry at herself as she had thought in the morning itself to buy, but altogether forgot about it as she got busy in finishing her many household chores. She looked here and there desperately in all the kitchen cabinets so that she just finds at least 2 spoons of tea leaves. But she couldn’t find it. She felt sad and just sat down, as if her complete happiness vanished. The sound of the rain suddenly started was irritating her, and she didn’t even touch the fritters after doing so much of hard work. As it was pouring, the grocery shop in her apartment was closed and she could not go out too. She felt dejected and called her mom to tell everything. Just like always, mom consoled her and gave some ideas but she was not ready to listen. It was around 7 now and she had no mood for doing anything which distracted her mind. “That one cup of tea makes so much difference in my life. Why should I be so adamant about anything? Why did I spoil my evening just for a cup of tea and ignored all the other small things which gave me happiness like the rains, fritters, the music, etc? Why should my I make my mood dependent on such habits?” Deepa got up and decided not to spoil the leftover few hours of the weekend, She put the fritters on the snack plate and searched for tomato ketchup. To her surprise, she found that a small packet of tea leaves which was given by her mom when she had visited her family 3 weeks back. It was kept behind the big ketchup bottle and she had completely forgotten about it.

She was overjoyed but then finally this small incident made her realise so many things- Not to depend on too much of anything to feel happy as we tend to ignore other small beautiful things around us and said to herself “that I should never ignore the small things in life just because we could not get the things I like or want”.

So this tea episode is a good “tea” cher after all, laughing at herself.