The cup of life

Iwas shocked to have discovered it last Sunday morning… how could it have happened? It wasn’t there … life needs prioritization and planning…just because it had demurely acquiesced to occupy any corner of my life that I conveniently chose to designate it didn’t imply it couldn’t wreak havoc on my senses and subsistence. I felt stranded, dizzy and helpless… look how incomplete, demotivated, restless and out-of-control I was without it.

No, it wasn’t my invaluable (pun intended) wallet or my glass of favourite “one shot and straight to heaven” drink, as you would’ve logically thought, but something dearer a zillion

“If you are cold, tea will warm you. If you are too heated, it will cool you. If you are depressed, it will cheer you. If you are excited, it will calm you”.

William Gladstone

“The first bowl sleekly moistened throat and lips. The second banished all my loneliness. The third expelled the dullness from my mind, sharpening inspiration gained from all the books I’ve read. The fourth brought forth light perspiration, dispersing a lifetime’s troubles through my pores. The fifth bowl cleansed every atom of my being. The sixth has made me kin to the Immortals. The seventh...I can take no more.

Lu

Tung,

Chinese Poet times over and yet equally unacknowledged in my life - my tea. Humble in frame and look, but magical, mesmerizing, mystifying and mammoth in feel and effect. It was absconding because I had committed the gravest of all mistakes that a chai lover and liver (pun intended again) could’ve ever thought of committing. Well, the unpardonable fault of forgetting to replenish stocks of the tonic of life. It was too late - the bolt from the blue had already struck - there I stood profoundly challenged at all planes of existence.

Call it my addiction, my compulsion, my intoxication; for me it’s my passion, my devotion, my religion. It’s been with me troughs and crests of life - always extending me the support and strength of a guru to his eternally harried shishya. It’s helped me to think, imagine, plan, express, manipulate, decide and soak in divine pleasure. Its endless pyaalis goaded me to laugh in gay abandon during those days of fun, friendship and canteen addas which I thought would last forever. It was privy to all the now-seemingly-silly milestones in my life like my coy and pink blush on that first date when I was floating on cloud nine and the day I wept consolably when that same cloud crash landed and reality hit me real hard. It helped me rise from the ashes thereafter and garner inspiration from the timeless phrase aur bhi gham hai zamaaney mein mohabbat key siva. It motivated me, inspired me, cajoled me, moved me, shook me, challenged me, aroused me - but alas, it never was able to impress me about its indispensability.

It helped me to concentrate during that frantic, last minute midnight frenzy the day before the exam and also provided me with the strength to keep my eyes open during the actual grind. It advised me to think like the Buddha when I felt forsaken, and shared my exultation when I felt triumphant like Ashoka. Whether it was that promotion party or the engagement bash, the exuberance at the first anniversary celebration or the calm retrospection on the 10th, it has been always by my side through life’s undulating landscape. But in spite of it all - it was just another taken-for-granted cup of tea.

However, last Sunday, the equation changed in a whiff. It was revenge time. As I staggered to the supermarket in search of the nectar of engagement anniversary celebration

“Pour me a little more tea, would you dear? I can drink it till it comes out of my ears.”

Garek, Star Trek, Deep Space 9

“Thank God for tea! What would the world do without tea! How did it exist? I am glad I was not born before tea.”

William Gladstone

“My dear, if you could give me a cup of tea to clear my muddle of a head I should better understand your affairs.”

Charles Dickens

life, I didn’t presume that tea dear tea was in the revenge exacting mood and mode. Here you go - my brand of tea was unavailable and would be so for the next couple of weeks till fresh stocks arrived, I was told. Life was mean, cruel and definitely not worth living on an early Sunday morning, I thought. I could almost feel my chai ki pyaali smirking at me from the heavens above. I was shattered, and haggardly paced up and down the supermarket aisle. I could have had tea at the nearest café but I was never used to sipping my first morning tea bound by the rules of worldly formality. I had always sipped it loud and long, soaking in the sublime sea of tea nirvana, always in the snug comfort of my sofa with my legs up. That’s how my tea tasted best and provided me with the solace and inspiration as also energized me to think clear and take on the harsh world.

But now distraught, distressed and dejected, I decided to settle for the brand of light, organic herbal substitute that sneered at me from the shelf-another hard-to-gulp challenge for me the kadak chai types. I managed to rush back home with my remaining stamina and the unimpressive substitute. The water took ages to boil this time and tore my patience to shreds - beating even my 9-year-old who I’d assumed had the world record at that. I closely studied and smelt the new variety and kept reassuring myself that life, after all, was also about new experiments with newer truths. I finally sipped with utter indifference and disdain. Lo and behold - I felt my senses being revived, my brain being re-awakened and the bouts of energy rushing into all the corners of my body - and as I was able to think straight. My cup of foster tea gently hammered the grand realisation into my grey cells - black or red, herbal or kadak, don’t you forget - it isn’t just about a cup of tea my friend, but the cup of life…