A Cup of Tea…

“Everyone..it’s raining heavily and it’s so very cold.And I think it’s the best time for sipping a hot cup of coffee ??”.

One of my best friend sighed excitedly and asked me to join her for coffee.

“Coffee…???Well..No, We all shall go for Tea!!” ,I said as always I do.

So here I am sipping my hot tea relishing my memories given by the umpteen number of cups of tea I have had till now…

 

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Chai was always available at my home at any time. My mother always used to prepare an extra cup whenever she makes tea at home and stores it in the flask for she always knew some one would ask for more.

At home, a cup of tea is the very first thing everyone have as soon as they wake up. Its like a warming up exercise for the body and mind.
My father, he has his first cup of tea going through the morning news paper.
Whereas my mother gulps down a couple of cups tea in between the time she spends making the lunch and breakfast for us. I truly believe it is from these cups of teas that derives her the super strength to be so active until she sends my father to office and me and my brother to school and then to clear the mess we leave behind 🙂

Well, I too wanted to have tea. I used to ask my mother to give me tea, but she always refused gave me only a glass of milk.
Yuck!! I never liked milk and I always wanted to have tea.I never knew till then that milk is such an integral part of tea.

The evening comes with this unsaid ritual at my home. As soon as my father comes from office, my mother would be ready with his cup of tea, along with a beautiful smile.
As I watch him drink his cup of tea, I realize its an art. He used to smell the tea for a while, wait for it to be a little cold, even though he wants the tea as hot as possible when he gets it and then sip it little by little.
He takes almost ten to fifteen minutes to finish the tea.The cup of tea does gives its magic.My father becomes energized and happy.My mother, she becomes so delighted to see my father having his tea and releasing all his tensions.Even if it were holidays, everyday at the same time my mother made him a cup of hot tea and watch him drink it.

When ever any guests come to our home, my mother always served them with tea, no matter what time it is.I have also seen this tradition at every other home I have visited.Its always chai with biscuits or chai with other delicious sweets. Chai was always there no matter there were snacks or not !!..:)

And sometimes A cup of chai acts as a remedy for a strong head ache, “Here, Have a cup of hot tea, You will feel a lot better” is a common sentence spoken in any Indian household.

The more I think about “A cup of tea”, I realize how this cups of teas has been a part and parcel of our lives till now, even us acknowledging it or not.

Gradually as time went by, I too started preparing my own Tea. I also prepared tea for my family only after a couple of initial disasters.
My mother, even though was so worried about my disasters, felt really happy that I learned to make a cup of tea. May be she would have thought that at times she could ask me to her make one.
And my father was also truly happy..he said that it was the tastiest cup of tea he had ever had. And I was very proud of myself.Ha, fathers you know.
In my class, no one had yet started to light a stove, let alone prepare tea. Some of my friends didn’t believe me when I told them I have prepared tea all by myself.They decided to drop by my house to have my tea, it turned out so well and my friends praised me for the same.A cup tea can indeed do wonders..

Once again cups of tea came for my rescue during the board exams. I still remember those nights of study leave when I ask my mother to make me flasks full of tea so that I don’t sleep. Most of the times it happens that, I drink the tea and sleep peacefully at night.
My mother seeing that whole flask empty believed that I was studying all night. But I should say a lot of cups of tea did rescue me on the night just previous to exams, it was always the D-day for studying.

I missed a cup of hot piping tea the most was when I had to stay in hostel for my higher studies.
Just outside our college gate was this makeshift Tea shop!!.I always wanted to get a cup of tea from that place, but I could never as the place was always crowded with boys and gentle men of that locality, though this did not hold me back from sniffing up the beautiful aroma of the tea made.It was so good!!.that I used to wonder about the taste of the tea.

Everyone along with me in our hostel yearned for a good tea, but the hostel mess provided us with “water tea”.It had more water; milk was just for namesake. Sometimes they used milk powder instead of milk which sort of changed the taste of tea.
The “smell” of tea itself was disgusting, but still we all used to have the “water tea”. It gave us the energy to keep on chattering and gossiping about boys, teachers, love birds, labs etc.
The only remains of those days are the memories and the hundreds of cups of “water tea” we all had together.

Even without cups of tea for night shifts I was able to complete the studies and join the IT industry along with thousands of others.

With a  job in IT comes “the cup of coffee”. It made me even forgot how a cup of tea used to taste. A lot was happening over lot of cups of coffees 😉
I even stopped taking tea from home. Every evening along with my father’s tea, my mother gave me coffee. But later on, I guess a lot of coffee made me hate the Coffee all together. I again wanted to have a cup of tea.I realized, tea was something special.

The came the day like in every other girls life, when I will judged by the cups of teas I served.I was shaking while serving tea to my future in laws and husband. But then the cup of tea prepared very specially by my mother, did make some magic :).I am just exaggerating my experiences. But, I did feel that the cups of tea plays an important role in defining the future of the marriage.!!

In these hectic days, all I need is a cup of tea which readily suck in all my tiredness. Now, I am the one who serves my husband with a cup of hot tea and I am so delighted to see him relish his tea.
I feel some emotions which might be the same as my mother would have felt.Thus making me realize that I have completed a major cycle in my life with lots of cups of tea 🙂

Hmm…A cup of hot piping tea…in a rainy day…nothing more…nothing less..!!

 

Linking with Friday Reflections : Tea or coffee? Pick your vice