Tea and Life

It is a January Sunday morning and I’m home after a week-long travel across hinterlands of the country. Winter mornings are particularly precious - it’s the only time I get the sun and like Jaadu, I can’t live without the sun. So I make myself a hot cup of tea, wait for sun to stop playing hide & seek and sip my tea.

Tea lovers say Tea is Life. Like any tea lover, I agree. The first sip is steaming hot, one doesn’t really understand the taste or the flavor. It’s just hot; and all you can do is blow into it and wait till it becomes drinkable. The first few years is to figure out whether your life is flavoured with elaichi or adrak or lemon? Does it even have enough sugar? Or is it just bland? Only the maker of the tea knows what it’s going to taste like.

You can then start to enjoy the flavor of the tea with the adrak, elaichi, lemon. You realize there is less sugar and reach out to add some. Some are content with less sugar, some aren’t. This sugar & flavor is what is going to define the next few sips of your life. You are free to add whatever you like – education, relationships, perspective, skills, anything. I have added an MBA to build a strong perspective of life and it tastes good so far.

Once you have customized life to your liking, you have truly rebelled against your tea maker! You can now savour each moment. If the tea is good, you race to finish the entire cup before it turns cold; to make the most of it while it lasts. Like me, you could savour a work life full of travel and passion to do things better than yesterday. You could also write about Tea on Sunday mornings!

Once your tea is cold, there is little you can do. You can keep it hot by re-heating it on the fire. This is a concept of life that people seldom understand – it’s called Health. My tea is still hot hence I rarely hit the gym. I do realize I must heat my tea enough to last me a lifetime.

People drink the last remanants of the cold tea only for the flavor it has. This is when you realize the importance of flavor, “If only I had added more adrak” At the risk of sounding pedantic, I urge all young folk out there, to invest in yourself, add ingredients to your life, rebel against your tea maker and make your life yours.

Let me go and heat my tea now.


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