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Ramblings
Confessions of a Tea Drinker
by Pramod Khilery
 Days are fast drawing close to yet
another season of mist, haze and cold waves when we all will be
forced to take refuge into whatever promises the soothing of
much desired warmth. Everyone has his or her own way of
alleviating the buffeting of cold waves dictated by topography,
financial status and individual traits. So if bonfires come to
the rescue of poor and rustic, air-conditioned interiors provide
respite to those who are well heeled. If woolen sweaters,
jackets and blazers adorn our personality then woolen blankets
come in as all-in-one for those for whom these few months become
a test of survival.
If ‘khoa’ and ‘gajar-pak’ become the most
wanted dish to gorge on along with dry fruits cutting across the
social lines then tea and coffee serve as faithful friends ready
to embrace us into their snuggles at the time of our choice.
Being a north Indian and having had a rural upbringing I have
always had a special relationship with tea. Tea presents itself
as an absolute un-racial drink that doesn’t discriminate on Any
parameter and strings together everyone. What follows is
somewhat delineation of the esteem I hold this wonderful warm
drink in. I will strictly limit my ramblings of tea as I have
seen it and as I see it.
 In the visuals of famous song Pyaar Hua Iqrar Hua from ‘Shree
420’ the image of a poor tea vendor relishing the tea under a
makeshift plastic roof along a pavement as Raj Kapoor and Nargis
pass by him romancing under an umbrella in downpour mirrors the
place of tea for a poor person in adversity and its poetry
infused in romance.
A cup of tea has in it something more than
just water, milk, sugar and caffeine. I dare to equate tea with
anything with loads of aesthetics in it: a heart-touching and
pleasure endowing poem, an eye warming painting, an enchanting
piece of music whose first bars go a long way in arresting every
pore of heart or even a story that reveals itself with every
sip. But despite being so munificent, generous and down to earth
as to be available at everyone’s disposal not every tea drinker
can derive that aesthetic pleasure which tea itself takes so
pride in. I have seen people and amongst them I include myself
as well (keeping modesty at bay) who possess the eyes to read
poetry hidden in the tea and for whom having the experience of
sipping tea has its own aesthetic value.
For this class of tea drinkers tea ceases to be just a simple
cup of tea and impersonates the might and magic of rainbow that
colors the whole surroundings, the company and the full ambiance
in which the tea is being drunk in its colors. For them tea is
not just any other drink to rejuvenate the senses or while away
a little time but an intoxicated journey that begins at first
sip and ends at last slurp but not before bestowing upon their
hearts an ineffable joy (which is beneath my description but my
love for tea makes me indulge in cosseting its beautified warmth
and inebriated steam).
A vibrant evening, a chivalrous rain, a romantic or affectionate
companionship, a foggy morning and a tranquil solitude are just
some of the instances that define and delineate the tea in their
own colors and swaddle the tea-drinking experience in their own
bliss. Feelings, mood, the degree of romanticism and color of
the day too bathe tea in their own flavors. Sometimes these
tea-Lovers carrying the widest possible meaning of the word
“Lovers” might not be that dedicated to tea on frequency scale
but whenever they wet their lips with the poetry of tea the
melody of rhythms played on a classical instrument serenades in
every cockle of their heart and it goes without saying that
surroundings too can’t remain untouched of their romance with
tea. As they see before them a glass or cup full of tea and
begin trickling it down their throats every nerve of their body
gets the message that true romance knows no prejudice. It is
only a matter of loving and being loved, as simple as that. It
is only a matter of utter peace and absolute pleasure, again as
simple as that.
Though every season has its own special relationship with tea,
in north India tea has a little leaning towards winter. In
winter tea is humble enough to recite its poetry and show its
art even to those for whom aestheticism is as insignificant and
distant as eight packs of Aamir Khan and words of politicians
are to most Indians. In winter, tea is at its compassionate and
dispassionate best and becomes a sole savior of those who live
on pavements, in shacks or in hundreds of places Meant naturally
only for such people. In winter tea doesn’t object the expletive
ridden talks, rugged hands, unshaven cheeks, filthy collars and
odd hours when it comes to lavishing the sorcery of
aestheticism. When scant clothes fall short of covering the
otherwise valorous flesh it is the tea in the company of fire
that comes to rescue of those who live on edges. Tea reduces the
distance of their invisibility amongst at least themselves. Tea
knows the art of meeting different people in different ways and
most often ends up as a calming balmy breeze.
For those who live alone, the very process of making tea or a
walking up to nearest tea stall or restaurant is as joyous as
the act of drinking tea. The distance covered in anticipation
lends itself with a strange nostalgia even before the event of
tea drinking sends itself into the annals of past. Tea dons
itself with new colors and flights the drinker into an
enraptured feeling when one makes the tea on his own and then
snuggles into quilt with a book in hand (if drinker happens to
be a book lover) or light or saccharine music is playing near by
in sotto voce or any favorite film is seen along with (if
drinker happens to be a cinephile). Normally people associate
biscuits or other condiments with tea but for me it is book or a
film or a confab with few ( for me ‘few’ never exceeds more than
one or in the extreme circumstances two) like minded people or
close family members which makes more sense while I am one with
the aesthetic pleasures of tea-drinking.
The ideal combination of a book or a film with tea coupled with
ecstatic ambiance makes for a memorable experience. Having a cup
of tea with a girl one has intense feelings for too is one
experience worth talking about and feeling vicariously years and
years down the line. Sadly this experience has eluded me till
now. How much does one enjoy having a cup of tea with one’s
wife, I would reserve my comment about. May be it has something
to do with state and stage of marriage. At this juncture in my
life I don’t have any fascination for such a vapid scenario. I
often have longed for a confab over a steaming cup of tea with a
beautiful girl fancied by me but never ever have the thought of
sipping tea in the company of ‘the wife’ ever struck me. I fail
to see any aesthetic pleasure coming out of such an event.
Though, I reserve the right to say otherwise if the beautiful
girl succeeds in surviving the marriage.
Tea drinking in group with someone throwing jokes or some
discussion capturing the mind space may take the sheen out of
experience of tea drinking. I believe that reduces the tea to
fringes and what actually is a heartwarming ditty ends up being
a mute hapless spectator. Though an avid Tea-drinker in the
broadest sense of aestheticism, I never derive the same pleasure
while savoring tea in public or group. Even the most soothing
ambiance might fall prey to cacophony of a group. But yet of
summer and winter tea, it is the winter tea which is more open
hearted when it comes to lavishing people with ecstasy and
bliss, may be in collusion with chilling winds. Thereby in
winter somehow sometimes tea may just about squeak through in
retaining its qualities for me even in group.
One memory imprinted on my mind indelibly is of having a cup or
even baati (a small steal bowl with sides bulging outwards) of
tea in those glorious and motherly dawns I would savor in my
maternal grandfather’s home. Those were the good old days of my
early childhood to adolescent. Every summer and winter holidays
I would visit my maternal grandfather’s home and enjoy every bit
of the time I had at my disposal. But certainly these were the
wintry dawns colored in misty hues, half woken and half asleep,
making quilts the most prized possession one can have I waited
for with an indecipherable romanticism in my eyes. As the first
bout of rays of sun would stream through windows, my idea of
ecstasy and rapture would come to an abrupt end. To me, those
rays of sun, waited for and greeted eagerly by every other
member of family, alarmed the beginning of another day whose
arid routine paled into insignificance before the romance of
those early hours which was perfectly complemented by one or two
or even three (especially for my mother and grandmother)
steaming glasses or baatiyan of tea (we have never had tea in
cups).
I vividly remember the setting of charpoys in central hall (saal).
The rectangular hall housed in it another small room perennially
engulfed in crepuscular darkness called kothri on its right. In
addition to two rarely moved charpoys placed along the corners
formed by a wall partitioning the kothari and saal, there was
another charpoy off and on placed right in front of the door.
Still there was space left for at least three more charpoys that
would fill up depending upon the number of people sleeping in
saal. Of the two rarely moved charpoys one was, as I had seen,
reserved for my grandfather. Even today I can imagine him
sitting cross legged, wrapped in a thick quilt letting only his
face, turbaned head, chest and right hand held out resting on
wrinkles of quilt when not slurping, holding a baati full of tea
up to brim. The unbuttoned cuff of his sleeve would wave as and
when he moved the hand up and down to take a sip. Rest of the
charpoys were used by other members of the family. Which charpoy
would I use to have my slumber was at my discretion and
sometimes at the mercy of my slumber even. So barring one, no
charpoy had its dedicated user.
Because my grandmother had to wake up quite early in the morning
to milk the buffalo, she would often thought it fit to make tea
for grandfather and herself and chat away with him over tea
instead of going to slumber again. I believe this is how most of
the women in peasant families begin their day. She would never
wake me up. So I would often skip the first tea, the dawn tea.
It was only when she would go to chulha (hearth) again around 6
a.m. that she roused me. As I would try to open my eyes,
sometimes while shifting myself towards upper part of charpoy
and sometimes trying to come to terms with sudden loss of warm
nest of kip, I would so often see with my drowsy eyes
grandfather settled comfy in his charpoy, drinking tea (in case
I took it quite a while to wake up).Grandmother would come
inside with a lota (small round pot of steal) dangling from
finger tips of her hand or edges of lota pressed between her
thumb and index finger, make herself sit cross-legged or with
one leg squatted right beside head of my charpoy and call with
utter tenderness, “Modaaaa, cha le le”(take tea) and
hand me a baati of tea.
As I would slurp, with only my head and hand outside the safe
haven of quilt, my grandfather and grandmother would chat over
tea diverse range of topics, mostly concerned to their way of
life. Sometimes, when my mother would be there she too actively
took part in conversation. The image of this triumvirate of my
mother, grandmother and grandfather indulging in conversation
over tea and honoring it by bestowing upon it the status of the
only witness to the close proximity they shared with each other
is still fresh in my mind. Sitting at their respective places
they would drink baati after baati and give their morning a
caffeinated kickstart.
To me this whole scenario of having tea in the midst of my
grandmother and grandfather, listening to their conversation,
feeling the chill of dawn, warmth of quilt and seeing the smoke
of fog outside the door drawing portraits of slender clouds
seemed nothing short of a heartwarming painting. I wished for
time to stop, fog outside and conversation inside to forge a
bond and implored to them to refuse to withdraw from the face of
early morning. Though I didn’t have even faintest idea of
aesthetic pleasure back then (even now only a vague idea) but I
prayed for that moment to become everlasting. With every passing
moment I felt as if something was being slipped from my hands.
The very moment my grandmother would finish her tea and stand up
and my grandfather would make himself free of the quilt and
leave his charpoy, I would willy-nilly and helplessly bid
goodbye to my most thrilling moment of the day. The rays of sun
further confirmed the end of my lovely dawn and arrival of day
and thus a banality. Rounds of tea in day time too were pleasant
but did not evoke the same feelings and pleasance.
In northern India tea is one drink with which often, or rather
very often guests are served. Even in extreme summer, sometimes
guests are served with tea with no acknowledgement of their
wishes. I never find such tea which I get to savour as a guest
even close to rejuvenating much less poetic. Though I try my
best to avoid tea while being guest often I have found myself
being subjected to such dry tea sessions. With all due respect
to the feelings of my hosts, to me, my favorite drink tea begins
to impersonate a stranger who is hell bent upon being rude to me
when being served with formal de rigueur. To this day, I haven’t
come across any aberration to this experience but I am open. I
hope I would say otherwise soon.
Tea has a special relationship with book worms who keep gulping
word after word through their eyes even as their lips are busy
kissing the edges of cup. Most students turn tea drinkers during
their exam session. Not only tea helps them stay up late into
nights and wake up early in the morning but also help them keep
inevitable anxiety at bay. To prolong our swotting period for
our board exams of 10th standard in Navodaya, our Principal Sir
had made some special arrangements. He introduced, hitherto non
existent concept of early dawn tea to be offered at exact 4 a.m.
to lure us into waking up that early. We did but for entirely
different reasons.
It was left to girls to prepare a cauldron full of tea and ladle
it out into steal glasses held in the hand of first one in the
queue. As the girl would bend down to pour tea in our glasses
the glimpse of her cleavage gave us the feeling of having pakode
which obviously our Principal Sir had not arranged for with tea
as well. Most returned to their slumber and dreams after having
had darshan. In this case the aesthetic pleasure made way for
sensual pleasure. Tea in Navodaya never brought with it the kind
of aesthetic pleasure I am talking about here. On the contrary
it was reduced to a formality which we had to play every other
day for most part of the year. I can’t recall even a single
instance related with tea which left its roots on my mind
barring that one exam month. This is the testimony to the fact
how this residential school was not in keeping with the highest
traditions of regard for sensitivity of a child. This was
despite the presence of some genuine good Teachers and
Principals whose presence I was fortunate enough to savour and
be availed of but as the fledgling school grew in age it found
it quite ironically on the path of becoming imbecile and
indifferent. It lost the very essence of meaning upon pretext of
which it was made to come into being.
During my graduation days when we, a group of friends, would
bike our way to a tea khokha (tea stall) some 7 or 8 kilometers
from our abode in the dead of the night tea rose to the heights
of a drink which was worth splurging not only time but also
braving cold waves and sporadic boorish police questioning. Tea
was the drink which helped me on countless occasions raise
myself in the exultations of having to get to see and feel the
muse of my reveries and liminal poetry of my heart at the same
time. In college canteen, I would park myself on a vantage stool
with a cup of tea in my hand and gaze at her, a pretty girl I
had developed a fancy for. Staring at her would bring as much
ecstasy to my heart as sipping the glass of tea to lips, tongue,
throat and mind. Eyes would keep her in their range as fingers
of my right hand savoured steaming glass full of tea up to
brims. What other moment could have gifted eyes and lips their
feast at the same time in such a sublime fashion.
Every sip of tea when drunk with aesthetic pleasure helps me tie
the moments of time otherwise seemingly slipping out of my hand.
Tea helps me attain a state of near ataraxia. Here at Neemrana
whenever I stop by a near-by khokha (tea stall) or a restaurant,
a few steps further up while strolling about in the evening
owing to my utter desire to seek a poetic rapture out of the
wonderful picturesque ambiance then it is tea that helps me in
tying together all the different ingredients and entities of
nature together, pour them down in tea and let every nerve of my
body, mind and soul experience the Shangri-la of nature. So more
often than not, it is not just the mere prosaic task of gulping
down the tea which takes me to this warm magical drink but its
power in connivance with soothing ambiance of reintroducing the
metaphors of lost and banished reveries to my poesy side and
endowing my fingers with a kind of warmness one can only feel
either in lap of mother or embrace of romance.
One urge which often overwhelms me while I am at home is to have
tea with television switched on. After disposing off usual
morning chores I come back to room, switch on the television and
wait for tea to come. Company of my father in case we are opened
enough to talk or my mother only adds to the pleasure. This half
an hour oft makes me long for it while I am not at home. No
amount of tea after the day is worn on can rival this half an
hour though evening tea might come a little closer. This half an
hour among other reasons is often a major propellant in driving
me towards home whenever I can.
In the wake of long absences from home it is my sister’s home
which provides me with my morning tea tonic. Whenever I visit
her I make it a point to wake up a little early and indulge in
my favorite idea of bliss i.e. eyes alternatively on T.V. and
paper and lips sourcing the tea for tongue to taste and for soul
to relish. The water with which their tea is made remains the
only sour point. It is not only tea but place, time, ambiance,
weather, company and nature of the tea drinker when all combined
gives the tea-drinking its deserved and august status. My
parents, both consummate tea drinkers, occasionally prone to
quibble find themselves not only at peace with each other but
also end up confabulating over something or other whenever tea
plays the role of mediator.
If I try to draw some meaning or sense out of this whole
experience of tea drinking all I would come up with is
intoxication of my being out of which engenders a poem of
elation, romance and immaculateness of heart and soul. Yes, to
me it is the winter season which I am passionately obsessed with
that makes for a greater ambiance to realize the absolute
definition of tea-drinking. In the winter season when fog visits
me bringing in its armory similes, metaphors, rhymes,
alliterations, paintings and rhythm of soothing cold and dew
bathed in hazy ambiance, songs and poems embrace me in their
warm hugs. Then the event of muse of tea taking me to soaring
sky is nothing short of ideal definition of heaven.
As I finish my college and come to canteen to have tea having
been relieved of day’s work every sip of tea prepares me to
greet the remaining half of the day. Tea ceases to be just tea
and impersonates a girl friend whose devotion is beyond the
slightest of doubt and every word emanating out of her mouth
nestles in it the strength of thousands of inspiration books and
homilies. I may not be that great tea-drinker if measured on the
scale of frequency; I deem tea an essential part of my whole
self.
November 1, 2009
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Ramblings
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