I can go without tea for days, only to realize on the n-th day how insanely out of tandem I had been feeling. This is so utterly foolish, but I seem to be slipping in to remembering how many friends I forced into becoming tea drinkers to keep alive the air of the kingdom that never slept. The one-time friends who gifted me bags of tea to ensure my comfort in the insipid loneliness of the chattering crickets and never-ending playlists. Only that I could never finish that box of tea bags. Free air called me, in loose leaves and undesired spoonfuls of sugar. On another completely digressive note, my one-time friends also gifted me an alarm clock. But I never wanted to stop dreaming.
Last summer I broke too many things including my left wrist, one and a half hearts, and a tea mug of four years. And since then I drink from a mug on which is a sleepy damsel and "love" scribbled all over, gifted to me by vegetarian, teetotaler brahmin friend, who unlike me, can very much sing. For four years now, we have exchanged bergamont, chamomile, orange, jasmine and philosophy. But only the last we met, we could not and did not rue over tea and cups.
The only person who has ever b(r)ought me tea and vodka with equivalent zeal and zest has, in stupor of alcohol, caffeine and sometimes both, taught me the best and the worst of truths of relationships, patience and more relationships. I miss being demanding, "Oye, chai peeni hai? Toh bana naa mere liye bhi :)".
And one who has never ever refused me tea, whether or not I had the money to pay for it, whether or not he had the time and reason to relish the cup of the brew. The best one, raising his first ever toasts of whiskey, vodka, gin and rum with me, glass after glass, with a steady hand and full heart.
The jolly good geek who spent one whole spring learning the subtle art of extorting black tea from the unwilling likes of Champa, Deepak, Shahrukh. My friend who believes that he can take all my pains away with a cup of bitter black tea. Spending afternoons coding with a cup of tea, while I must sit beside with a puzzle in hand. Spending night longs coding with pegs of whisky, while I must sit beside with a puzzle in hand. Deep, deep brown.
And the craziest kid ever who doesn't drink any tea but makes a cup better than I do or can, but all for her Maam and Dad.
To you all, I drink life to the lees.
