For many years, I thought a teetotaller was a person who was totally dependent on tea for going through the day.
I don’t know why I thought this. Maybe because I thought the word was spelt ‘teatotaller.’
It made sense to me back then. So even though I used to drink Old Monk, if somebody asked me, “Are you a teetotaller?” I would proudly say, “Yes.”
Only later I realised that a teetotaller is someone who does not drink alcohol. But by then, it was too late because my bond with the beverage had been formed.
Even today, technically I may not qualify as a teetotaller, but spiritually I am one, because in my life tea is not a beverage.
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My relationship with tea started very early in life.
In fact, tea was the first thing for which I switched on the kerosene stove as a child.
Today when kids want adventure they go white-water rafting in Rishikesh, paragliding in Bir Billing, skiing in Gulmarg, or scuba diving in the Andaman Islands.
We just asked our mothers, “Do you want tea? I will make?”
And then the proper middle-class stove drama would start.
If the stove didn’t have enough kerosene, you had to unscrew the fuel cap on the side or base of the stove and carefully pour it in.
Remember to leave some room (and not fill it fully) because the kerosene expands from the heat.
Then you had to allow the kerosene to fully saturate the cotton wick by capillary action.
If the wick wasn’t at least 3 to 5 mm outside the metal cylinder, you had to turn the adjustment knob clockwise or lift the lever to raise it.
In short, before you made tea for your mother you had to pass an exam KEET – Kerosene Engineering Entrance Test.
Then came the biggest adrenalin rush (equivalent to a bungee jump!) because now it was time to bring a lit match to the edge of the exposed wick so the stove starts burning.
The first fire would always be orange and smoky, and you had to lower the wick back down into the chamber…to make it the preferred blue fire.
Once the flame turned blue, you felt like a scientist in ISRO who had successfully launched PSLV.
During this whole process, there was smell, sound and danger.
There was that small fear that if you did something wrong, either tea won’t be ready or the house would make news on TV.
Back then headlines such as “12 year old burns down the house trying to impress the mom” weren’t unheard of.
My mother taught me to make tea when I was around 12.
After she gave birth to my second sister, she started having regular headaches, and probably needed someone in the house who could make tea for her without burning the house down.
That ‘responsible’ someone was me.
When my mother had a headache and I gave her tea, she would take it and sit quietly.
Sometimes she would not say much. Sometimes she would say, “Good,” and that was enough.
Parents of our era were not like the parents of today, who would have maybe said, “I am proud of you son, you have shown great emotional maturity and physical dexterity by preparing this hot beverage.”
If it was too watery, my mother would tell me.
If sugar was less, she would tell me.
If it was too milky, she would tell me.
That was my training and I got immediate feedback.
But today we suck as parents. When my son gets me a glass of water, and spills it in three places while crossing the 12 feet distance from the RO to the dining table where I am sitting…I still say, “Good job, Ritwik!” And then I take a cloth and wipe the spill because Rekha’s first points her accusatory finger at me.
The first time you make tea for your mother, you feel like you have contributed to the running of the family.
I think as it happened with me, in many Indian homes tea is the first promotion a child gets.
First you are asked to get water. Then they ask you to switch off the lights of the washroom. Then they ask you to check if the doors are locked at night. Then they send you to buy milk from the shop. And then, one fine day, they ask you to switch on the stove and make tea.
This is not a small promotion – it is like moving from peon to assistant manager.
I think making tea also brought out the ‘mother in me’ – that’s the art of serving someone you love without making a whole TED speech about it.
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When Rekha and I got married, she made tea for the first few weeks. I remember this clearly because it did not last long.
Rekha’s tea making started when my mother and father came to Chennai to help us set up our home after marriage.
This is another beautiful middle-class tradition.
Even though we had been living-in together for a year before marriage, as a newly married couple we only had three suitcases full of clothes, a few pans, two chattai (pai), a table fan, a desktop, two bean bags, and a hammock.
Then my parents arrived and kickstarted the civilisation.
My parents bought us a bed, mattress, utensils, and a few other things that make a house look like a house.
Before they came, Rekha took me to Lifestyle. She wanted to them tea in a kettle. Till then, in my life, tea had travelled directly from pan to the stainless steel glass. Suddenly there was going to be a middleman.
I asked, “Why kettle?”
She looked at me the way newly married wives look at husbands whose refinement work has just begun.
She said, “It looks nice.”
In the last 20+ years, this sentence “it looks nice” will go on to convince me to say yes to curtains, trays, lamps, runners, cushions, and showpieces that serve no practical purpose in the house.
That day, we bought a whole set – four cups, a kettle and a tray.
My parents were with us for three days and on all those days tea was served to me as if I were the British Queen.
I almost expected Rekha to say, “Your Majesty, tea is served.”
Then my parents left.
My parents must have been impressed. Little did they know that the very next day we would move back to stainless steel glass – primarily because the tea would be cold by the time it made its way from the kettle to the cup.
After 22 years we still have that set sitting somewhere in the kitchen.
Over the years, the way we drink tea has evolved.
If I remember right, we moved from steel glasses to small porcelain cups once we moved to Gurgaon in 2007.
When it became fashionable to drink tea & coffee in larger cups, we moved to bigger porcelain cups.
Nothing wrong…this is the natural evolution of a marriage.
Today in our house, tea is ready by 4:20 am, and by 4:25 am…I am done with my cup of tea and two Marie biscuits.
I don’t remember exactly when the duty of making morning tea fell into my lap. As far as I can remember, I have been making it.
I remember Rekha making it in the first few weeks of marriage. After that, history becomes unclear.
I don’t know if it was an order, request, transfer of department, hostile takeover, or voluntary retirement from her side.
Maybe one day she said, “Can you make tea?”
Maybe I made it. Maybe next day she assumed. Or I assumed that she wanted me to continue.
This is marriage – one day you do something, and the next day it is yours.
By the time you realise, ten years have passed.
I have tried protesting a few times, but Rekha seduces me by saying, “But you make such nice tea.”
This is how innocent men like me get trapped. As you are aware, we Rajans can be lions if a prey has to be hunted, but when a lioness comes near us and purrs…we turn into Amul butter.
Praise is a very powerful weapon in bringing a man down on his knees non-violently.
If a wife says, “You make good tea,” a man will happily make tea for 20 plus years. Because somewhere inside, we are all simple creatures.
It has been two decades since the transfer of responsibility, and I am happy. But it was not always like that.
About seven or eight years ago, I used to get irritated while making tea in the morning.
For a couple of months, I could not understand why I was getting angry.
After all, I loved tea, I loved early mornings, I loved the quietness of the house before everyone woke up, and I also loved the person for whom I was making tea.
So why was I getting angry?
Then one day I discovered the reason. We had only one tea-making vessel (saucepan?), and Rekha was very particular that tea must be made only in that vessel.
The problem was, some days our cook would use that same vessel for some other purpose, and next morning when I woke up at 4 am, I would find the sacred tea pan in the sink.
So before making tea, I had to wash it. Washing a vessel before drinking tea is like filling petrol in your bike by pushing it to the petrol bunk.
The whole point of tea is to prepare you for work. So work shouldn’t become a precondition for drinking tea.
And then we had only one tea sieve as well. And if Rekha made tea at 4:30 pm in the evening, the sieve would be lying dirty in the sink at 4 am next morning.
For months, I would start my day with resentment. And then it dawned on me that sometimes abundance is the answer to your problem.
So we bought two more tea sieves and two more tea pans.
I am not exaggerating when I say this changed my life.
People think happiness comes from big things such as a promotion, a new car, a foreign holiday, weight loss, etc. No sir, happiness comes from small things – that you can see daily and be proud of.
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Tea has seen me through many stages.
It was there when I was a boy making tea for my mother’s headache.
It was there when I was newly married and being served tea from a kettle and in cups like a British aristocrat.
It was there when Rekha and I went to Gurgaon to join a startup called ibibo after I was fired from Yahoo.
It was there when children were born and sleep died.
It was there when the Nimbuzz, the instant messenger I had worked for six years shut down because Whatsapp kicked the shit out of us.
It was there in 2016 when I started my own company…the time when I started getting up at 4 am for work.
It was there when I sat at the dining table wondering how I will pay our kids school fees because even after three years, my startup wasn’t into five figures.
It was there when Rekha and I fought and did not know who should speak first.
It was there when my daughter left home to study and the house became slightly emptier.
Some people need temples, some need beaches, some need mountains…I just need my tea. Everything else will follow.
Because tea gives you a small pause before life attacks. And once that pause is over, we Rajans arm ourselves with unnecessary confidence and attack life back.
And now just because I know how it is spelt, I won’t change my answer if someone asks me again, “Are you a teetotaller?” I will still say yes. Not because I don’t drink alcohol but because I totally believe in tea.