I weighed more than 60kgs, plump all around my cheeks I stood there wondering what to do. I brushed and called “Amma… Cha”. (“Mom…Tea”).
Within two minutes, I was sitting in the hall with that day’s TOI and a huge mug of superb tea prepared for me. When I sit and think ‘bout it now, I feel I have blue blood!!!
Oct 10th 2005, the person who was supposed to be having blue blood just about a year back, is in a dirty looking kitchen preparing tea!!! Tea making… How much I hated it. My mom always used to tell me, “You will understand one day” whenever I said I hate making tea. Here I am out of Home just for a year and I have understood it!!!
I love drinking Tea, but hate preparing it. But, here in Mysore where I stay there is no other option. I have to prepare it. So what do I do, I decide to proactively make tea.
So I bought an electric heater. Now with some utensils and the heater I plunge into the grilling task of making tea on 10th Oct 2005. I requested my friend to get milk and asked him to get Brooke Bond Red Label tea powder. He got 1/4ltr Nandini milk and got Brooke Bond 3 roses. What the hell!!! 3 Roses, I hated that tea powder. Okay I decide it’s alright and next time I will get the Red Label. I cut the milk packet as I had seen my mom do that and poured it in a vessel. Then I mixed some water in the milk and kept it for boiling. Then I tried to stir the milk. Chuk… Shock!!! I was afraid for a second. I had spent Rs.650 on the heater and this on the first day. Then I checked out the electrical connections. There was a loose connection. I rectified it. I started the heater again and stirred it again. Uff!!! No shock. It was working fine.
Then I put sugar, less or more, I never figured out the statistics of tea making!!! I decided to wait until it was ready. Then when the milk was pretty hot, I put right amount of tea powder… Right Amount… What in the gods name? I don’t know how much sugar I have to put and my room mate is worse than me. So I have to take the risk which I do and put some Tea powder. Now it is boiling. We haven’t got a fork. Never came to my mind that I will need it. So when it started boiling I took it off the heater with a kerchief. Hands, well they had to burn!!! Then the worst part, we don’t have a mesh to separate the tea and the used tea powder. So I just poured it in the glass, rather two glasses and we kept it for some time so that the tea powder settles down. We started drinking. But, as if it was a syzygy between the two, the powder didn’t settle down completely in the tea. So every now and then, we need to spit out the powder. But that was very less. So it was manageable. Now somebody had to clean it. I had burned my hand, had been electrified by the heater. So luckily my room mate cleaned up the utensils and the glasses. WoW!!! We had made the first tea on our own in Mysore.
At the end of all this, it was a satisfying incident. I learnt that what we think is so simple from outside is not like that. Look at the circus I had to do just to make 2 cups of tea. The tea was good, not the best but very satisfying.
Everything said and done, one thing that didn’t change was my idea of tea (a bit modified) “I love tea, but hate preparing it, but I have to”.
