Today morning I made tea for myself, went back upstairs to my room and left it aside. Unlike the L&M and his ilk, I don’t drink tea piping hot. Is there any other way, I hear the general public ask, loud and clear, all the way here. Yes, there is, the lukewarm way. Did you all make faces right about now? Yeah, that’s the sort of reaction I get from most all when I combine ‘drink’ ‘tea’ and ‘lukewarm’ in the same sentence. Some (or MOST) get so agitated, almost as if I have forced them to drink their tea lukewarm. Live and let live is such a difficult concept to accept, eh?

So anyway, there I was in my room today morning, waiting for the tea to cool down. In the meantime I decided to look out of the window. There was a light mist, and in the sky, a sun that looked more like the moon. No josh to it. None of the I-am-happy-to-be-up-and-about-this-morning or hey-rise-and-shine-earthlings-for-here-I-am. No hey and a ho and hey-nonny-no. Rather, hanging in the sky in an apologetic manner was a sun unsure of itself and its fiery potential.

Notwithstanding the hesitancy, it looked beautiful. A fairly big, perfectly round, pale orange ball in a gray sky. What’s not lovely about that? For once though, I did not run off to get my camera. Instead, I stood at the window watching the sun hide behind the veil of wispy clouds, then shyly peep out, then hide again. It seemed undecided still whether to show its face or not. Before I knew it though, the wispy clouds  had made up their mind. Joining together in solidarity, they hid the sun completely from view. 

Oh well, I might as well drink my tea, I thought. It must have cooled down enough by now.  But wait… The sun was coming out again. A bit higher in the sky now, it was no longer a dying ember, but a glowing hot ball. The clouds apparently had lost, and let the mist down badly in the process too. With no other option left, the mist, light to start with, started hastily withdrawing.  There was always tomorrow to blanket the countryside once again. For now it was alvidaa for the mist.

With the mist’s departure, the picture through the window became clearer. The grey trees now had green leaves. The barks shone in different shades of brown. The roofs of houses and the colors of their walls did not look faded any more. What’s more, the first golden rays were boldly entering the bedroom through the window too, falling on my face and also on the tiled floor, creating golden patterns. 

Now it was finally time to drink my tea. I took my first sip and stopped short. I could have sworn I had added sugar to it! And yet, here it was, all sugarless. How did that happen? Going back in my mind, I  saw myself standing in front of the kitchen counter making tea. I had definitely taken the sugar container down. I remembered stirring the tea with a spoon, even washing the spoon and putting it back where it belonged.  Had I imagined it all? Much like how you imagine sweetness in relationships, but find out too late it only had been in your mind all along? Whatever. I drank the tea as it was. It wasn’t too bad. One could get used to it much like everything else I suppose.

Good Morning!

© Shail Mohan 2018