"I'll make tea?" Standard question when close friends visit me at home and can be assured of a "Yes" as answer - assurance needed because I would myself be waiting to make a cup of the refreshing brew. The ongoing conversation would continue with my friend following me to the kitchen and sitting at the small table we have there while I made us tea. It seems tea not only revives one but is the very complement to sharing and exchanging. It's almost as if our discussion would be incomplete without the cuppa.

As an aside, let me tell you that when I am alone too, I get this urge to have tea that seems to spring from some inner self that tells me that the process of making tea itself is soothing. As the brew boils, the wafting smell of the tea lifts one's spirits; as one drinks it sip by sip, the confused mind sees reason, the heaving heart calms down and no turmoil seems insurmountable. (I refrain from making any bad puns about storms in teacups).

Coming back, I guess this exercise started from my parents' home - we would have coffee first thing in the morning - but for no-reason hot afternoon sips, for sitting around and chatting, when guests arrive, it was tea that won the vote. In fact, my father makes the best tea I have ever had and there are scores of others who will attest to this statement - one friend would drop in every now and then just to have my father's "special masala tea," which incidentally did nothing for my father's modesty. When my parents visit me now at my home, it's dad who does the honours at teatime. Anyway, as I was saying, the habit grew and tea became synonymous with conversation, ranging from the casual to the heart-to-heart.

Fortunately while in college I had friends who also thirsted for tea rather than for soft drinks especially when we needed well-earned breaks from the classroom or when we just "wanted to talk." I remember shocking many a roadside tea vendor, standing near his shack and consuming glass after glass of tea while we chattered non-stop. The tea would be good and nobody could accuse you of overstaying - at posher joints you would get a pointed "Anything else?" or dirty looks if you just kept drinking tea for an hour!

The tradition never quite died - recently I had to meet a friend who wanted to pass some stuff on to me before she left on a long trip. We just had time to meet at a convenient spot, do the passing on and say bye. But at that spot, just at the right time I might say, a chaiwala on a cycle came by doing his rounds of the offices located there. We simply looked at each other, saw the same "shall we?" in the other's eyes, nodded and without saying a word got ourselves a cup of tea each (very good tea too - it always pleases me when tea turns out to be of the masala variety where I expected plain tea), found a shady tree and what should have been a five-minute hurried meeting turned into a leisurely, long, though desultory, chat! Speeding motorists and passers-by turned for second, no doubt envious, glances.

Well, bye, the strain of putting down these few thoughts into words assures me it's time for tea.