The Cup that Cheers.

One battle in our marriage was conceded by me even before the hostilities were opened. Growing up in Gujarat I had become used to drinking tea. Those that have tasted the concoction identified as such in the not so wild west will testify to the uniqueness of that brew. The process of it's creation lends itself easily enough to serving as a metaphor for the birth of life itself. Witness the primordial stew with all the constituent elements bubbling away for an eternity in a roiling, steaming, noisome brew & the almost miraculous end result.

These long years of being a "Tea"totaller came to naught though once we got married. Priya's TamBrahm conditioning brought with it an aromatic assault by Filter Kaapi that swept all before it & I became a Coffee drinker before I knew it. The toughest part of this lifestyle change is of-course finding the appropriate coffee. We have ranged far & wide in search of the right place to buy our coffee from including places as far afield as Chennai, Bangalore, Mumbai, Kerala & perhaps most exotic of all Cafe Coffee Day. That being accomplished the rest of the process is simple enough as long as the right instruments like the filter, miniature french press & the like are available. Things have now reached such a pass that I cannot fully awaken until that first cup of coffee homes into my insides.

I wanted to talk about a little ritual involving the drink that has come to mean a lot to me. Every day about an hour or so after my first cup I ask Priya to make a cup of coffee for me. Every day I have a different excuse - the first cup was too weak, or too milky, or too strong or failing that Pleeeeease .. She sets about making it & hands it to me & I proceed to consume it, usually in silence while watching Smriti leave for school or Ani shrugging himself into wakefulness. It's been a while since I started doing this & honestly the coffee is now somewhat incidental to the occasion - this is all about the interaction. Through all that both of us are busy with over the day there aren't too many opportunities for us to do anything specifically for each other. This one thing is my own little attempt to include something in her daily schedule that is just for me. I try to reciprocate by doing small things for her unasked but through a combination of her greater self sufficiency & my own relative ineptitude there are not that many things that I can do to tip the scales back.

So here's to Filter Kaapi. For me that second cup of the day is the cup that sets the day up for me - the cup that cheers !