Abhirup placed the cups neatly on the dining table. Slightly limping, he went back to the kitchen to check if the tea leaves are soaked enough. He opened the lid and took his face closer to the kettle to check what size the tea leaves have acquired, vapour hazing his spectacles.
Big silky brown flakes floating in the translucent fluid meant tea was ready.
And they sat, sipping into their morning habit, as one November dawn gave way to its last few tender mornings.
Since his college days, Abhirup took pride in his ways with the golden liquid. Professor Sanyal always joked in his lab that, ‘if one can’t make good tea, one can never be a good researcher’. Abhirup knew this was Dr. Sanyal’s underhanded ways of praising his favourite student, and he never disappointed him– tea or otherwise.
In his 38 years of nuptial bliss, this sunup routine remained unchanged.
Tapati’s teenage wish of giving early rise a miss and finding tea ready to give her still sleepy mind a nudge, turned into reality, when she married Abhirup and was quick to realise how the man in the house enjoyed stirring those brown leaves.
It is to this stirring that Tapati wakes up every morning. For 37 years now.
Abhirup, un-slumbered to a familiar stiffness this morning. Hobbling towards the cupboard, balancing himself on one door, he took out his winter obvious.
A few days into Diwali, the air felt the nip.
His body working like the weather cock, prompted him to get his cupboard winter-ready.
As he slipped into his now faded mauve pullover, which looked more brown , his eyes met Tapati’s. Half peeping through her Dohar she smiled at him.
Abhirup knows this smile.
“ So your second skin is on”, Tapati quipped with a sheepish grin in her half awake tone.
Abhirup never answered her back. The pullover almost 25 years old was the first handmade gift Tapati gave him when she learned to knit. Like many of her musings, the interest disappeared after a few successful attempts.He never fathomed what kept him warm in this pullover, the sheep wool or the memories.
Tea, now ready, was placed on the dining table.
Tapati suggested they have it in their quietly curated balcony. She always had this impromptu suggestions which made a moment better.
To which Abhirup exhibited his quite indulgence, always.
The first year of their marriage, was lived separately.
Abhirup, as Junior Research Scientist, stayed away.
Every telephonic conversation finally ended with tea-making, where Tapati candidly confessed, she doesn’t drink tea, because she never loved making one.
He almost felt responsible.
A year an a half later, when he finally found a good offer near home he was happy.But Tapati was elated,
“ Yyeeey! Tea time “, she shouted, not caring to hide her excitement.
On the other side of the conversation, Abhirup, a man of few words, realised how he has missed her for all these days.
For the first time.
Tapati wrapped herself in her shawl and started towards their veranda. She sat in her favourite corner, surrounded by aloes and ixora, their small verdant oasis, against the urban scape.She watched Abhirup approach her, slightly faltering, with the kettle cozied by a cover she stitched a few years ago, two cups placed carefully side by side on the mat covering the hand-crafted wooden tray, their cherished possession from their last vacation to the land of pagodas.
A few un-combed grey hair, a mildly sticking belly and that limp bore some imprint of the years that have gone by, in an otherwise unchanged tall, slim gait, Tapati thought, notwithstanding her thinning hair line with some grey patches.
But those sharp and warm eyes still found its way into her heart.
And allowed her to be.
Tapati smiled. The scientist in Abhirup never left him. Even after serving in non- scientific arena for the last 20 years, those precise hands ceased to fail.
Slightly wobbly with his arthritis raring it’s ugly head, but careful to protect his pullover from spillage, Abhirup walked towards her with that smile, which filled Tapati with the warmth she build her life on.
“ This may be last few sunny days we have before the cold season sets in, isn’t it? We won’t get this opportunity for the coming few months,
Do I get a shawl for you?”
Abhirup, careful with the threshold, stepped out into the veranda, mildly shaking his head.
He placed the tray on the wrought iron outdoor table.
And they sat, sipping into their morning habit, as one November dawn gave way to its last few tender mornings.
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