The Cold Cup of Tea

Kashmiri winters have always been hard, but a warm cup of chai clears my perception making me soak in the rewarding sun. What lies behind this blanket of fog frightens the best of us, but the lingering taste of the kulhad and her voice adorning the background, makes me appreciate the blurriness outside the window. As echoes of her piano dance with the falling sunlight, adorned with the patterns on the glass pane, I fall deeper; deeper in my chair and deeper in love, deeper in anguish.

The sweater she knit hugs me tighter, trying to fill the void she left. The sunlight maps the distance between us, trivializing it. So close yet so far. She lies somewhere beyond that fog, cherishing the same tea, rays of the same sun dancing through her hair, and the same echoes surround her.

The fog engulfs everything that sustains it. The grey clouds tease me with the hope of rain, and shatter it with sharp snowfall. The cold freezes the child in me, clenching the dream of her. My eyes chase the sunlight away, just as the world stops talking.

The thought of her pierces through this dark cloud of woe, the sunlight.

The jar of tea leaves she bought, stands untouched in her memory.

Her portrait still hangs above the piano, beseeching to be dusted every day, I cannot look at it, even a glance will burn my throat, like a cup of tea right off the stove.

But one day, I’ll play her songs again, one day,

I’ll match the portrait’s eye.

One day, those tea leaves will see the sun

One day.

We will find each other, for we lie under the same sun.

Ananya Dixit

B.A (Honours) History

Batch of 2024