Twilight Tea

My sister is not the best tea maker of the world. But, she can definitely make best out of the situation. Situation is back home, in Bangladesh twenty years ago, when we bought tea leaves loose and milk daily. We used to running out of tea ingredients everyday. Less than half cup of milk or just 1 teaspoon of tea leaves was an everyday thing. With some kind of magic she made the tea with same consistency every time in the dented tin kettle-mug on the gas stove-top.

Twenty years ago, everyday we had an one hour power outage just before the sun set. She emerged from the kitchen holding the teapot in one hand and a candle with another. Dancing candle flame shone on her face, created an illusion of halo around her face and a shadow in our brother collar bone. That time, our parents were regularly late because of their multiple jobs. Just three of us drunk tea in a sea of darkness with a single candle.

My partner has no addiction to tea or any kind of caffeine. Still, I make tea every afternoon religiously, in microwave though. We do our caffeine shopping monthly. We almost never run out of ingredients and always keep both powder milk and cream just in case. Not being the magician I make tea like an optimized engineering process. I fill the stone teapot with water and microwave it for four and half minutes and the memories stars warming up too. I add 4 tea bags and the candle lights steeps to my consciousness. I recall that magical taste to my tongue and add milk and sugar accordingly.

We seat down on the steps in our backyard with tea mugs in our hands, the flowers are in full blooms, sky is bright blue. Our son runs around with his tiny tea cup with joy and I lean on my partner’s shoulder to see the sky. I am busy making memories here.

(For Bubu's 10th marriage anniversary. Happy anniversary Bubu! Please always stay this innocent with your big heart)