A packet of tea

Here, in this rain-laden winter’s day,

I make a cup of tea,

Black is good, no sugar, yet

Sweet enough for me

 

I feel the granules in the packet loose,

And a shiver runs down the spine,

Each packed with a million memories

Of snow-clad peaks and pine

 

My pilgrimage, after a decade’s dry,

Was blessed by the peaks of gold,

I can choose to smile and feel the warmth

Even as my tea runs cold

 

And in every sip, I can see again

The hills frenzied with tea,

From Mim in Darjeeling’s wilderness,

To Thurbo, Chamong, Phuguri

 

Green gold carpeted in the hills,

Towering peaks above,

Somewhere in between, for what is home

Breaths of outright love

 

Was it just the hills, or just the greens,

I wonder now as I think,

Perhaps, there is more than any of these

That can be writ’ in ink

 

There’s a homesick tug when you’ve moved this far

A pain you cannot express,

There may be so much you have got

But then, there is so much less

 

For you miss the souls and the warmth of love

And the sun with which you grew,

With age, these cords get thinner still -

Removed, the hearts are even few

 

And you now its not just leaves of tea,

That you smell in your morning brew,

The hiraeth of home, that comes each day

Like the drops of morning dew

 

This winter morn, I recall the hills

Would smile more frigidly

Yet, with a single sip, their warmth comes too

Bound in a pack of tea…

 

22^nd January, 2023

Cover image : Kanchenjunga from Mim tea estate, Darjeeling