Chai and Champagne

The froth in the pan had boiled down to my cup…and I am all excited to let it flow through my throat as soon as possible..yeah its chai…my God of all times…good-bad, happy-sad, romantic-pathetic..it has always been my cup of tea that has relaxed me the most .Its an addiction to me, something which is really necessary for me to survive .God knows the reason why I fast for him (chai is allowed in fasting) and so somewhere I have started relating myself to it. Now that’s a twist, how can anybody relate or connect him/herself to a cup of tea.?? .well I surely can., a chai has got so many stories to weave around it , so many fragrances to feel about it..it is as Indian as I am..takes birth from the heart of the earth to which I am a child, it being my motherland.; the halo affect it passes through of its taste being judged by its brown colour as like my original Indian brown complexion ; .stands as a medicine for almost (I believe) every ailment, just like I feel so good about caring for people around me ; its aroma speaking for its character just like our behavior speaks for our own character and last but not the least the satisfaction and the comfort it gives to its beloved when brought to the lips…..that’s why I say.. it’s my’ God of all times’.

   
But is it chai which works for everybody. .certainly not!! So for that herd of the crowd  there is a Goddess .”.Champagne”. Goddess it is because satisfaction from a  goddess comes tagged with a sexual appeal. Sexual appeal, the champagne has plenty of it..indeed .It is more ‘not so Indian’ as we think it could be. Yellow for it adulteration, froth for its agitation, airy for its hollowness, flashy for its luxury but still lovely for its ability to arrest its beloved’s senses. Beloveds it has many, to which she is always a master no matter whether in bottle or inside!!

I sat down with my pen to do a write up on my last visit to Goa but what a cup of tea and a mug of champagne has to do with it…it has, a lot to do….!! Goa to me seemed to be a mug of champagne and most of the rest part of the country, of course chai. Not hesitant to mention when I stepped out my first foot on the land of Goa, I was fascinated like anything. The words of that moment were excitement, curiosity, and thrill. I was least aware of what Goa was all about but I wanted to explore it, as soon as I can. And I put the entire blame on the vibes of that place to make me think that way. Definitely the place has certain vibes which can make even an old heart feel like a young apple.
    I wont exaggerate if I say that the beaches there can drive anybody crazy and so do they did with me. It was the blue surf that I could feel under my foot , between me and the already wet sand as if it was creeping in me, no matter I wanted it to accept it or not, as fast as it can. One time, second time, third time, it kept on coming to me and going back just like a lover tries to pull his beloved back to him after an intrusion. It was deeply agitated but still quite, serene, it appeared grey but it was not hard to judge how many colors it has sacrificed to become this and that was the first time I realized in my life that there are things beyond my cup of tea which relax me, to which I can connect myself better . Somewhere at the back of my mind I also wanted to be like the sea, carefree, absolutely.
This was the first peg of the champagne that I tasted in Goa and it had already started spelling its magic on me..!

 The second peg of the evening came in an other form, in the form of the places there ,the forts. You can just stand at one nook of those amazing forts there, spread your hands wide , feel the vast waterbed ahead of you and you will actually feel the force of buoyant without even being in water! Isn’t that a magic again but that happens, just as in my case. I felt terrifically weightless, as if there was nothing in this world worth caring about, no issues worth to trouble me anymore and this became the second shock of my life, I was feeling airy, in this hypnotic environment. It was trying to take me somewhere I have never been..


The third and the last peg of my first experiment with this amazing drink came with a hick!! The nightlife of goa  and became something which I could never forget in my life, at first it was simply a dance floor and a wave of music that was there but I never thought it could be more engulfing than the sea was. While sipping this third peg I had a hit, and suddenly I discovered an absolutely new way to forget everything, to dump your thought process for a while by just being lost. Lost in the music, lost in the rhythm, lost in that atmosphere, there was so much noise that nobody could stay quite, to survive you have to shout and being loud by default kills all the itchy areas of your thought process. Certainly when you can’t think you cant be tensed anymore!

I was numb after my three pegs, done, exhausted, out of my senses and then I found a 6th sense reverting back to me...this was something I was never aware of but even in that state I could make out that this was the real me!!! I discovered an entirely new part of me...that is adventurous, fun-loving, carefree and hates thinking! Something  which my chai never introduced me to.
I came back from goa and with my luggage brought the thought that it couldn’t  always be  the same old good thing that can satisfy you which you think it might be doing well. Give time and explore yourself and know what actually satisfies you ,a cup of chai or a mug of champagne and then…a lot of things will turn straight. Now when I sit in my window in a nostalgic encounter with myself, I still love my cup of tea but the memories of the bubbles of the long and sleek glass ooze my emotions with a gentle smile!!