A Cup of Tea Can Change The World

She knows it’s me in the kitchen whenever I make my grandma’s favorite kind of tea. According to her, only I on earth know the recipe of her favorite tea. The tea, in fact, is one of the most important factors of our intimacy. She is my friend more than my granny. Only she in my family knows my secrets and she keeps them, and I offer an extra cup of her favorite tea. Despite some differences in norms, values and thoughts, we share a very strong friendship and love.

She is my maternal granny and is staying with us after my grandpa passed away three years ago. And this was the greatest kink in her mind that she is staying in her daughter’s house and what would society tell about her and her sons. She still sometimes complains about it despite all her sons and their wives are either too busy to take care of her or out of the country.

When she moved in, we, especially I, had a lot of difficulties in the beginning. Her thoughts and my thoughts were completely counter of each other. Lots of things changed suddenly. My singing became shouting, the music of my guitar became a cacophony and my belly dance became tummy shake. Differences in our thoughts didn’t end here. After she moved in, me and my mom started becoming “Impure” during our menstrual periods. I was not allowed to touch any of my family members during those big five days. Not only that, she restricted me from entering the kitchen. Also, my father and my brother could not do any of the household chores. And I had to clean my brother’s room, wash his clothes, polish his shoes, and clean his dish and many more. That of course was annoying, but I had to obey my granny without any protest, because she was the eldest.

She had sickeningly stubborn attitude towards those thoughts. It was perhaps because of lack of education, awareness and the environment she was brought up in. But I wanted her to be aware. We used to have conversations and discussions for hours. But before that I served her the tea. It was not an easy job to make her agree to discuss the topics related to Gender Equality, Women Rights and Reproductive Health. But she could also not resist the tea. Adjustments and readjustments were made, some from her side and some from mine. I provided various examples to her, showed her videos which talked about reproductive health, feminism and women’s rights. Now, she is fully aware about gender equality, and my brother does his works on his own and my dad helps mom in the kitchen along with me. This didn’t happen in a single day. It took me more than a year to change her attitude towards “Being a Woman”. She is still unconvinced about the period taboo and I still become impure for five days. But that’s okay. She will understand even this thing in the near future. Now, at least, I am allowed to touch the family members and eat with everyone. But I am not allowed to cook.

The tea and the conversation with my granny have unfolded many truths. During her childhood, she used to steal the hen’s egg from the house and sell it in the market to buy glass bangles. Also, no one knew she had a deep interest in taking photos of herself. And it was me and the tea which dug that out. Now she is the selfie queen of our family. I believe, if a good cup of tea and a good conversation can change my stubborn granny, it can change the world, but we need to put some effort from our side as well. Yes, a cup of tea can change the world.