On Tea and Cigarettes

The journey home always brings with it the taste of hot tea and dusty alleyways. Maybe it's an old habit that won't die out or just me clinging on to the past in the hopes of rediscovering youthful exuberance. One of the things that tea and cigarettes always lead to is nostalgia and a feeling of being older.
If I were to try and explain the journey from that first tea shop to this one, I would probably massacre the memories of several dear friends. Many of us have written about the creation of that odd little family and many of us have placed masks on the tale, sometimes cliffs replace pavements, sometimes forests, mountains and even swimming pools. Whatever it be, it'll be undecipherable when strangers stumble upon this collection of odd words all mixed together within the warm elixir of youth and friendship.
By the teastall we sat and by the teastall we discovered ourselves. Sentimentality always gets the better of meaningful words so no more nostalgia please.
In the evenings I sometimes visit the teastall around the corner. The owner charges my friends and me an extra rupee on each glass that we drink. The economics of price discrimination is a very valuable tool a business economics professor once told me.
My friends here are very close to me. This is another family to which I belong, but here I could never sit at a teastall and waste away hours without thinking. No, we go, instead, to the pub nearby, driving in an air-conditioned car, a sleek beast that purrs quietly, and we quaff beer till our bulging pockets are rendered powerless.
Delhi has a different perspective on life compared to the way Calcutta peers at the world. At the pub, young men of my age come dressed in glitzy shirts that could easily measure up in value to my tea consumption of two months. At the teastall back home, we spend hours enough to fill up a work week sitting and sipping tea while smoking our lungs away.