Learning to Make Tea for One-Andaleeb Wajid

Book: Learning to Make Tea for One: Reflections on Love, Loss, and Healing
Author: Andaleeb Wajid
Publisher: Speaking Tiger

I was provided a media copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

How do you deal with grief?

In the summer of 2021, India was throttled by the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Hospitals were running out of oxygen and the daily news recorded the soaring death count. Families were torn apart as beloved ones were quarantined or confined in intensive care units and lost to the deadly virus—leaving survivors without even a chance to say goodbye. In that cruel summer, Andaleeb Wajid lost her mother-in-law, and then just five days later, her husband, even as she was hospitalised with COVID herself. Wajid’s grief struggled to find words as she returned to a home that was shorn of the love that had once inhabited it and was now empty, but for her two children. Wajid finally turned to her writing to make sense of it all. She found herself wanting to tell the story of her life and her loss. She chronicled her family life, of growing up as a cherished daughter of a father whom she lost too early. She wrote about her marriage, the happy companionship that marked it, and the many ways in which her husband and she looked at life so very differently. She described the incredible joys and the unbearable pain of motherhood too. Learning to Make Tea for One is Andaleeb Wajid’s journey through her grief. She tells her story with truth and courage, looking at death squarely in the face as she learns to make tea for one. It is a story that will deeply touch anyone who has faced loss and pain.

Andaleeb’s memoir tells us the story of how she lost two of her family members during the Covid wave of 2019, and how she dealt with the loss. While that is the central idea of the book, Andaleeb explores something even more visceral in the book. It is not just about loss and changes in her life, but she explores how she felt during that time, shuffling between hospitals, dealing with all that was happening around her. Andaleeb tells us the story of how she dealt with grief when she lost her father too early, or the pain of motherhood. While reading the memoir, you almost feel that she is telling you the story sitting next to you, and some of the moments are so visual that you feel the same emotions that she must have been feeling. She also chronicles the story of how she started writing and her journey of becoming an author through her experiences as well as of those around her. As her reader, you also come across some instances which inspired some of her stories which she has published.

I really liked how Andaleeb maintains her storytelling prowess while narrating some of the lowest moments of her life, and some of the high points as well. Outlining the importance of the support of family and friends, you realise that as a social animal, you need the people around you to be your pillars of support. Her narration of small things that remind her of her father, her mother-in-law, and husband was quite vivid, and the moment where she is preparing tea after coming home was something that will stay with me for quite some time, and this is also the place from where the title comes from. The book moves in time as she tells the story, and just like a memory, it flits between time and instances where one memory leads to another and just like that a chain of moments are revealed.

This is a memoir that should be read not just because it presents a perspective on how to deal with grief, but also chronicles the story of a person who moves ahead with life, despite the setbacks. The book scores a 4.88/5 for me.

Get a copy of the book on Amazon India or a bookstore near you.