We sat on the grass of the lawn. All four of us, thinking
about the dramatic ways in which the journey of life brings together people
from different parts of the world, who would never have planned or even thought
of witnessing any such event. In between four of us, there are three different
mother tongues, three vastly different cultures, two distinct religion and two
distinct nationalities are present. Few months back, if someone would have
described such an event to me and asked “what is the probability of your
presence in this event in near future?” I would have certainly and instantly
answered “Zero”.
Nan and Su (Exchange students from Myanmar) invited us (Ambuj
and Pavan) for coffee that evening. Su made the coffee for all of us. I had no
idea that a tea person like me who likes two and a half tea spoon sugar in a
single small cup of tea would find a strong coffee with normal sugar in it
(still very little amount from my perspective), so refreshing that he would be
the one to finish it fastest. While sipping the hot beverage unknowingly we
were being part of a group of people who celebrate 29th September as
International coffee day. I really like and become excited about coincidences
and the same happened when Pavan told me about this very coincidence the next
day.
When I searched about it I found following statement in the
first line on its Wikipedia page:-“International Coffee Day is an
annual event observed on September 29 in a handful of countries for the celebration and enjoyment of the
popular beverage coffee”. India is not mentioned in the league of these handful
of countries. In that article, several countries are mentioned with their own
National Coffee Days but the most notable fact is that only Nepal from
south Asia celebrates Coffee Day (on 17th November) of its own. While
reading all this my “Tea Love” came out and compelled me to search about
“International Tea Day” hoping to see India’s name listed, being one of the
biggest producer and consumer of Tea. 
I found a four line Wikipedia article
about it which mentioned in its third line that “The first International Tea
Day was celebrated in New
Delhi on 15 December 2005”. I
was expecting a bigger article than Coffee day or at least a similar one, but I
had to console myself that at least there exists one.
None of
the two nationalities (Indian and Myanmar) present that evening, were a part of
those handful of countries which celebrate coffee day but still the fact that
29th September was the date on that day was quite intriguing to me. Despite belonging to
different countries and of being totally different in most of our life styles,
we share a lot in common as humans.
Several behavioural aspects and responses to certain stimuli are same,
the reason for which is attributed to the innate qualities given to all humans
by Nature. We develop our own culture, language and religion but we are quite
the same emotionally. We react in the same manner while feeling great or low
irrespective of our surrounding or background. May be because those emotions
are nothing but the outcome of our body chemistry which is same for all.
But there is an irony going on here which I
encountered recently when someone asked me “How do you describe an emotion”? He
went on “Emotions, we try to express in words but are we really sure that what
we are feeling and the word that we are using to express it are same for
everyone?” Simply put, anger for me may not be the same as anger for someone
else. Meaning that the word “joy” carries for me is not certainly the same
meaning that it carries for someone else.
Until now I only questioned the quantification
for emotions but now the emotion itself is under question. And if we cannot
precisely define our emotions and feelings then how can we say that all humans
share same kind of feelings which are supposed to be innate to them. Despite of all that mess, one thing is sure that most humans are social
beings and like meeting people. And I personally like meeting people from
different backgrounds and cultures. It marks my attraction towards
novelty. Something new is always
exciting but charm reduces overtime. In words of a junkie “best high was the
first time when I got stoned” rest was all just to reach that high but it never
was the same. But junkie is always in the hope of getting to that high (equal
to that of first time) one day so it is difficult for him/her to detach from
the drug. But in life we easily loose hope that’s why with time novel starts
turning into old and we start losing our attachment pretty easily with the
running time and reducing charm.
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