IN SO many ways can we interpret this simple-sounding statement! That is simply because it comes from T. S. Eliot, one of the most profound expressers of thought we ever know. He has always been known to use words very sparingly, very miserly, very thoughtfully. That is why people around the world spend their lifetimes trying to decipher what Eliot says on everything he touches. This simple statement -- I smile, of course. ... And go on drinking tea -- has four elements: Smile, Drinking, Tea; and the fourth one is life, the cup of tea, his cup of tea. Oh, no! How can that be! -- one may exclaim. But that is one interpretation these simple words conceal within them. ‘No matter what, I smile. No matter the difficulties, I smile. No matter the vagaries and vicissitudes of life, I smile. No matter the people good, bad and indifferent I meet, I smile.

 

 

Through thick and thin of living, I smile ... and go on.’ This is where the ‘tea’ symbolism comes in. Tea -- a wonderful liqueur needing different condiments and thoughtful brewing. That is what life appears all about, so to say. ‘I fill my cup with this tea -- of life -- and drink it to heart’s content and move on. No matter how difficult things could be, this is MY cup of tea that peps me up, invigorates me, makes me more buoyant and prepared for the onward move, the road ahead, the possible tough time ahead. ‘Of course, this tea of mine makes me prepared also for good things that life invariably brings along. Yes, this tea, this reinvigorating potion, readies me for those moments as well. ‘Of course, there are storms, too, in my tea-cup. Sometimes, they endure beyond my endurance. Sometimes, they die with me. Sometimes, I see them calming down before my eyes.

 

‘This is my tea, this is my life. It is this tea that gives me strength to smile -- even to mock at itself. ‘But when I smile, I accept, I accommodate, I assimilate, I agree, I dare, occasionally I cower too. This comes from that wonderful potion of life -- which I call tea, in my own cup. My cup of tea.’ Some may think this to be too simplistic -- or even juvenile. But we cannot forget that it was Thomas Stearns Eliot -- the winner of 1948 Nobel Prize for Literature, poet, essayist, publisher, playwright, literary critic, editor and recognised as a central figure in modernist English poetry -- who said these simple words. It is in their simplicity that the words’ actual metaphor lies. To make such a profound and all-encompassing statement is not the cup of tea for most of us.