Tea with an elephant
Arte povera poster
There was a tea box at home. I needed a box without a lid, so I cut the lid and the remained piece of cardboard made me think of India. Corrugated cardboard with its rhythm resembles the ocean waves. Or tea plantations. And the water spots seemed like elephants.
I’ve never been to India and know a little about this country, but it’s interesting that despite these facts I can still have a vision about it. This vision may be wrong, mixed with prejudices and fantasies, but it’s a formed vision that can be a base for some decisions: should I go there or shouldn’t; try to know it better or don’t; learn more about the culture or I know enough.
I was born in 1991, right in times of Soviet Union dissolution, and during years of my childhood the world changed unrecognizably. But I’ve heard this many times, that Indian tea was called “tea with an elephant” — the informal name appeared because of the picture of an elephant on the soviet package of black Indian tea.
“Tea with an elephant”. Just several words, but with the help of this informal name I’ve learned that elephants live in India. And tea is growing there. National Geographic channel and domestic internet hadn’t existed yet, but there were places I could see elephants: circus, zoo, cartoons, and pictures in books. So I could imagine how they live and what are they doing. But as for India, tea, elephants and the Indian Ocean were the only facts I knew. Mysterious, magical, unknown country.
After a while, fiction, cinema, and stories of friends who traveled to India diversified my knowledge. But I still don’t have a whole picture in my mind. And will never have, even if I go and live there, because what is this, actually, “the whole picture”? I reflected it on this piece of cardboard, which was the lid of the tea box.
The same vague image, with the addition of feelings and impressions, we have about everything in the world. We don’t need to know something thoroughly to be interested or excited about something. And we don’t need to know someone’s life story to like them. Come to think of it, how little people know about each other, but it doesn’t stop us from being interested in each other.
And in my head, India will always be a mysterious country with tea and elephants.
🐘
