This story takes you to a journey,introduce you to people and places and it can get annoyingly long.

As i placed my 5th stained white cup in line,admiring it charm and voluminous pear shaped curve,My know-it-all buddy Smi exclaimed deeply"If someone ever decides to make a documentary on Addictions I would nominate your name".Well, YES I had no shame in passing her the crooked smile of mine and YES I don't mind admitting the fact that i have addiction problem.

Rewinding back once again to a familiar room,guess its my dining hall and in one corner can you see the frock wearing gal,holding her most precious possession, her little steel tumbler waiting for her dad to pour the sweet tasting brown liquid which she calls "CHA".....How long can you resist something that runs in your family, where every occasions is blessed by CHA be it summer or winter, morning or dead noon...it runs through every single soul and me not wanting to be an exception took in the reins and decided to prove my family's name.

Back in college,it was a necessity to keep my ever drooping eyes open and my ever blocking ears alert and the only stimulant that worked for me was "TEA".Soon it became a routine and I became the single most revenue generating customer for the coffee corner chechi....My morning in college started with a cup of hot tea,its way too much according to Smi considering the fact that I already had my two cups from home named fondly as Wake up tea and breakfast tea.Morning tea was followed by the short break tea and then after lunch tea followed by end of the college tea followed by evening tea at home and conversation tea with my dad.This adds to a total 7-8 cups a day,this heavy tea drinking habit of mine soon got my body addicted to the brown liquid and skipping one shot resulted in headache,blood shot eyes and what else.Unyielding to the repeated cold looks from Smi I continued my habit until I bid adieu to the coffee corner in college once and for all.

After a month of sitting at home ,doing nothing other than sipping my favorite tea and slugging on ma favorite couch my parents packed my bags and sent me to the torture hell:AMRITA UNIVERSITY.Landing up in Amrita was the next best thing that happened to ma addiction and it was taken to the next level. Armed with a huge cup enough to give 5 people standing in the hostel tea queue a complex I was readying maself for the next battle.My daily dose of tea rose from 7-8 cups to staggering 11-12 in matter of months.Thanks to the huge work load ,projects and assignments I was forced to feed maself large quantities of TEA to stay awake all night.

One fine day when Chechi pointed to my EX-jasmine like tooth and complained on how stained it has become, it took me by surprise.Out on parole I consulted my dentist only to be warned of further recursions like(permanent damage to ma enamel) if I continued to stay heavy drinker.Unpacking my bags, I saw a big packet of complan with a small note by ma mom:QUIT TEA,START HEALTHY HABITS!!not an easy choice as I understood in the days to come.Accustomed to the heavy dose of tea my body couldn't even dare to compare taste of complan with kick of tea.As I force fed maself complan ma body's apparent discomfort was evident...frequent splitting headaches, lack of concentrations and finally after 3 months I was about to win the war over ma addiction and that's when WIPRO offer came ma way.

One can associate any software professional to either TEA/COFFEE or some other bad habits like "ELANEER"(pun intended).For caffeine is known to be a great stress buster evident from the fact that most companies have atleast two coffee vending machine in every floor.Huge rush deprives us of tea mugs in peak hours of 10am-11am and 4pm-5pm. Everyone and anyone can be seen in the common floors right from the managers having an intelligent conversation to freshers sharing the day's gossip sipping hot cup of TEA/COFFEE.The intake has certainly reduced owing to the poor quality of tea available and yeah there is no fun in having instant tea, a byproduct of tea bags and colour changing milk.A detour every night on our way back to hostel takes us to Swadisht Ahar, with no Ahar in mind and the tea wallah calling out to us like pied Piper's tunes we, find our self pay the bill and stand near the counter trying the inhale all the caffeine in the air.As the day comes to an end I tuck into ma bed waiting for the dawn so that i can have another dose of my addiction.Well, a visit to the dentist is in pipeline soon.