Book review: Learning to Make Tea for One by Andaleeb Wajid
Growing with grief
In the summer of 2021, as the second wave of Covid lashed the country, taking down so many people, tearing families asunder, Andaleeb Wajid, her husband Mansoor and her mother-in-law all contracted the virus. Andaleeb and her mother-in-law went into one hospital, her husband into another. Hospitalisation did not equal recovery in this case and soon, the author`s mother-in-law succumbed to the deadly virus. A mere five days later, Andaleeb lost her husband, too. And things were never the same again.
Andaleeb is a popular and prolific writer who has published 50 books in the past 15 years, spanning the genres of romance, mystery, horror, young adult. An award-winning author who most recently won the Neev Literature Festival Award 2024 and Crossword Book Award 2024, her novel Asmara’s Summer was adapted for screen to become Dil, Dosti, Dilemma on Amazon Prime.
Writing this memoir was clearly an act of catharsis, and the one stand-out is the book`s blazing honesty. Andaleeb takes us through her relatively young life, sharing with the reader the pain of losing a beloved father when she was a pre-teen, settling for a marriage planned by her parents, learning to grow into the roles of wife and mother, experiencing the pain of a miscarriage, then the joy of delivering two children who are now her support system as much as she is theirs.
Talking about grief, Andaleeb writes: “It wasn’t an all-consuming black hole, instead it made me feel as if I`d been tied to a rocky hilltop, where waves kept crashing on me, breaking me, eroding me.“
Looking sorrow in the eye
There is immense courage in the book, there is looking sorrow directly in the eye, there is getting one`s act together, bringing one`s sense of self-worth to the forefront. There is a vein of wry humour in her details of everyday life with those who have left her and now, without them. There is a nod to her writing which has brought a kind of succour in its wake. And beyond the personal, we share the horrors of Covid times with Andaleeb.
A special shout-out to the evocative chapter heads in the memoir (He was Going to be Fine/The Beginning of the End/Doing Nothing Doesn’t Work/Time Travel), and the cover illustration which will have readers resting their eyes contemplatively on it for a few moments before starting the book.
Given her felicity with the turned phrase, her direct frills-free style of narration, the memoir makes for a moving read that never once falls into a maudlin trough. In fact, it resonates with the reader as it gently imparts the lesson of how to pick up the pieces and move on in life, recognising that healing takes time, recognising the limitations placed on a grieving woman, acknowledging the dose of pragmatism required even as one stashes away all the precious memories. Recognising the need to let life matter again.
Everything Andaleeb has gained in life, she has worked for. Now sadly, that includes healing, calm and equanimity.
Learning to Make Tea for One by Andaleeb Wajid. Speaking Tiger Books. 224 pages. Rs 499
https://www.newindianexpress.com/lifestyle/books/2025/May/25/growing-with-grief
This ran in the New Sunday Express Magazine of 25 May 2025.
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Sheila Kumar • May 25, 2025