Tagore’s Brighton: A Victorious Cup Of Tea In Café Rouge Photograph

I have often contemplated that those of artistic stock, especially the stubborn ones like me, who have cordoned themselves away as much as possible from technology in favour of sepia-blushed writing paper and fountain pens, will seek a cup of traditional tea as the definitive ritual and sacred necessity by which to start and end their day. My cup of tea is a courtly and honourable gesture of gratitude to being alive because nowhere else will you find a beverage more potent in turning the hands of time into a pair of tortoise legs, letting it trudge slowly round the dish of numbers so that your senses come into its true avatar. When like this, the breeze is no longer a disturber of peace but a whisperer to the skin, birds do not create a bedlam of noise but become choristers of the trees and, flying sweet scented plum and pear blossoms do not carry malicious intent to stick to your hair for their desire is to shower ample blessings upon you. Tea does all this to me. Indeed, I would not disagree with you in the slightest if you were to interject at this point, protesting that tea obviously takes precedence over the ink inside my cartridge pen. You would be quite right! My sister and I had expended much energy scouting out the vintage and antique shops in ‘The Lanes’ quarter of Brighton, a labyrinthine district of cobbled streets consisting of narrow alleyways, close enough to the marina that the randy squawking of errant seagulls was a persistent comical feature of the airwaves. Having built up a lion’s appetite, with coarse unladylike horse speed we sped into the nearest café to enjoy a pit-stop or, more crucially, to permit our parched lips to reacquaint with the pleasures of the artists’ drink of choice, tea! Café Rouge, an old world Parisian establishment whose tiny space impressed a sense that it was here that stories bound in intimacy were made, some between good friends whilst others flourish between spectacled readers and their French newspapers! The walls were painted in the most generous rich swathes of marmalade orange with the occasional flash of burgundy red to add a touch of fiery but mature seduction. The warmish ambience and pleasantly cloistered space, jewelled all round by framed nostalgic posters of French cinema and cultural icons, sent my imagination spiralling and I exclaimed to my sister that it must have been secret places like this in which the great artists and writers of the past – Dali, Picasso, Tolkien, C.S. Lewis to name a few, found themselves sharing their myriad thoughts and engaging in lively debates over tea-stained papers to the extent that I should imagine new customers took to mistaking them as permanent residents of the joint! Artistic revolutions were born under the canopy of cafés and it was to be that tea in the end enjoyed the privilege of occupying front row seats to the evolution of human culture. I wondered to myself whether Tagore preferred to drink his on his own or was he a helpless chatterbox who liked to punctuate his conversations with a sip or two of our beloved leafy concoction? My cup of English Breakfast tea glistened in front, a roaring planet of pure blackness nestled in the body of white porcelain and soon sedated with the spidery web of a dash of milk. No sugar of course otherwise it was not tea! Purist all the way! Giggle, giggle! The first warm sip is the mother of victories and it was then that my sister told me to look to my left, explaining that I would be over the moon when I rest my eye on it! I turned and voila! Staring at me like a Love letter left by Tagore himself, painted on the wall was a white teapot and the French word for tea enclosed within a red ring. I am still in two minds whether my admirer has meant me to interpret the four or ‘char’ red objects inside the pot as the letter ‘V’ for victory, or do they stand for the peace sign or, are they fluttering Love hearts? The problem is categorically insoluble! My goodness me, my well-wisher certainly knows how to use my own medicine against me and, to be frank with you, I kind of like that… :)) Photography & Words: © Masufa Khatun | Mazzy Khatun Photo Stories | Café Rouge at Brighton Marina | Brighton | East Sussex | UK 2015

Photography:Color on Other

Original:One-of-a-kind Artwork

Size:39.4 W x 31.5 H x 0.4 D in

Delivery Time:Typically 5-7 business days for domestic shipments, 10-14 business days for international shipments.