How a Kashmiri Cup Teaches Us to Slow Down

In a world rushing forward, a Kashmiri educator reflects on how the simplest object, a teacup without a handle, can teach us to reclaim patience, purpose, and the art of living.

- Sabahat Fida

It began, quite ironically, with an Instagram reel.

A young woman was talking about how, in China, teacups are made without handles. The design, she said, carries a lesson in patience.

One cannot sip from such a cup when the tea is too hot. One must wait, let it cool, and in that pause, learn stillness.

The cup becomes a vessel not just for tea, but for time.

As I watched, I felt something stir. The image of that cup seemed to echo an older, almost forgotten pulse of life in Kashmir.

We too once drank from handleless cups, our kashur paile: simple, curved, meant to be held and waited with.

Those cups have mostly disappeared from our homes, replaced by factory ceramics and imported glassware.

But in that older vessel lay a philosophy we have let slip away: that life, like tea, must sometimes be allowed to cool before it can be savoured.

This small thought led me deeper into the mystery of time, and how it feels increasingly lost to us.

There is always a race against the clock. Deadlines, reminders, check-ins, endless notifications. The hours pass like sand through fingers. My grandparents' lives, on the other hand, seemed filled with stories.

Every dinner with them was a long conversation about neighbours, weather, harvests, weddings, or even the latest quarrel over land. Their days unfolded slowly, and their memories grew thick around them.

When I look at my own life, I realise how little I might have to tell my daughter. Everything just passes too quickly for me to live it deeply.