Learning To Make Tea For One

by Andaleeb Wajid

In the summer of 2021, India was throttled by the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Hospitals were running out of oxygen and the daily news recorded the soaring death count. Families were torn apart as beloved ones were quarantined or confined in intensive care units and lost to the deadly virus—leaving survivors without even a chance to say goodbye.

In that cruel summer, Andaleeb Wajid lost her mother-in-law, and then just five days later, her husband, even as she was hospitalised with COVID herself. Wajid’s grief struggled to find words as she returned to a home that was shorn of the love that had once inhabited it and was now empty, but for her two children.

Wajid finally turned to her writing to make sense of it all. She found herself wanting to tell the story of her life and her loss. She chronicled her family life, of growing up as a cherished daughter of a father whom she lost too early. She wrote about her marriage, the happy companionship that marked it, and the many ways in which her husband and she looked at life so very differently. She described the incredible joys and the unbearable pain of motherhood too.

Learning to Make Tea for One is Andaleeb Wajid’s journey through her grief. She tells her story with truth and courage, looking at death squarely in the face as she learns to make tea for one. It is a story that will deeply touch anyone who has faced loss and pain.

232 pages, Hardcover

Published May 10, 2025

About the author

Andaleeb Wajid is the author of more than 35 novels. She writes romance, young adult, horror and speculative fiction.
For more details, check her website.

Reviews

[Krutika · Rating 5 out of 5]

Grief is what brings people together. I witnessed this at my brother’s funeral late last year when hordes of people came to see him one last time and bid their goodbyes at such a short notice. But grief also isolates you in a way that only another person who has gone through such a loss can truly ever understand your pain. Which is why when I read @andaleebwajid ‘s memoir about losing her mother-in-law and husband just a few days apart during the Covid outbreak, my heart plummeted to the ground. Of course I knew this would be a heavy book to read because no matter how much time passes, having to write and read about such a visceral loss is always a difficult thing to do. Learning to Make Tea for One was a moving yet inspiring memoir about how Wajid faces her loss and survives it.

Covid left each one of us with different experiences. Some were happy that they could work from home for a few years while some of them lost their jobs. It brought families together in the most unexpected ways but it also ended up snatching them away ruthlessly. And when I started reading about the trials that the author’s family had to go through and the sense of loss that left her grappling with, it broke my heart. But this book isn’t only about grief. She includes snippets of family history, their banters and all the silliness that comes with being part of a regular family. And it takes the intensity of grief away, softening its blow.

I’d like to think that this memoir came to me at the right time when I still feel lost in the sea of sadness. Death is unfair and cruel and every time I question its audacity to take away my brother who was truly the best part of my family, I feel all alone. But reading @andaleebwajid ‘s calm and thoughtful words reassured me instantly that there are others like me who are trying to deal with the enormity of failure and fear that comes with a loss.

[Siddhant Agarwal · Rating 5 out of 5]

Andaleeb’s memoir tells us the story of how she lost two of her family members during the Covid wave of 2019, and how she dealt with the loss. While that is the central idea of the book, Andaleeb explores something even more visceral in the book. It is not just about loss and changes in her life, but she explores how she felt during that time, shuffling between hospitals, dealing with all that was happening around her. Andaleeb tells us the story of how she dealt with grief when she lost her father too early, or the pain of motherhood. While reading the memoir, you almost feel that she is telling you the story sitting next to you, and some of the moments are so visual that you feel the same emotions that she must have been feeling. She also chronicles the story of how she started writing and her journey of becoming an author through her experiences as well as of those around her. As her reader, you also come across some instances which inspired some of her stories which she has published.

I really liked how Andaleeb maintains her storytelling prowess while narrating some of the lowest moments of her life, and some of the high points as well. Outlining the importance of the support of family and friends, you realise that as a social animal, you need the people around you to be your pillars of support. Her narration of small things that remind her of her father, her mother-in-law, and husband was quite vivid, and the moment where she is preparing tea after coming home was something that will stay with me for quite some time, and this is also the place from where the title comes from. The book moves in time as she tells the story, and just like a memory, it flits between time and instances where one memory leads to another and just like that a chain of moments are revealed.

[Manisha Sahoo · Rating 4 out of 5]

How do you deal with losing the most important persons in your life? How do you move on? Much like how love is a varied experience, loss and grief have no set rules either. In Learning to Make Tea for One, Andaleeb Wajid lays down her own experiences with love, loss and healing through the many phases of her life.

During the second wave of COVID, Andaleeb suffered through not only the disease but the harrowing reality of it as well when her husband and mother-in-law did not make it through. Hospitalized around the same time, they died within days of each other. That experience, that grief, is unimaginable to an outsider. Andaleeb, Mansoor and Phuppujan have been a team of three for over two and a half decades, with a shared love for laughs, camaraderie and tea. Stranded alone all of a sudden, Andaleeb has to navigate her way out of the proverbial fog threatening to thicken, for her own sake as well as for the sake of her sons. While recounting these heart-wrenching moments, she takes the reader’s hands and gently guides them through it in Learning to Make Tea for One.

I read this memoir over the course of several days. For a 220-odd page book, it was admittedly a long time, but I needed breaks in between. The emotions got to me, and the same emotions brought me back to it. Andaleeb Wajid doesn’t dwell on the heavier side of things for long, often recounting happier days along the way, the memories which made the relationships dearer. Her inner strength seeps into her words, not only in the way she dealt with the pain in real time, but also in the way she never gives up. Overall, Learning to Make Tea for One will warm you up quite like the titular beverage does.

Read the full review at eShe Magazine.

[Bindu · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read my first book by this author last year, and I instantly knew I wanted to read more of her works. But I wasn’t prepared for how different this one would be—raw, contrasting, and deeply emotional.

While reading, I was reminded of a powerful line: “I don’t want you to understand my pain, because that would mean you’ve been through the same pain.”

This book is a tender reminder that pain is deeply personal—each of us carries it differently, and each of us finds our own way to cope. It also speaks of hope, of how we continue to live even after losing our loved ones. Going about daily routines doesn’t mean we’ve forgotten them; it means they live quietly in our hearts, and we’ve simply learned to carry that pain with love.

[Samagya Darshi · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was a deeply moving book that explored grief in a raw and unfiltered way. What made it especially poignant was its focus on the COVID-19 pandemic (an experience still fresh and painful for many), especially with the second wave having passed just three years ago. The author’s writing style was easygoing and personal, which made the heavy subject matter feel more intimate.

However, I did find that the narrative sometimes jumped between different phases of her life like: childhood, married life, and her present day experiences in a way that occasionally disrupted the flow. A more cohesive structure might have made the reading experience smoother and more engaging. Still, it's a powerful read that doesn't romanticise grief, and that honesty is what makes it resonate so strongly.

[Akanksha Dutta (Athena Book Briefs) · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book talks about heavy topics like grief and loss, yet somehow I didn't feel weighed down. The author is raw and honest about her emotions but also matter of fact enough that you won't drown in your empathy while reading about her experiences of losing her father at a young age and then again prematurely losing her husband to covid.
This is a story about learning to live with loss, thriving and not just surviving.
At first I was thrown by how the memoir isn't linear in it's timeline, but that parallels how grief isn't linear either. This is not your average inspirational story, it's a deep dive into the author's personal history and psychology.

[Anaswara Jose · Rating 3 out of 5]

The title is what drew me to the book and it was a decent read. Though the subject is intense, the author gives it a very light touch. I liked the bits about her journey of personal growth as a writer more than the chapters which dealt with the death of her loved ones.

[Aruna Kumar Gadepalli · Rating 5 out of 5]

COVID brought loss and grief to many people. The author in the memoir, writing about the days of COVIDbrings out the loss and grief in her life. A touching work.