Chai stories

Let me preface this by saying that chai is not the tea you get from dipping a teabag into hot water, nor is it one of the delicate brews from the Far East and it's definitely not the insipid sugar water that Starbucks and its ilk sell under the name of "Chai Latte" (or even worse, the utterly redundant "Chai Tea"). When I say chai, I mean the strong, boiled to its near death, smashed cardamom and crushed ginger potion they sell from rickety streetside shops in almost every corner of India. Yes, it rises out of turmoil, but diamonds were not coddled out of coal.

I suppose this post was long overdue. Initially I'd thought of writing about chai itself - liquid gold, as my friend puts it; but I tend to get carried away by my feelings for tea (see preface above) and if I know the people who are likely to read this post, praising tea would be like preaching to the choir. Instead, I'm going to go down memory lane and recount some of my cherished "tea moments".

As they say "Chai tea begins at home" (the use of said redundant phrase is allowed for constructing horrible puns). One of my favorite and long-lasting chai traditions was the evening cuppa at home back in Mumbai. This would usually be around 6:30 or 7pm when the sky starts turning that deep shade of purple, our bai has come in for her evening round and is cheerily chatting with Ma while the brew is bubbling on the stove. There's typically Friends or Seinfeld playing on TV as I settle on the couch with a bowl of home-made "jhaal-mudi" (look it up) and a nice hot cup of tea. Had one of these sessions recently, here in Houston, and it simply brought a smile to my face.

Back in undergrad, home away from home was college - bless those days at D.J. Sanghvi! And a large portion of our free time there was spent ordering chai (with the inevitable samosa pav in tow) at the canteen or "chai shots" from ZB outside. Later on, we discovered the small chai shop run by the "Bengali babe" just opposite the college entrance and soon that became a favorite....boiling hot tea served up in stacked glasses (since the actual glass was too hot for anyone but Yogesh to hold). I also believe it was one of the few establishments that met Yogesh's standard for what he defined as "hot" tea (serve him tepid tea and the look of scathing disappointment is only matched by Master Shifu when he finds that Po has been chosen as the Dragon Warrior in Kung Fu Panda).

You dare serve me tepid tea!

Perhaps one of many enduring memories is the chai break we would snatch between our HOD's lecture and the Distributed Computing lecture by Prof. Duttagupta. What started out as a necessary break soon grew into more of a cult following. And chai has served us well many other times, whether it was for sustenance while we waited those long hopeless hours for our recommendation letters outside the HOD's cabin, or as a prop replacing Jack's weak alcohol in our adaptation of Lost's iconic scene, moments before the plane crash. Then there were those fervent discussions on how coffee shops were monopolizing the casual beverage market and how we'd open up our own chai shops (mine would be in Gangtok) and revolutionize the industry. And any idea would be discussed with great passion - even the hilariously insane but awesomely alliterative "tupperware tea tapri tapori" plan - an ambitious scheme similar to Mumbai's tiffin system but geared towards tea (with taporis as collection agents, in case you were wondering).

Another connection with tea is Fakhruddin. His house was basically a second home - and the one constant there was the super-strong tea that would be served come hail or snow. We both share a common passion for tea (and also pigeon-hating) and it was great how there was always a steaming cuppa while we profoundly discussed inanities. Now I've had tea at a lot of friends' places but I felt this deserved special mention simply because a) Aforementioned second home b) Tea so strong, they make Ambuja cement out of it c) He made it himself, most of the time.

In search of tea, as dawn breaks in Manali

Continuing with undergrad memories - 2 trips come to mind: Manali and Amboli. Let's start with Manali. This was the final "Industrial Visit" (supposedly educational) for our entire batch before we were thrown out into the big bad real world. In the biting cold of a north Indian winter we reached our small hotel on the banks of a babbling river,snuggled cozily amongst soaring snow-clad mountains.

The misty road to the tea stall

Early the next morning we woke up half-frozen, jogging in place just to stay warm. Padded up in several layers, we ventured out just as the town was rubbing its eyes and the sun was lazily trying to peek out from behind the mountains. As mists hung dreamily above the river and with our own breath misting in the crisp morning air, we made our way to a ramshackle stall that had just opened its shutters. Almost everyone in our group was asleep and the 4 or 5 of us watched the sun rise gloriously and bathe the streets in light as we stood next to a crackling flame - its green, orange and red flames licking a scarred aluminium kettle; and then sipping amazing hot chai, the fiery liquid warming our very insides.
On the same trip, I remember we had gone river-rafting. We were the last group to enter the icy-cold waters of the river and after being thoroughly sprayed and splashed, by the time we reached the riverbank at the end of our run, the sun was dipping,

Our saviors!

as was our core body temperature. Of course, one can always bank on the Indian entrepreneurial spirit - and so, there it was -  the dependable tea stall, situated exactly where the rafts came ashore. Half-shivering, we had two rounds of chai, served by the sweetest Himachali couple. They even taught us a bit of the local language, and I cannot imagine a more perfect way to end a day.

The second honorable mention in the "Chai while on a trip" category goes to Amboli. A bunch of us would regularly go trekking in the Western Ghats that rise up along Maharashtra's western coast. This was our last trip - engineering done and each one of us parting ways soon. In all our treks, we had always been unfortunate in that we had never had a monsoon trek. Even when we went to Bhandardara in late-June (the monsoon usually hits Maharashtra in the first week of June), we were received by parched and dusty hills. This time, we were making our way to Amboli - one of the wettest places on earth, and we were determined to get the full blast of the monsoon. To cut a long story short - the rain gods were initially reluctant, but then when we least expected it - the heavens ripped apart and as we walked through sleepy villages the rains came down in Biblical proportions. Soaked to the bone, we stopped at a roadside dhaba (a few chairs protected by the signature blue tarpaulin) and ordered up some steaming tea and pakodas. Heaven in a nutshell!

The BBQ area where many a cup was enjoyed

In August, 2010 I arrived at Austin to start my Masters at the University of Texas. As luck would have it, my roommate Nikhil and the girls in 221 - Shalini and Shilpi were big fans of tea too! Now if you've ever been a grad student - you know those long dreary assignments, the countless hours spent racking your brains over a single problem, afternoons melting into evenings and evenings into night as you try and implement the latest challenge your professor has thrown at you....well, you get the picture. I do not think I could have survived those 2 years without our chai breaks. Typical scenario: It's 4am and Nikhil and I are both busy and tired to the bone. Suddenly Nikhil looks up and says, "Chai?". A phone call to 221 later, we all crowd around the small kitchen - dicing ginger, crushing cardamom, keeping an eye on the pot which was notorious for boiling over the second you looked away....it was all good! Tea was definitely a thread that bound us all together in grad school...as corny as that may sound. We spent many warm lazy evenings at the barbecue area, chatting, laughing and sipping our cares away.

Well, that's about as far down memory lane as I'll go since this post is dangerously starting to resemble something more like a rambling. There's tons of other memories - Munnar, Darjeeling, Matheran...the list could go on. There have been a lot of great memories associated with this beverage, and I can only hope there will be even more to come!