Cutting Chai

Not that I am an avid tea or coffee drinker, but the memories that the cutting chai, especially the special chai that I recently had at the University’s oh so famous ‘closed canteen’, one of our favourite hang outs, brought back fond nostalgic moments. One glass of special chai takes its round with at least five people. And then, another glass, and another, and another! The ambiance of the canteen, those familiar faces that pass you, the wada pav or the masala pav in your hand …and the chai(s) taking its rounds! The bliss! Cutting chai and its nostalgia!

I'd call a place heaven, where each street has a memory etched in my mind. Each tree has its own significance. The school with its basket ball court, that house where a friend stays by the corner of that road, the sunset at tekdi, that ice-cream parlour, that cake shop, those lanes in the University, that canteen, those stairs, that wada pav wala, that misal, that bhel, that sabudandchi khichadi, that upma, that pohe, and then there is that cutting chai!

The smile is spontaneous, even when you think of cutting chai. Our logic used to be simple then, you get ¾ of a cup for ½ the rate, essentially economical for us as students. I remember a friend telling me that he can have two cups of cutting in place of just one cup of full chai for the same amount. That reminds you of the days when you used to have just enough pocket money and you used to try and save most of it, not for your bank account per say, but so you can see some movie when you wanted to bunk classes, or eat something delicious by the wayside restaurant, or to be able to go zoom on your bike to some place near by. But what does that have to do with cutting chai? One possibly cannot save so much buying cutting cahi! But back then I suppose it had everything to do with saving! Well whatever…

“There is some magic in it”, a friend said. It’s that magic that gets that spontaneous smile on your face. Cutting chai is more about sitting in leisure with your friends and having chai. You possibly would never sit with your date at a tapir! It’s about that comfort zone that you share with your friends, about those silly jokes that one cracks then, pulling each others leg, about a time when logic and reasoning have no place in your conversations. I guess that is why cutting chai is nostalgic. Not that it all begins or ends with cutting chai. But surely, one of the many nostalgic moments will be one with a cutting chai!