Spot of Tea

I didn’t like tea for most of my life. Mami, my aunt, very strongly discouraged us from drinking tea, telling us “gitte reh jaoge (you will remain short)” any time we voiced a desire to have some. This was said so many times that we regarded it as a cold, hard fact. Unfortunately for Mami, seeing her only once every two years meant that we grew older rather quickly between visits and she didn’t have many opportunities to continue telling us this piece of wisdom before our heights were pretty much set in stone and could no longer be threatened by a cup of hot chai. For Western children, they outgrew Santa Clause. We outgrew Mami’s alarmism.

My parents drinking their afternoon cup.

But Mami’s efforts did not go in vain. Having never drank tea habitually as children, we didn’t feel any affinity to it as young adults. I was accustomed to seeing my parents’ elaborate morning ritual of going for a walk, making tea, and drinking tea while reading the paper. Every aspect of the ritual was orchestrated, right from who would make the tea (my father), when he would start making the tea (when my mother finished her yoga), and what was eaten with the tea (khakara or toast). Tea was so fundamental to their morning that they started pre-grating the ginger, freezing it in ice cubes and putting the cubes in bags labeled as “one cup” or “two cup” depending on how big the cubes were.

Not being a tea drinker at the time, I was able to watch this ritual with fond detachment. It was quirky, yes, but it embodied the high value placed on the morning cup of chai for my parents’ generation.

Of course, I considered myself separate from all this. From my perspective, drinking chai was for the older generation, not mine.

How naïve I was.

The change started innocuously when I spent eight months living in a hostel in India. Every afternoon at 3pm, the college mess would set up a large canteen of chai in the hostel basement. In flimsy plastic cups, we were welcome to drink as many cups of overly-sweet chai as we wanted.

I was initially resistant to this afternoon chai. After all, I had spent my life either being warned away from chai or defining my identity as being a ‘non-tea-drinker’. Now was not the time to change that. But eventually I caved. This was mainly because I discovered Marie biscuits and I realized that chai was the perfect accompaniment to have with them. Marie biscuits are only lightly sweetened but they are the perfect blend of crunchy and buttery, giving them a perfect texture. They don’t taste like much on their own, however, and need something to liven them up. So in order to eat Marie biscuits, I had to start having chai. Around this time, the weather started to get chillier and I took to wearing my autumn jacket even while indoors. A cup of hot chai, no matter how sweet, was the perfect antidote.

For the rest of the eight months I continued eating Marie biscuits and having chai at 3pm. I figured that once I went back to the US, I could go back to being a non-tea-drinker.

And they more or less did. Once I was back in the US, I had to make chai if I wanted it and so I stopped drinking it on a daily basis. My mother would offer chai when my brother and I were at home and now we both started accepting her offer. She would complain “If someone is making it then of course you’ll say yes.” We would cheerfully reply “Of course!” and sit with her while drinking it and eating biscuits. It was a communal time, all three of us drinking chai, sometimes pretending we were British and had to be extremely proper.

My friend's Kapil and co. who my mother invited for kachori and chai
PC: Dilip Chhajed

Perhaps this is why I started drinking chai in the first place. In India, drinking chai was part of the Indian cultural identity. I realized that it was not, as I had falsely believed, limited to the older generations. The hostel girls religiously drank their tea
while enthusiastically complaining about how awful it was. If I wanted to fit in, I had to drink chai.

In my family chai became a vehicle for closeness. When my father was home then it was one of the rare times all four of us had an opportunity to sit together. If my brother or I refused the chai, then we sent a message of separation. More often than not, though, we always acquiesced.

It is chai’s power to bring people together that I have begun harnessing here in Finland. On numerous occasions I have called people over to share bonding time over this warm Indian tradition. It is something unique that I can offer and it has helped me open up to people more than I usually would.
This is especially important when trying to meet Finns. I have heard that Finns generally keep to themselves but if you take the initiative to invite them first, they will happily reciprocate.

A cup of chai. Chai is black tea made with ginger, milk and
and sometimes spices. PC Dilip Chhajed

I decided to try this advice with a Finnish couple I met in my swing class. I had interacted with this couple last semester, even having dinner at their place quite by chance (it’s a very long story). The semester went by though and I only ran into them a few more times. We would exchange pleasantries but nothing beyond that.

This semester I decided to take action. Inviting them for chai seemed like the perfect way to begin. They were as surprised by the invitation as I was that I had actually given it yet our time was spent in pleasant conversation. The chai was a perfect bond to bring seemingly disparate people together in a meaningful way.

At this point, I am not at the level of having strict measurements for my ginger and a set ritual in place for how and when my tea is made. But I do have a ritual to bring people together, which is very important when you’re in a new country. All I have to do is make a cup of tea.