Chai Aboard the Indian Rail

“Chai-eeeeee, chai-eeeeeee!,” as the train slows to a crawl at Virar station, young men flood into the carriage, attracting potential customers with their sing-song calls for sweet, milky chai. The carriage erupts into a flurry of commotion, and a perfectly executed production unfolds before me. Some Wallahs display their skills and vie to impress customers by expertly pouring long, thin streams of chai from giant kettles held high above their heads into tiny clay cups balanced on calloused fingertips. Others woo passengers with beautiful, sung descriptions of their product. Passengers’ broad smiles and laughing eyes delight in this ritual, and in exchange for a meager five rupees, participants are rewarded with a few delightful sips of India’s most popular beverage.

“Madam. Excuse me, Madam?” I turn to see my berth mates settling into their meal, carefully packed in round aluminum canisters. “You must be hungry. Please join us.” The young family is traveling from their home in the southern state of Karanataka to Mumbai to visit family during Holi, the annual festival of color which invites an open disregard to all polite civility.

Mr. Gupta struggles with one of the canisters. His fingers pull at the lid with admirable determination until the lid pops free, unleashing a tantalizing burst of steam that sends condensation dripping into the piles of turmeric, cumin, and green chili coated potatoes. The spices tickle my nose and tease my neglected stomach into a flurry of grumbling anticipation. Leaning through the barred window, I stretch my arms into the hot wind of a landscape yearning for the arrival of the monsoons, and using the last drops pooled in the bottom of a discarded baggie of water, I rinse my hands of the inevitable dusty grime that a 30 hour train journey accumulates.

The young girl sitting across from me meticulously unwraps a package of grease-stained newspaper and offers me the largest puri in the pile. Conversation hovers around my life back home, my family, and my motives for traveling alone as we tear off pieces of puri to use as utensils for the aloo subji. Between bites, I struggle to adequately explain my yearning for independence and freedom to a family in which personal identity is defined in the presence, not absence, of family.

The train slows again, and instinctively I reach for my coin purse. I can almost taste that raw, slightly bitter, textured taste of earth mixing with the sweet, milky gingery smooth. The voice of a fine limbed boy, barefoot and draped in a much too large kurta catches my attention amongst the chaotic commotion of Wallahs selling everything from chai to samosas to chaat and fresh juice. I flag the boy and in an instant he hands me a little mud cup, filled to the brim with Indian’s favorite past time, its national treasure, and a symbol of unmatched hospitality. I pass the cup carefully to my new friends, and order six more.