Hi. Chai?
- The Kayal Mail
- Jul 11, 2024
- 2 min read
Updated: Mar 6
It’s a slow hot afternoon and the clock is lethargic. It ambles past 4 p.m.
Wiping sleep off her face, she walks into the kitchen. He follows her. She puts a vessel on the stove and starts adding things to it. He loves watching her make chai.
Making chai is an act of love. And like in any act of love, there is labour, there is grind, there is an aroma.
A heady mix.
Cups waiting.
A few minutes later she steps out of the kitchen carrying two small glasses of chai, the steam fogging her glasses. They sit next to each other and look at the evening.
The chai talks. The lips know. And the tongue knows too. Silence. Slurp. Silence.
This is also a conversation.
One evening the doorbell goes off. Friends.
Hi. Chai?
But the friends are not alone.
They bring stories and laughter and quirks and personalities and things. They will make an evening with all this and more.
The drawing room is now a community kitchen and a dining table. Butter is Bread’s hype person. The friends are each other’s. They all sit pressed together like one big sandwich.
Chai is key. It unlocks. It opens people. Chai compounds.
Appetite. Joy. Friendships. Sandwiches.
They all sit. Feet up. Heart open. Ears out.
In between them sits the food and their collective life. The pokes. The banter. The mischief. Parle G. And the girl on its pack. They are all in this together. Dipping into their chai.
How does a brown liquid, that boils and passes through a sieve, hold us together?
It is also a collective.
Water. Tea leaves. Milk. Sugar.
The evening fills. With them. With their voices. Their trailing laughter. Their silence and their slurps.
Glasses of chai. They pour into each other.
As the evening invites the night, they think about the invitation that started it all
- Hi. Chai?
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