Sweet Chai

A last cup of chai magically transforms into eight as the Chai Man insists on refilling our clay cups to finish off his pot. A small boy wearing a baggy T-shirt, advertising a Spanish Cycling Club is cleaning the stall. He opens a small packet of soap crystals into his palm, adds a splash of water and with his bare hand, washes the side of the steel unit. The chai pot is removed from the stove and chapatis are rolled by Uncle and cooked by Chai Man. It is finally dinner time. A circle of tinged yellow dough is placed on top of the blackened hotplate. Within seconds it begins to transform into a chapati. The hotplate is removed and the circle of dough is rotated above the ambers. It begins to bubble at the edges. Puff!

The chai shop is now closed and we remain seated on the concrete ledge, watching as hawkers carefully pack away their unsold goods into large biscuit tins. Two men continue to work. Rounds of cloth wrapped into a coil on top of their heads. It is nearly midnight and they are still transporting large bamboo trays of heavy bricks from the street onto a truck. Their carotid arteries look ready to pop as necks strain under the weight. Backwards and forwards, silently walking. Knees and necks bending with each jumping, balancing step. I understand why there are believers in karma. As we sit - watching. Drinking our chai. We with our white skin and university education. With our political freedoms and economic freedoms. People must wonder what they did to deserve such a hard life? I know I wonder what I did to be born so privileged. I don't just wonder, I continually question the Justice of this world.

Magic Man swings his arm up and then back down, releasing his chai cup at its highest point and sending it crashing back to the ground. It crumbles upon impact. A Spanish Cycling Club t-shirt sweeps passed and its discarded fragments are collected and brushed into a pile of clay and muddy street dirt. Each brush rolls and breaks, gathers and deposits and soon the clay and dirt joins the rest of the nights refuse. Cigarette butts, paper packets, expanding bamboo plates; which had once been fashioned into squares, but now obediently return to their original form. I rotate the clay cup in my hands. It has just fed me four warm cups of spicy chai. It sits so perfectly in my palms. I don't want to crush it.

The small boy inside the baggy T-shirt works really hard. When I give a smile, he rushes one back, but then his focus is directed back to the refuse. I ask Chai Man/ Chapati Chef what relation the boy is. "Servant" he replies and reaches over and fills up my small clay cup freeing me from the dilemma of how to dispose of it.