tea - a - tea

Tea a Tea

(This particular story has been lying in the head for more than three years now, but its only today that it has happened to get a life)

Almost three years ago, I was in caught in a circumstance, where i was spending most of my day time, for almost a continuous month, in a nursing home, not as a patient, but a watchdog for a relative, who was stuck between life and death, to the ventilator in the ICU( till he got better).

Of course , initially, we weren't very sure whether he would pull through, so the constant vigil was not so much, the hard work of nursing a sick man, as much as loitering the hospital grounds, and keeping fingers crossed, while waiting for 'some' progress.

And during most of the time that i waited, my best ' stress free' time was my tea time.

Just outside the nursing home was this small tea shop which was called Lucky. The owner was a young bright eyed boy of about twenty something, who also prepared the tea most of the time.

Normally any transaction between a tea seller and his caffine strapped customer in Mumbai is only of the ordering of the 'cutting' or 'full' chai, sometimes pre-brewed in kettles, and sometimes brewed right in front of you(especially if you order 'without sugar') ,expertly poured into tumblers, and mechanically handed over to you, small change collected and glasses handed back, and you go about your business, hardly noticing the hand or the person behind the gas stove.

But somehow this lad immediately entered my awareness, for
there was some certain amount of concern in his look.... a kind of sympathy, which surprisingly coexisted even with the lithe agile look in his eyes. I realised that he was constantly aware of the fact that his tea shop was close to the nursing home, and that most of his customers would be anxious relatives waiting for some ill person/patient , each person lost in his own troubles sorrows, of his near one lying on some bed and financial/or other worries. He always seemed to remember this while handling his customers, though he never used words. The look itself was enough to communicate his support.

The lad had a gaze that went way beyond the call of his job. (The tea was wonderful too.)

The second time i went to have a tea, the place was swarming with men and since I was the only woman around, he, assuming that i would be uncomfortable, thoughtfully told me that i could, if I wanted, wait at the bench in the nursing home, and he would deliver me my tea there(even if it was a bit of a hassle for him).

On my subsequent visits, i noticed that he had a bench or bakda as its called in Mumbiya language, outside his shop,where i could sit and have the tea, and munch small chaklis, tiny motichoor laddus, and biscuits in glass jars, which his shop had........things i had seen years ago, in tiny kirana shops near my school..... things I had always wanted during my school days, but never had enough money to indulge in, things which i thought had died out with time.

Soon we got to talking, i learnt his name was Salim, he took over from his dad's shop after his death, he was married and had a son who was almost two( he even introduced me to his wife and son one evening), and we always exchanged small pleasantries while i waited for my tea to be brewed.

Like i said the tea a tea used to be the best part of my days,during that month.
I never saw the boy again, afterwards, but i often wondered about him, and his little kid and his beautiful wife.

Lots of people before me, and many after me would have come and gone from the tea shop,paying for the tea, and at the same time being gifted with his rare semi literate sensitivity, some like me befriending him for a brief period and then disappearing from his life for ever, while he must be continuing to sell tea to his customers with his own tiny brand of human warmth.

I wouldn't be exaggerating if i say, that it is people like him who make our world a likable place.

Lik