Ek cup 'Chai'

I gulped the contents from the chipped china cup. I was late … but this ‘chai’ couldn’t be missed.

Maybe because this is the only thing from my past that had remained … lived on.

Neither the past nor the present is as depressing as it sounds … but the only relief is this ‘chai’. I was the one who used to make, serve and sell ‘chai’ few years back in the same place from the same stall. What a long journey I have covered …

It all started when I inherited the ‘chai’ lorry from my father after his death. That’s all you receive from a poverty-stricken father. Your dreams, wishes, aspirations don’t matter. It’s what you inherit from your father – responsibilities, profession, poverty – that decides your future.

So, my future was decided the moment I stepped up as a bread-earner from being a bread-eater. Life was pretty simple … wake up at 4:00 a.m., set-up lorry and leave the house with all the members snoring lightly, secure in the knowledge that a fifteen-year old boy was there to feed them.

It’s amazing and entertaining the gossips you hear while at work. Not only you find people of your own class chit-chatting with you but also the so-called shapers of our Indian fortune providing engaging stories to enjoy. Everyone feels free around a fifteen-year old boy who apparently understands nothing.

What an irony of life!

One can be pretty happy and content with life if one wants to be but then humankind wouldn't progress. Hell! We would still have been making tea in large earth-pots. Provided we had discovered tea.

So, when I had many reasons to be happy, content and satisfied with life, I wasn’t. One thing my father had done well in his time was choosing the best location for the lorry. There was a school, a college and bundle of offices around. So, I was pretty busy throughout the day. Another reason that boredom shouldn't have found its way in my mind, but it had.

So, I would end up contemplating life in general and my career in particular instead of going to sleep.

I wasn’t happy feeding my good-for-nothing siblings, who would only crib about lack of … well everything in their life. As if I was some Bill Gates! I didn’t feel satisfied caring for my mother, who had altogether stopped caring for herself and was still grieving for her husband two years later. I hated being pseudo-mother to my siblings and even to my mother. And what was I receiving in the end? Not even a word of recognition. What a waste of life!

So, after chasing these morbid thoughts in my mind for another year, I decided to take a holiday. Once in three years!

I woke up as usual and went through the same ritual and set my friend at the stall. I had the whole day for roaming around the city. And roamed around I did! To see the city after three years … trust me when I say it all seemed new. It had progressed whereas I hadn’t.

I was tired by the end of the day and realised one thing – I wasn’t happy doing what I was doing. Not only because of lack of recognition by my own family, but also by the futility of my random thoughts.

I needed change, desperately.

But, first, I needed to cut off the ties that had bound me down. The ties which weren’t helping or supporting me but which were tying me to the ground, teasing me with the freedom and vastness of the sky, with the prospect of flying through them one day, with the exhilaration I will feel one day looking down here.

I needed to be free.

And freed myself, I did.

Just like that … writing a page of my views on them. I left my inheritance to my mother for whom it was high time to take the responsibility.

I was free … at last.

I shook myself out of the thoughts. I looked down at the empty cup and handed it back to my brother, the ‘chai-wala’ of the lorry. He took it grudgingly. This chapped cup was reserved for me. The more the chapped, the better. His way of revenge.

I chuckled. Poor boy! Couldn’t afford to recognise me in front of his new party of friends. Something about pride and honour!

Bullshit, I tell you.

But he will learn … if he has brains, something I highly doubt.

I checked my watch. Ten minutes late. Might as well miss the whole meeting and enjoy another ‘chai’ just to infuriate my brother.

I threw another Rs. 100 bill on the small counter and my brother silently handed me another ‘chai’.

That’s the reason I am never refused a ‘chai’ here. See … all that pride and honour gone down the drain.

Bullshit, I told you.

By the time I finished my second ‘chai’, it was time for my second meeting. I walked down the lane, looking for the before-mentioned blue coloured Honda city.

Spotting one, I walked to it. A wealthily sexy lady was driving the wheel. The tyres might burst with the weight they had to endure … but my definition of sensuality starts and ends with money and she was sensual enough.

Putting on a sexy grin, I entered the car and we drove off.