The Gift of Chai
On Dadi’s birthday, after a beautiful evening at Seva Café of pesto pasta and sev puri and tomato soup, first served to guests and then shared together, we hit the Ahmedabad streets to gift chai to those still up this late at night.
Making chai
Blending goodness
Raghu stirred liters of water and milk, tea, several roots of ginger and other masala into a brew of awesome subtle warm flavors. Nimesh massaged the chef.
Nimo ensuring highest quality chai
And then, we all headed out – Bhaskar, Raghu, Sandeep, Dhaval, Sonal, Roshni, and Nimesh – to serve the chai. 
A week from Diwali, a number of families were sleeping near their carts of rongoli; several greeted the warm cup of goodness with smiles. At 1h30 in the morning, most of the people awake on CG Road were the shops’ security guards who enjoyed a little chai to stay up. A huge truck pulled over then we signaled to them that we had chai. Auto-wallas stopped, including a few with whom Raghu settled in to chat.
One motor bike carrying two friends on a late night visit to a new office stopped. We shared cups of chai and stories of giving, and attempted to have one of them extinguish his cigarette. (Small world alert: the next night, while strolling around the Old City with the volunteers after dinner at Manek Chowk, a bike pulled up next to me, it was the same guy with the new office. As he pulled up to say hi, he extinguished the cigarette he was smoking. 
)
We’d walk up to people with smiles on our lips and hearts, inviting them to share a moment with us around a cup of chai. The cup of chai becomes the excuse to look at them in the eyes and share that instant, to connect and hear their story. Using the Seva Café cups required us to slow down. We couldn’t move on before allowing our guest to finish his cup and then washing the cup (with the handy-dandy sani-thumb!!) for the next customer. 
Conversations, exchanges, moments shared, better expressed in pictures.
Dadi, sitting on the other side of the world, shared her birthday in true Seva Café style with about 100 strangers in the streets of Ahmedabad between 1am and 2h30am.
Bhaskar with a friend he feeds every night
Here is the link to all of the pictures from that day. (Or click on any photo.)
Oh my god, You all are doing day by day a fabulous work. What to say just missing you all, missing your accompany. Chai in India is like a warm welcome to gust, friends or whatever the person is. Chai in India is like, a reasons to for friends to get together at one spot, chai is like, for student to awake whole night for study, chai is like , reason to visit a friends house , chai is like, addictive in almost all Indian family, kadak chai is like , very beautiful morning and good day indication, chai is like any time refresh drink. AND YOU GUYS ARE MIND BLOWING ,…….. BHASKARBHAI, NILESHBHAI, MISS MARIETTE… WONDERFUL JOB.
THANK YOU GUYS… THANK YOU VERY MUCH
GOD BLESS YOU ALL…………..
MISS YOU.
PARICHIT.
[...] I wanted to say thank you. Thank you to everyone. Thank you Bhaskar for that casual offer: “Mira, when do you want to serve chai? I want to serve chai with you.” What a gift, after hearing all of the incredible stories from other such evenings. Thank you to Raghubhai for concocting eight liters of the best chai spiced with ginger and cardamom. Thank you to Sandeep, Nimesh, Sonal, Roshni and Dhaval for coming to serve. I felt indebted to them all, for staying up so late to celebrate my Dadi’s birthday in the most special way I could imagine. [...]
“No thank you. No sorry.” « In This World! said this on November 19, 2010 at 18:35 |
Hats off to all of you…I am coming…..for sure to have gr8. tean its not taste..but feel & warmath is un belivable….
[...] These moments were collected this past Sunday, when a group of friends, inspired by some chai shared in birthday celebration in India, celebrated a birthday by making and then giving cookies, brownies and notes to strangers [...]
Birthday Wish: To Share Goodness With All « In This World! said this on April 7, 2011 at 20:06 |