Musings Over Chai.....

It is past midnight. The tea is brewing in the age-blackened teapot on the stove. The nights are getting a little nippy but the window is still open. The night watchman was on his round 15 minutes ago. The night is still, devoid of any breeze. The dogs barking in the distance have now settled down for the night or till another car comes zooming by. There’s the streetlight casting a warm mellow yellow glow on the dusty footpath where one can see the dhobi and his wife sleeping soundly after a hard day’s work. The warm white bedsheet with tiny cool blue flowers looks inviting but it has to wait. The tea has just turned the right shade of sepia red and now needs that slight touch of the warm cream milk to have that beautiful marie-biscuit-colour of chai. Leave it on for a minute and and then pour it out in a big blue cup and you are set for the night. You may finally be able to get your head around one of those beautiful new-book-smelling paperbacks that you bought at dariyaganj. Of course, they are not brand new, straight out from the press. They have been scribbled in, some have little notes in hearts on top of the pages, some have been bitten by rats, and some have an old rose stuck between their pages. But they all have stories. Not just the stories dreamt up by their authors who penned down their imagination on paper, but they also tell stories of people who touched it, who had these books in their possession, who maybe once fell asleep with this book on their bosom, or who once balanced a cup of hot chai on its cover( thus explaining that perfect round brown coloured mark). and then your eyes fall on that blue cup of chai resting on that beautiful red paperback……