Udi Baba — A Chai Tapri
Udi Baba Tapri — a shanty tea stall strategically situated at the corner of a street, outside our college campus and near hostels. There are several ways of describing it but what is it that makes the tapri-chai (tea) tick? Strong and sweet, energising, affordable for all pockets available throughout the day, cuts across communal and class and gender barriers. It is served in the right quantity, in small cups or the typical glasses. Sometimes there are like a jar of various biscuits. The tapri counter is slightly bigger, hence some cream rolls, biscuits, cakes, wafers, samosas etc. where a tapri chai lover can have it with the hot chai.
A lot of public buildings exist in the city of Nagpur, but never will you see socialising happening at such a scale somewhere else. The architecture of this place — at the entrance is the juice counter and the tea stall. On the left a couple of stairs lead up to the plinth inside a small room where the snacks counter is situated. This room is always occupied by the chai-sutta batch. It’s not a very big structure yet the number of people crowding it may surprise you. Three people run this place. The father Udi Baba, his son Linga and an elderly lady whose whereabouts I have never tried to find out. It opens up at six thirty in the morning and closes at ten in the night. The crowd usually hits around nine in the morning, in the noon during the lunch break of the institutions around and five onwards in the evening. Surrounding this tapri are three main institutions namely — Priyadarshini Group of Institutions, Raisoni College of Engineering and Lata Mangeshkar Medical College. Students from all these institutions gather here during the peak hours.
Having lived in a lot of cities, I have witnessed the culture of the tapri chai-wallahs. Udi Baba is nothing different. Even their methods of making the chai is the same (of boiling and boiling and boiling till the mixture is strong and black to get the right bitter taste). The best thing about a chai at the tapri is the amount of milk they put into it. We Indians cannot drink our tea without milk and somehow the tapri wallahs always know the right amount to put in the chai. The regular tapri drinkers are plenty mostly idlers, students who have bunked classes or waiting for lectures to begin and are uninterested in the canteen fare (They want to be outside and experience what’s happening in their own environment) and people who are working in shifts. The Tapri-chai corner is more of a meeting place for serious and light-hearted discussions. From serious local political issues, murder, crime, rape to scams and cinema fare it covers all. A Gossip corner for all, a place to plan and devise college capers and a quick meeting point for young couples. It sure is an interesting and versatile space. An interesting feature to note is that other tiny counters have cropped up nearby mainly vada-pav and juice stalls also wanting to do brisk business. Tapri-chai is synonymous with ‘ cutting chai’. Cutting which means literally half glass is a term coined by the younger generation and is now universally used by all. It is a typical term used by any customer. Tapri-chaiwallahs have replaced the bygone vendors selling sugarcane sticks, boiled groundnuts Chana sheng dana which again was affordable and popular.
The tapri-chai is a unique feature of every street corner equally energising and making one vibrant like the city. But the story does not end here. Like every other tapri in our country, Udi Baba also has a spot for cigarettes or popularly known among us millennials as “sutta”. People smoke, it is very common and should not be a taboo. Chai - sutta is probably the best pair in India after Jay- Veeru, Arunub and his “show” or Rahul Gandhi and his Hindi. Loved by all who smoke and a wonder to people who don’t. Discussions which you would never imagine doing elsewhere happen here. There are very few spaces in the city which host such a diverse crowd. Different cultures, religions, minds, opinions, gender, age, income groups, backgrounds gather here. Yet you won’t ever find a hint of discrimination here. This is a place where strangers become friends. You’ll be standing someday having a smoke with a chai cup in your hand and someone would just come up to you and start a conversation. Chances are that a few more people might join in. The circle keeps on growing and it’s a wonder that such a small place, which is not even aesthetically appealing nor hygienic can become a platform for socialising. It’s a play of the tangible and the intangible aspects which make this place attract so many people. It’s what gives the place its identity.
