Serendipity in Siliguri tea-shops
When you find sunshine on a plate, on an otherwise dreary day
The pace at which we move nowadays, even a short span of seven years is enough to induce nostalgia. As I drove around the streets of Bangalore during our lovely, cold and green monsoons, I was reminded of a delightful piece of sunshine I found on a plate. Here is its story.
My trip to Siliguri, a small town in the north eastern part of India, was not by choice. My expression on having reached the station has, since, been described as ‘catatonic’. It was to attend a family event — a wedding to be precise. It was the wedding of the cousin of my then-husband. After some convincing I realised that the trip could be an exciting prospect — my first chance to attend the wedding of a new culture — my own wedding having been one I had rushed into, and not really witnessed. I became eager to observe the ways of this new culture — make mental post-its of rituals that were similar to mine, and those that weren’t. These small observations gave me immense joy. And making these observations aloud seemed to make my audience smile. “How much she notices, and how curious she is!”, they would titter. And I would beam.
The trip began typically enough — it was a long train ride from the old city of Calcutta during the dreary months marking the onset of winter. The city is choleric during that time — full of smog and a wet-chill that percolates through one’s woollens. The family was an excitable one — very deeply knit, and very often confused. Almost all decisions were nerve-wracking emotional turmoils, full of potential worries of protocol violations, and a general fear of being taken for a ride.
The bride-to-be was the pride of the family — single child, feisty daughter with an MNC job, articulate and pretty in a conventional sort of way. She was the picture of the average middle class Indian family’s dream for itself. And suitably enough, she had prepared herself for what is supposed to be the biggest event of a girl’s life. Even if it weren’t so in fact, the thought of not behaving like it was would be unpardonable.
And so we all set off by train, excited to be embarking on a ‘family trip in an Indian train’ — the stuff of nostalgia. Almost as soon as the train pushed off, we settled in to our little corners, took off our footwear and put our feet up. It was time to eat.
The women of the house had put together a feast, and as the newest addition to the family, it was expected of me to jump into the womanly duties of organising plates and serving food. Now, I had grown up in a south Indian family. For us, train food consisted of very easily packed idlis, generously coated with milagai podi, ready to be picked up and wolfed down. It is a travel-friendly form, requiring no more than a piece of tissue to dab at our mouths and clean our hands once we were done. But this was not the idea here. Train food for them was no different than home food — a highly spiced, two course meal with curry and rice!
Once served, all of us gingerly held onto our paper plates, licking away at errant drips of oil that snaked down our arms. Soon our tummies were full and we were merry with the resultant dullness. The family proceeded to pull each other’s legs, sing old songs and tease the new bride.
I fell asleep in the middle of that commotion, and woke up to learn that we had arrived in our destination. We stepped out into the damp coldness of Siliguri at 5 am, and quickly enough we were all systematically pushed into the cycle-rickshaws that plied the city. Our rickshaws had to follow each other in a cacophonous line, snaking our way in the manner that the small roads of small Indian towns are known for. The sounds of the city came to me, in staccato bursts — blaring horns, impatient cycle bells and the screeching halts of old brakes. This was not how I had imagined the city to be. I wanted it to be exotic, but instead it was a little too reminiscent of any other small Indian town. It was the rumbling sound of quaintness bursting at the seams.
As we settled in to our rooms, 4 of us each in three rooms of a guest house in an old community centre, I began suspecting that I might not enjoy the trip as much as I had hoped I would. I was offered a very weak cup of tea and a breakfast of cold, oily omelettes and soggy bread. I only had to wonder what the wedding feast would be like.
Just as I was preparing myself for the week long event ahead of me, the father of the bride came looking for someone who could accompany him to the market for some last minute errands. They needed a woman who could scout around for a nearby beauty parlour that we women could later go to for the evening’s make up. I gladly offered to go along with him, thinking that anything was better than sitting around in a damp room all day.
As we walked out of the campus, the city slowly emerged, revealing puddles of rain water, half dug-up and quickly forgotten roads, with hawkers uncloaking their wares that were perched on pushcarts. I learned that we were walking towards the famous Siliguri Hong Kong market. I was walking into another familiar Indian scene — marketplaces bursting with plastics, people and pollution. The thing about marketplaces is that no matter how familiar they might be, they manage to hold fascination — purely by dint of being so arbitrarily alive — like weeds that crop up without warning and manage to thrive. Slowly my face began changing complexion.
Soon, we abandoned plans of getting our errands done, and decided that it was time to stop for a break. My companion told me about one of the oldest and most popular tea-shops in the Hong Kong market — a tiny cafe uncaringly wedged between other shops that sold trinkets. This was the Netaji Cabin — with an entrance housing a ‘standing’ tea-shop and a seating section, which I was to discover later, on the top floor.
The standing tea-shop at the entrance consisted of two huge pots of boiling water, into which were periodically dropped spoonfuls of Darjeeling tea. Almost as immediately as the leaves hit the water, the brew was taken off the heat and the man began pouring the black tea into small cutting-chai glasses. He had arranged 8*8 = 64 glasses, very neatly, next to his station. With the deft-ness of a practised hand, he began pouring the brew through a sieve into each of the 64 glasses — quickly and in a circular motion, as if to ensure that each glass had the same concentration of the drink. He continued taking orders simultaneously, and by the time he was done, this particular batch was used up. He emptied the used up tea leaves into a vessel and carried on with the next round. Customers who wanted milk tea got glasses with a dollop of milk carelessly dropped in. Others simply preferred the brown-hued black tea. Fresh, hot and full of the smell of toasted Darjeeling tea-leaves, the sweet drink was a revitaliser.
Once I had finished my cuppa, I hovered around contemplating another cup, when my companion suggested that we grab a bite. Suspicious of the surroundings, I said no — it didn’t look like the place a city-dweller like me would risk eating in. Besides, there is no seating here, I complained. Tutting, he pointed to something behind our tea-barista and began making his way. Through the haze and the rising steam of the tea maker, I spotted some people climbing up a grimy flight of stairs. What is up there, I asked, hurriedly following him.
We landed on top of the stairs and found seats at a rickety table, atop what I had initially taken to be was the awning of the tea-shop. Instead, it turned out to be a balcony that overlooked the market below. Two plates of boiled egg and toast were ordered, with the familiarity of a regular, by my companion. He had a delightfully proud air about him as he revealed one of his favourite secrets in this old town. I was charmed. And before the blink of an eye, the said order was served — two half-boiled eggs that were so baby-soft that they gently plopped, barely managing to hold shape. And alongside was sweet bread toast — each slice of toast was an inch thick and sat there lazily melting the butter that had been slapped on. To my delight, the toast had a golden yellow hue to it — it was a sweet milk toast, soft and pillowy to the bite. And the tiny soft boiled egg was divine. It sat there all tiny and tender, revealing a steamy core on the bite. My first bite hadn’t been well salted, so I missed out on the perfection of the bite. I ordered another just to have three go-s at the perfect mix of bread, butter, egg and salt.
In the act of giving in to the gentleness of the snack, I had begun smiling. Without realising it I had been filled with the warmth one usually finds only in the kitchen of one’s home. The kind you experience while hurriedly frying something up on a cold, rainy day, eager to dig into before it’s cooled down enough to eat. In the unassumingness of that tiny, smoke-filled, fragrant tea-shop, I had found a corner of warmth that could last me the rest of the day.
For the rest of the seven days, I found myself playing truant from family duties, and running off to Netaji Cabin for daily buttery bite-fuls of comfort.
