CHAI WALLAH

Audacious photo stories of moral imagination, by a 2014 Acumen Global Fellow, placed in Pakistan.

May, 26 2014 — Cholistan Desert, Pakistan

Farid Gate is a market in Bahawalpur stretches for kilometers selling handicrafts from Cholistan, local souvenirs, and household goods from China. The smell of street food is everywhere. As I walk through the market, the noise of vendors shouting for anyone wanting pakoras and samosas is mixed with rickshaws zig-zagging through a densely populated marketplace. One gentlemen catches my attention with his charismatic charm. In Urdu, he shouts:

“Gora bhai (a name used for anyone who is foreign), come try some of my chai!”

Completely oblivious to my inability to understand Urdu, he starts sharing what seems like his wisdom about life with me and other passersby. He appears not to care about anything around him, it seems as though he became a part of the marketplace a long time ago — locals walk by him as though he is invisible. He offers me chai. As I sip on it, he demands to know where I’m from — but before I can even answer he has already decided that I’m American, and thanks me:

“I’m grateful that they have sent you to live amongst us, for how else are we to understand each other and get along?”

The Chai Wallah has incredible wit and wisdom, coupled with a wry sarcasm to keep himself and anyone who cares to listen, entertained. I can’t help but sense that he is not really interested in selling chai, that instead this marketplace has become his stage, his life a performance — on display for everyone visiting.