“Dada, chai kheye jaan na”, “Aare kum se kum chah tau peeke jaiye”. Tea has become “ shishtachar”. Even Narendra Modi won a massive majority on account of his ‘Chai Pe Charcha campaign.’ In the film, Shree 420 Raj Kapoor boasts of going to high places for having tea with Nargis but eventually settles for a vendor across the road, sitting on a bench with his girl friend. The sequences following are quite poignant and reveal the human side of all three players in the act which culminates in beautiful song, “Pyar hua ekrar hua hai pyar se phir kyun darta hai dil…..”.
Is it coincidental that three children shown in the song look like what Sanjay, Namrata and Priya may have looked at that age?
In the movie, Ram aur Shyam, Waheeda Rehman offers tea in a cup and saucer to “Ram” and observes his nervousness. “Azeem fankaar Yusuf saheb” has given a wonderful performance in the film especially in the role of Shyam. In north India, until some years ago, making “teakosies” for the tea pot used to be a regular pastime for girls, next only to weaving the sweaters. The manner in which the girl presented tea to the prospective groom, largely decided the result.
Tea made with Ginger “adrak ki chai” is most popular and the manner you add adrak (not only the quantity) and the extent to which you boil, makes the tea tasty. There are many varieties of tea which include Lemon tea, Green tea and jasmine tea. We will find the tea served in our Irani hotels in Mumbai quite unique in taste. Chinese drink the green tea. They bring it in a flask when they come for work and sip it regularly. If most of the Chinese workers drink it, it has to be beneficial for health.
The British set up the tea gardens in north east and eastern part of our country and some of our colleagues became teagarden managers. Earlier, we used to visit Colombo port regularly and cheap and good quality tea was sold at the port gates and everyone bought it. Tea in “kulhad” ( earthern pot) had a special taste which was similar to “lassi”. In Japan, the tea could be as expensive as the beer. They have very efficient dispensing machines at several places from which you can choose the tea you want to buy. There used to be various types of tea sets made and sold in potteries. These days we commonly have dip tea served in the railway compartments. “Chai piyo aur mast raho”.