#chaikahani

[sanrk]

...’مجھ سے ملنے کو آپ آئے ہیں؟ بیٹھیئے, میں ’بلا کے لاتا ہوں..!’ #chaikahani #saturdayvibes #instapic #decemberdiaries ✨✌️ (at Chaye Qawali) https://www.instagram.com/p/CJQ-nIPHBULVH27Rq1O1OwrtFZLN6qGNdAeL1c0/?igshid=1c16qf45gse9k

[cheesecakeaurchai]

Of my Chai

I'm a desi, born and bred. I'm supposed to like desi chai, with thick milk and unadulterated tea, cooked and steamed and covered for a good 10-15minutes if not more on the stove, with sugar in it. I hate it. I don't know if it's yeh way people make it or if it's the unexplainable variety of bad milk that we get back home or my parents failed to develop my tastebuds for cow milk, whichever one it is, I have never liked tea that's been served in desi homes. Strangely enough, I would have chai from a truck stop or a dhaaba any day and actually enjoy it. It's just the home made chai that I'm averted to. I've been on tea since I was in fifth grade I think. For as long as I can remember, I always saw my parents share a cup of tea each evening and have one mandatory one each morning. It was off limit for the children except when my mother would get lazy during our school summer break and let us have chai and rusk. I devoured those small, sudden breaks and tried drinking my tea as slowly as I could, savoring every last drop, not dipping the rusks enough in it so it wouldn't be contaminated with the small crumbs that would fall off the crunchy rusks, settle at my tea mugs bottom and ruin the last sip. Such was my love for tea. Since I was the eldest of three sisters, my life was pretty much an experiment for my parents to learn how to grow people. There were mostly disadvantages of that and some very few advantages. Getting permission for having the evening tea with my parents in fifth grade was probably one of them. I started then and still haven't stopped. There are many kinds of tea. The one that I liked was simple black tea with milk and sugar, very colonial yet very desi. Then my parents discovered the sweet, ivory powder that we know as tea whiteners and thus began an era of Nestle Everyday. Ugh. Oh and teabags and lots and lots of dipping the teabags to make the tea flavorful. I know that every desi chai drinker probably hated this tea that I'm so fond and some wouldn't even call it tea but that's how I like it. My chai is an obsession. I used to pack up and take tiny bags of everyday and teabags when I had to go for sleepovers at my friends houses and even now I pack a bag when I'm traveling anywhere. I don't have tea at other people's places even when I crave my post dinner sips because I know it won't taste the same as my sweet, dark cup of boiled water and the bobbing Lipton teabag. Sometimes I feel this lame yet particular tea recipe defines me as a grown up. As a child I used to be extremely adventurous and always getting into trouble while exploring and learning new thing. As an adult now, not so much. I try sticking to the known, to my territory and to all that's familiar, a bit too aggressively, just like I stick to my cup of chai.