Dodging Clouds in Tea Kadai

I am pretty sure that most men and few women in India get to enjoy hanging out in the incomparable Tea Kadai (shop). There isn’t a specific reason why I am inclined to use the word ‘incomparable’. Probably because the place could give you the same comfort as your home or maybe because visiting a tea Kadai could bring about incomparable nostalgia. I believe now the word ‘incomparable’ makes more sense.

The two rupee biscuit, oily bajji, the versatile tea master who does juggling between tea varieties – tea, coffee, milk, black tea, lemon tea, ragi milk, horlicks, boost – and still maintaining the requested ratios – strong, medium, sugar and sugar less, the standard tea cup, the stained bench and the odd newspaper. All are part of a wonderful package. But along with them most men and few lucky women have to deal with another item which comes as part of the complete package.

A complete Package
Photo Courtesy: Pratap Sankar

Smoke and the essence of the Tea kadai are quite ‘inseparable’.  They increase and decrease in the frequency ‘comparable’ to your breathing rate. It is certainly emanating from the person next to you. If it is a place which you visit daily, you might tell with certainty who is exactly behind that certain cloud passing over your head. I can safely say that it is all that ‘incomparability’ fades into oblivion when the hot unfriendly air molecules invade your nasal tunnels.

You being to play a sport where you practice how long you could hold your breath. This could enable you to participate in the Olympics, maybe create a world record in which even David Blaine faltered. You fire-fight for a few minutes and then you realize that the activity is only making breathing harder but still you end up inhaling smoke. One tries the trick of stepping few inches away in spite of the fact that the wind covers a longer range.

And every single time you ultimately realize that the fool-proof way was to leave the tea kadai in the first place. The last few gulps sink fast and few drops burble out when you hand out eight rupees to the chetta. The trouble doesn’t end when you leave the place. The fumy odour seems to have invaded all gaps in your shirt and locked in the air spaces of your moustache. It takes a good several minutes before the vapours find their way out.

Doesn't Work Though
Photo Courtesy: SmartSign

Passive smoking is every non-smokers nightmare principally because it doesn’t operate on the principle of Karma (though I don’t believe that Karma always works). There is a usual thought going inside a person’s head: ‘Hope I don’t end up getting cancer’. I am pretty convinced that the terrifying symbols on the cigarette cartons are meant to make the lives of passive smokers miserable than the active ones.


Though one feels few annoying moments in every visit one cannot dislike the fact that the ten minutes hanging out in that place does divert you from what has been going on your mind. This is just another thing in India which you get used to. The unmistakable flaw (stamped Indian) is in every aspect of public life like seemingly good concrete roads which magically vanish in a short span. It is something you learn to deal with as an Indian, you know ‘incomparable’. 

Photo Courtesy: (External Link)
(1)Pratap Sankar
(2)SmartSign

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