Three years ago, I lived in Munirka in a tiny room without a gas cylinder. For the first three months - winter months - I would wake up and each bone in my body would be crying out for ‘chai!’. I’d throw on a shawl, put on my slippers, pick up the newspapers that had been slid under the door, and go to the nearest source of cheap chai - a small tea-stall about fifty yards away.

That stall didn’t have much. There was one waist-high steel box, squarish, which contained the few possessions of the owner/tea-maker. His name was painted on it in red enamel (nail-paint?). There was a wooden plank that served as a make-shift table or kitchen counter on which he kept his kettle, stove, a few plastic bottles with biscuits and sugar etcetera. There was one wooden bench on which patrons could sit, and one low, long stone slab, on which patrons could sit too. I knew that the bench and plank served as beds, for I would walk past the stall and see blanketed shapes huddled there at night.

The first few times I showed up there, nostrils puffing morning mist, hair un-brushed (okay, teeth un-brushed too), newspapers in hand, I was stared at with bewilderment. When I asked for tea and began riffling through newspapers, the regular patrons immediately vacated the bench and I was asked to sit. I did. I read my papers, drank my tea, paid up and left.

Everyday, I would drink two cups, pay about six rupees, read two newspapers and then return home to get dressed for work. At first, I felt guilty about disrupting the familiar rhythms of this stall. The patrons were all men, barring the few days when a female sweeper came there and, back turned to the men, squatted on the ground. The young men did various jobs about the place - painters, key-makers, cobblers. A couple were drunks who tried to make random conversation - I still remember one gentleman who tried to prove his stated credentials of utter respectability by showing me his I-card; he worked for the railways as a senior clerk or something.

My own landlord would stroll over sometimes, toddler son in tow, often drunk too (the landlord, not the toddler). I was very clearly the misfit - a young woman who did did not belong to any of these categories - not a labourer, not an odd-job-woman, not a drunk.

If there had been another option, their discomfort, my curious guilt, our mutual awkwardness would have won. But chai-and-newspaper is a routine that I am not willing to give up. And then, they got used to me. The men stopped vacating benches and standing around nervously. I began to assume part of the stone slab covered with a blanket; a few would remain sitting, while remembering to put a safe distance between us. One greying man who could read English began to borrow my newspaper. Once, the chai-wala asked me to write a leave application for his son’s school. Nobody made attempts to strike up unnecessary conversations (barring my landlord). They sensed that I wanted to read and be left alone and…

and…

and, perhaps, they were afraid. Perhaps, they did not so much respect my wishes as recognize that some streets are one-way. I could step down to the stall and walk away; maybe later in the day, I’d walk into a smart, glass-walled cafe and get a cup of coffee for Rs 49, and not wince. They could not. I could read English, help them with paperwork. They could not. I could hire them. They could not hire me. I chose to sit there and drink my morning tea beside them, but the day I got a gas cylinder, I could choose to stop. And I did.

For three years, I did not visit roadside tea-stalls regularly. I’d stop at a few on occasion - one at Mandi circle, one on Parliament Street, one near Amar Colony. But now that I’ve moved to a new job and since this office doesn’t have pantry facilities or even a coffee machine, destiny has sent me scurrying back to the steaming periphery of a neighbourhood thela.

I’ve found one that makes a reasonably competent coffee as well (cooking instant coffee powder in, as opposed to merely mixing with, milk). It also makes roti-subzi and daal-chawal. It is a busy stall and I don’t spend much time there, but recently found more things on the boil there than the kettle.

A heavyset, middle-aged man with a moustache began yelling at the young lad making the chai. Something like, “bhenc**d ka kya matlab hai, hain?” (What do you mean by sisterf*****r?)

I assume, the boy (he can’t be more than eighteen) had used the slang term that had so offended this patron. It is a term almost constantly on Delhi’s lips. (Actually, Bombay’s lips too. It’s a term used across the country and has been in usage for centuries; foreign travelers remarked upon its ubiquity in the subcontinent, even in the eighteenth/nineteenth century). Rich, poor, who doesn’t use it? That this boy should have found and used the term was… inevitable almost.

And yet, that man stood there, glowering, cup of tea (made by the boy a minute before) in his hand. “Bhenc**d, matlab kya hai? Jaanta nahin hai tu?” (What do you mean, sisterf***k? Don’t you know me?)

The boy clearly didn’t.

The whole stall seemed to shudder. We all glanced at the man and at the boy, who went about his coffee-making silently.

The offended man went on with his tirade. ” Apne level mein reh kar baat kiya kar… samjha? Abhi hamari tulsi-katha shuru hogi na, toh tere ghar tak pahunchegi.” (Remember to stay at your level. If I start my holy chant, your home will hear the echoes.)

The other boy, slightly older, kept shut too.

The man now addressed the older boy. “Samjha de… gali na diya kare. Pataa nahin hai ise…” (Tell him not to swear. He doesn’t know (’who he is dealing with’ remained unsaid).)

Another patron, also drinking the tea that came from this stall, now piped up.

“Haan, nahin toh bhej denge vapas… nepal ya jahaan se bhi… seedha. Border ke paar. Ticket bhi hum hi kataa denge…” (Yes, otherwise we will pack you off. Back to Nepal or wherever you’ve come from. Across the border. We’ll even get you a ticket…)

From slang, it had gone into anti-migrant terrain. Just like that. From one man to another, who had no business feeling offended, here. Just like that.

And the boys quietly, busily, went about their work. Eyes lowered.

My colleague spoke, not very loudly but not exactly whispering. “Such a biggie… and he comes to drink tea at a stall like this?”

I wanted to say something too. Something acidic. Something like, ‘Who are you, really? Why don’t you go back to wherever corner you crawled out from?’ But I suspected that it would only escalate into a worse scene. Either the thela-owner would take it out on the boys manning his stall, or these patrons would find some other way of harassing the boys.

As we turned to leave, I saw the two offended men addressing a stray. They had taken a fresh roti from the stall and thrown it to the black dog who seemed so bewildered at this unexpected largess that he just stared at the roti that had landed plonk upon his forepaw. They made belittling remarks about the food that a dog would not eat.