Cha and conversation: Why Manipuris need a good cup of street-style tea

While waiting for my turn at my regular hajam for a haircut in a gully of Imphal’s Paona Bazar, I followed the ritual I do on every visit: I asked for a cup of cha from the Bihari man whose stall was nearby. The first sip took me back to my boarding school days. It was underdone and tasted diluted.

“Bhaiya, aaj chai kisne banaya?” I asked him. Who made this tea? From our previous encounters, he knew how seriously I take my cup of cha. He responded stoically, “Gas nahi mil rahi hain.”

Among the many miseries Manipur is facing, a shortage of gas cylinders is one of them. I threw away the tea.

Back at the barber’s shop, Nitai was quiet as he cut my hair. He understood my anguish of having sipped a bad cup of cha. We would normally have chit-chatted about cricket. Before going to him, I Google the names of the current Indian cricket team players. Though I had grown up watching as much cricket as football, when I went to college in Delhi, I lost touch with the details as the gentleman’s game grew larger than life or perhaps even humanity.

“Life mein sab kuch galat ho raha hain, mujhe kam se kam acchi chai pini hain!” I grumbled. When everything in life is going wrong, at the very least I should be able to get good tea.

Nitai held my head firmly to stop it moving but I didn’t stop. “Jyada paise leni hai toh lelijiye lekin quality mai compromise mat kijiye.” Charge more money if you want but at least don’t compromise on quality.

I cannot recall having spoken so many Hindi words in a single day, at least in Manipur. But I had to. It was my resistance to everything that has silenced me ever since the conflict started in May last year.

Later that day, I met my old friends Mashun and Rinchon, who are siblings. They run the wonderful Pasei, a bookshop and a library that also host regular events in Ukhrul, a hill district that is a three-hour drive from Imphal. We talked about doing events together when it is possible.

A few days later, Rinchon called me and invited me for a culinary event at Pasei and asked if I could share how I started my journey of Street Cha with the audience.

Street Cha is my initiative to make good cha in Imphal like the ones I had in Delhi. Thus, on the sidewalk of Ukiyo Bookstore, the bookstore I have been running for the past six years, Street Cha was born.

Two years later, Street Cha has moved to its own space. Cha-Phi is a café and a boutique which I run together with a friend. We had already started working on this project when the conflict broke out in May last year. Despite many setbacks, Cha-Phi opened in October.

The last few months have been a torrid period for small businesses in Manipur and ours were no exception. We had to shut both the bookstore and the café several times owing to frequent incidents of violence. One shutdown lasted for two weeks – which would sound unimaginable to the outside world.

Supplies were also cut off whenever there were road blockades. With so many pressures mounting on me, most nights I would drink myself to sleep. This was not how I imagined my “entrepreneur” days to be. “Sarkar gi thabak amta toujarammadi!” If only you had a government job! My mother’s words ring like an alarm I cannot turn off.

Had there been no conflict, I would have happily accepted Rinchon’s invitation to visit Pasei to talk about Street Cha. But as a member of one of the two warring communities, I cannot travel to the hills by road. Helicopter would have been the only option. I apologised to my friend and promised to instead write something about it.

This is our story.

At first, I thought I was bringing the cha I drank in the streets of Delhi back to my hometown but lately I have realised it is so much more than that. When I was in Delhi, a cup of cha was my answer to everything. To sit in a corner and sip it without a care in the world – it was my happy place. Much more than the cha, I came to realise it was that feeling which I wanted to bring back to Manipur.

Generally, people assume Street Cha does a lot to create the perfect cha. Of course, we do try to procure quality ingredients from various parts of the country. We get the spices for our cha from Khari Baoli in Delhi, which is thought to be one of Asia’s oldest spice markets. We also brew every cha fresh, right after we receive an order. We really go the extra mile.

But that is not the secret. The secret is, apart from doing it exactly how it should be done we make sure to do it with love and care. Of all the emotions lacking among us Manipuris currently, we make sure we do not deprive each other of the little love we still carry.

Most of the shops in Manipur sell instant teas from vending machines which, in my opinion, do not taste good. All it takes is the push of a button. Life does not work that way. I feel. For me, having a cup of cha is not just the act of drinking it but the whole process right from the cha being prepared till it has been poured while having casual conversations with strangers nearby as if we all voted for the same politician.

Sometimes, I feel like we all need that faith with each other. While I was in Delhi University, the tea-stalls where students gathered for evening teas were where I, as a student from the North East, felt the safest. There is something about people bonding while waiting for their cups of cha that I really cannot describe in words. Would there be even any fighting if all we look forward to is a cup of good cha, I wonder.

We cannot blame anyone though. Who has the time anyway, right?

Actually, we do. At the cafe, we prepare our cha manually just like how we make it at home but with precise technique and consistent ingredients. We try our best to create a system that would make every cup of cha feel like a happy place – an escape that would make any sorrow go away even if it’s only for a few minutes.

And at this point, for any person from Manipur like me, these few minutes are like a surreal dream.

All photographs by Martin Thokchom.

Martin Thokchom runs Ukiyo Bookstore in Imphal, Manipur.