Tea stall of the dead! : Blog # 154

Tea stall of the dead!

           This time around, work took me to the city of Ahmedabad. I had never been to that part of our country. Adding to the excitement was the fact that I will get to meet some of my friends whom I hadn’t met for the past 5 years.

   I fell in love with the city. The infrastructure is quite impressive. The roads are well maintained and they aren’t clogged by traffic. There is a lane dedicated for the Government run buses alone! How many cities in our country can boast of this? The time of the year that I visited had Ahmedabad at its most pleasant weather.

              The first day, I went for an evening walk from the hotel where I was staying. River Sabarmati was quite close to where I was staying. To my pleasant surprise, the river was a sight to behold. The water was perfectly clean. It was the beginning of winter in Ahmedabad. The evening zephyr was quite soothing. I joined a bunch of people who were out on their evening walks. There is a beautiful walkway on the banks of the river. A little late in to the evening, the tall lamp posts came alive lending the vastness of the river, a reflected glory.  

              The next day, one of my friends suggested a nearby tea stall called Lucky tea stall. He said there is something quite unique about it. But nothing prepared me for what it had in store for me. When I walked in, my first reaction was one of shock. The tea stall is built around a grave! It was quite spooky. More surprising was the fact that no one sipping their cup of tea there were least bothered about the graves right next to their feet! The waiters just walked past the graves and served the tea and people were indulging themselves in the usual small talks.

             The restaurant’s wall proudly dons a painting by the acclaimed artist, late M.F. Husain. Apparently he was quite fond of this quirky hangout in the city. The belief in this part of the world is that luck favours you if you share food with the dead! From what I could see, luck has clearly favoured the owner of the tea stall. There is never a moment of dullness for the business here!

          It was surprising to see how we accept certain customs with time. Had this restaurant been anywhere else, people will not go to that restaurant. Who would want to have food sitting in a grave will be the rational. Worse, there will be protests forcing the restaurant to close down citing “cultural and religious” reasons! Just because this one was around for quite some time, people have accepted it for what it is.

 Likewise, all the things that we object or resent today gradually become acceptable. Does that mean we are being foolishly myopic by resisting the emerging cultural changes of the times that we live in?

Arun Babu.

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