At times, I come to think that all the choices I make and all the decisions I take add up to be extremely messed up. In the end, I wash up in my only comfort space, which is with myself. And the worst of it comes down to the instances where I drag others down with me. There are not many of those sorts, but the ones I have made are messed up to the core; all I can do is swallow the guilt and keep everything to myself. I keep apologizing for the darkness I pushed them into, but the damage is done, and nothing is going to make it right. That’s when I started to think about all the bad chais I’ve ever made!

I’ve always preferred coffee over tea, but the occasional tea never hurt a nerve. And I’ve made some really bad ones! I’ve literally watched people who normally enjoy tea gulp it down with such disappointment on their faces. All I could do was sit there, look at them make their way through the difficult sips, and apologize for the fix I’ve put them in. Sometimes I make the tea too watered down, sometimes too strong, sometimes a little too light, and sometimes it does not even taste like tea. I try to keep myself from asking if I should be making tea when someone visits, but the poorly taught host in me always poses the question. At times, they deny the offer, which I gladly accept at the very first response, and then there are those times when I push the drink a little too hard.

Now, I must say this writer makes some pretty decent coffee, but somehow offering chai is the norm of the land. ‘Chaaya kudikkan poyalo?’ ‘Chalo chai peene chale?’ ‘Tea saapidalaama?’ are the questions that are known to bring people together, make great art happen, and simply bring a smile to people’s faces! I just took a sip from my morning coffee here.

This brings me to the question I’ve been having in my mind: why does someone like me, who enjoys a cup of coffee, worry so much about the bad chais I make? Well, that is simply how it is. I’m trying to fit into a jigsaw with no sides matching the puzzle. It will just show; it will project how a chipped and crooked end would, finally making the whole picture seem distasteful. I must say, it’s not just about being the ugly duckling. It’s about being a hen and not a duck.

Perhaps that is the crux of it. A hen can stand by the pond all day, mimicking the ducks, even dipping her beak into the water to prove she belongs. But when she tries to swim, she only drowns in the expectations of a landscape that wasn’t built for her. My ‘bad chais’ are not just kitchen failures; they are the evidence of a soul trying to speak a language it doesn’t dream in. Maybe the mistake isn’t in the tea I brew, but in the apology I offer for not being a duck. I am a creature of the earth and the grain, of the bitter and the bold coffee. And as I sit here with my mug, I am realizing that the right people, the ones who truly know the hen, won’t ask her to swim. They’ll just sit on the bank and share the coffee she actually knows how to make.