Chronicles of Kancha Bhatta 2 - The Lockdown Tea Trail

 

The lockdown caught Kancha Bhatta in his native village up the hills like a bewildered calf tied to the wrong post. He had come up only for a short visit, to breathe some hill air and gorge on fresh corn, fully expecting to be back in Chennai in time to brew my evening tea and shoo away the boys from my biscuit tin. Instead, the shutters came down on the world. The buses stopped, the border closed, and the Sharda below growled like a tiger in the adjoining forests in Dudhwa. 

Chennai, however, sat stubbornly in his mind: my kitchen, my office, my endless demands for "one strong tea, not that watery mess," and the familiar clatter of vessels he had mastered like a raga. Tea leaves and patience, that was his craft. And now, both were running dangerously low.

He had no money. Not even enough to buy a single cup of the milky roadside tea he secretly despised. But on one cool morning, when the mist still clung to the hills and the village roosters were arguing with the dawn, he slung a thin bag over his shoulder – a spare shirt, a dented steel tumbler, and a small packet of tea leaves (procured from Siliguri) carefully guarded like treasure – and walked out of his native hill sojourn as if he were merely stepping out to buy coriander.

"Arre Kancha, kahan jaa raha hai re?" one of the elders called out from his kirana dukaan.

"Bas, thoda neeche tak jaa raha hoon, chacha, kuch laoon aapke liye?

Dhangadi

A rattling jeep finally emerged from the fog, piled high with sacks and chickens. Kancha stepped into the road and raised his hand with all the confidence of a man who owned the highway.

"Bhaiya, Dhangadi jaa rahe ho?" he asked, peering in.

The driver, a stout man with a tired face, frowned. "Arre, lockdown hai. Kaun uthayega tumko? Paisa hai?"

"Paisa nahi hai," Kancha said cheerfully, "lekin chai banaata hoon zabardast. Ek cup piya, toh zindagi bhar yaad rahega. Abhi yahan banake pila deta hoon, phir Dhangadi tak chhod do."

The helper on the jeep burst out laughing. "Oye masterchef! Chalo, dikhao phir tumhari chai ka jaadoo."

Within minutes, Kancha had borrowed a small aluminium vessel, fetched water from a roadside handpump, and set up a makeshift stove beside the jeep. Tea leaves, a pinch of ginger from the driver's lunch box, and some mysteriously accurate proportions later, steam curled up with a smell that could have convinced even the police barricades to step aside.

"Wah re," the driver said after the first sip, eyes widening. "Aisi chai toh maine bas kahaniyon mein suni thi. Chalo, baith jao. Dhangadi tak tumhara intezaam ho gaya."

And so he rode down to Dhangadi, about 125 miles away, not as a fare-paying passenger, but as the freshly appointed Minister of Tea. To keep the driver engaged, Kancha regaled him with Bollywood stories, off the silver screen, with an air of authenticity that would put ‘Kofi with Karan’ to shame! His fav episode was his chance encounter with Daboo (the only living Kapoor of his generation) at a restaurant on Napean Sea Road. At a pit-stop in Silghadi, both alighted, looking for a snack. Kancha again, brewed some tea from his jugaad kit at a half-open tea shop, making cups for at least about 5 onlookers around.

Driving past Attariya, they reached Dhangadi that was a knot of half-open shops, shuttered hopes and whispered rumours. He had barely stepped off the jeep when the next question stared him in the face: how to cross the great wall of Gauriphanta, across the border onto the state of UP.

Over the Border

Hours later, a forest department jeep rolled in, loaded with supplies. The guard eyed him suspiciously.

"Tum kaun ho? Kahan jaa rahe ho?"

"Sahab, main cook hoon," Kancha said promptly. "Aap logon ke liye khana bana sakta hoon. Lockdown mein sab log thak gaye honge, na? Chai, khichdi, jo bolo bana doonga. Bas Gauriphanta tak chhod dijiye."

The guard looked at his colleagues. The thought of hot chai in the cold green gloom of the forests, was too enticing to resist.

"Chai bana sakta hai?" one of them asked, still not fully believing.

"Abhi bana ke pilaata hoon, sahab," said Kancha, already searching for a corner of the forest rest shed that could impersonate a kitchen.

Ten minutes later, forest rations – moist and long unused sugar, reluctant tea leaves, and dented steel glasses – had been transformed. The guard took one sip, then another.

"Arre bhai," he muttered, "isko toh border tak nahi, Lucknow tak free mein chhodna chahiye."

They didn't go that far, of course, but the jeep growled through Dudhwa with Kancha perched among the sacks, the unofficial camp cook who had bought his passage with masala chai.

"Dekha, sahab?" he said as the jeep bounced over a pothole. "Chai se bada passport duniya mein nahi hai."

The guard smiled in spite of himself. "Bas chup-chaap baith ja. Baagh bhi sun lega toh aa jayega." Humko Lakhimpur tak jaana hai. Tum wahin utar jao. Kancha Bhatta couldn’t have it better and happily grinned at the guard.

Lakhimpur

On the other side of the hills and river, the world flattened into dust and diesel fumes. By the time he reached Lakhimpur, he had already earned two meals by stirring someone's dal and frying someone else's chillies. The station area was full of stranded men with bags larger than their hopes.

A private bus stood there, its destination painted optimistically: "Bangalore – Special Service." Outside, a man with a notebook was shouting names. Migrant workers queued, heads bent, bags clutched.

Kancha wandered close and asked, "Bhaiya, Bangalore ka bus hai kya?"

The man looked him up and down. "Paisa?"

"Seedha paisa nahi hai," Kancha admitted, "lekin main chai, khana, sab banaata hoon. Raste bhar aap logon ke liye chai, upma, simple khichdi – jo milega, use jaadoo se kuch bana doonga. Aapka bhi kaam ho jaayega, mera bhi safar ho jaayega."

A woman standing nearby, with two small children and tired eyes, intervened. "Arre bhaiya, isko chadha lo. Bacho ke liye koi garam cheez bana dega toh acha hi hai."

The man shrugged. "Theek hai. Lekin seat nahi milega, samjha? Raste bhar kaam karna padega."

"Seat se zyada kaam aata hai mujhe," said Kancha. "Chalo, Bangalore!"

For the next six days, the bus was his traveling kitchen. Halting at Lucknow, Rae Bareily, Rewa, Jabalpur, Nagpur, Adilabad, Kurnool and Hyderabad, where migrant workers were dropped off, Kancha stuck to his contractual duties. At dhabas where the bus halted, he slipped into the smoky backrooms, turning leftover rice into lemon rice, plain vegetables into something resembling comfort. For the kids, he made mildly sweetened tea, more milk than leaf, and told them stories of a village where the river grumbled and the hills sulked but always forgave.

On the third evening, near some anonymous junction, one of the men said, "Arre Kancha, ek cup garam chai de na. Thandak haddi tak ghus gayi."

"Bhaiya, meri chai peene ke baad, aapko Bangalore bhi garam lagega," Kancha said. And the bus, for a brief, fragrant moment, became a moving tea stall.

Bangalore

Bangalore arrived finally, not as a grand gateway but as a jumble of flyovers and hoardings. The bus emptied itself into the city, each man dragged away by his own destiny. Kancha, left standing with his small cloth bag and his tea packet, sniffed the air.

"Idhar se Chennai door nahi hai," he told himself. "Bas thoda chai aur thoda kismet chahiye."

He found a lorry bound for Vellore, stacked high with sacks of onions. The driver was a wiry fellow who looked like he trusted no one, not even his steering wheel.

"Anna, Vellore goingu?" Kancha ventured in the only English he knew..

"Pogum," the driver grunted. "Aana paisa?"

"Paisa illa," said Kancha, slipping naturally into the local rhythm, "I meaku tea and sappadu. You take, humko free sawari?

The driver stared at him for a moment. "Tea saaptuttu dhaan drive pannuvaen," he admitted. "Sari, vaa. Onion sack mela ukkandhuko."

Somewhere on the highway, as the lorry huffed up a gentle rise, Kancha balanced a small stove on a wooden plank, boiled water in an old tin can, and brewed tea that cut straight through road fatigue.

"Idhu thaan tea da," the driver said after a sip. "Namma oorla ippadi tea kidaikkave maata."

Kancha grinned, as the lorry rolled toward Vellore.

Chennai..

At Vellore, the lorry dropped him near the highway like a parcel finally delivered. His legs were stiff, his shirt smelled faintly of onions and smoke, and his tea packet was now half its original size.

An ageing Ambassador crawled by, white and weary. Kancha stepped forward.

"Anna, Chennai goingu?" he called out.

An elderly man with a heavy moustache peered out. "Pogum. Aana meter illa, paisa dhaan."

Kancha beseeched, “Paisa illa. I tea maku and givvu. Tum Chennai la poraan!

The old man hesitated, then smiled faintly. "Tea-na enakku weak point. Seri, ukkaru."

At a fuel stop, under the shade of a half-dead tree, Kancha conjured up tea with the last of his precious leaves, and a simple upma out of whatever they could rummage from the Ambassador's emergency grocery bag.

"Idhu veetla saapadra maathiri irukku," the old man said, almost wistfully, as Chennai's outer ring road slowly wrapped itself around them.

In the city, traffic broke them up. From there, it was a ballet of two-wheelers. A delivery boy dropped him a few kilometres closer to Bandikavanoor in exchange for a quick help at a roadside stall – stirring a bubbling pot so the cook could answer his phone.

"Enga side la irukke?" the rider asked.

"Bandikavanoor inside goingu, machan," said Kancha. "my village I go ‘paidal’ from there”

The last stretch from Bandikavanoor he walked, as if the earth itself needed to feel the proof of his return. The fields were quiet, only the occasional bird tracing the evening sky. The familiar line of palm trees appeared like old friends, and then, finally, my village – Dharmarajapuram, sitting calm and mildly amused, as if it had known all along he would come trudging back with dust in his hair and mischief in his eyes.

By the time he reached my gate, the lamp in my courtyard was already lit. I heard the faint scuffle of his feet, the soft rustle of his bag.

He stood there, framed by the doorway, thinner perhaps, darker by a few shades of sun, but entirely himself. Then, with that same irrepressible grin, he announced his arrival in the only way he knew how:

"Tiger Zinda hai."

Of course he was. The tiger that brewed tea instead of roaring, cooked quietly instead of clawing, and walked across a locked-down subcontinent with nothing but a steel tumbler, a packet of tea leaves, and the unquestioning faith that somehow, lap by lap, someone would always be hungry for a hot cup and a simple meal.

Meadows whispered his saga that night, Kancha’s tea steaming tales into eternity. What's next for our tiger? Only the holy Sharda murmurs the secret.