Chapter 19 - A Roadside Tea Stall

 

19

 

            Winter evenings have their own hunger.

 

            Not the hunger of the stomach alone..but the hunger of warmth.

 

            That evening, the bus had been moving through fog-covered roads for hours. The windows had turned pale with mist. Passengers kept rubbing circles on the glass with their palms to look outside, but the world beyond seemed unfinished. Trees appeared for a second and disappeared again. Electric poles stood like lonely soldiers guarding sleeping villages.

 

            Inside the bus, silence and noise were sitting together.

 

            Someone was snoring in the back seat.   Some boys were watching comedy videos on a phone without earphones, forcing the whole bus to hear broken laughter.  A mother wrapped her child inside a shawl like protecting a small secret from winter.  An old man kept coughing softly into his muffler.  And the conductor, tired of shouting destination names all day, now sat quietly near the door counting crumpled notes under the dim yellow light.

 

            Winter journeys make people impatient.  Every passenger begins searching for small comforts…a little sunshine, a little leg space, a little human kindness… or sometimes just a hot cup of tea.

 

            Suddenly the bus slowed down with a tired groan.  Outside stood a roadside tea stall glowing under a weak bulb.

 

            The driver shouted, “Five minutes only!”

                       

            But every passenger knew that “five minutes” at a winter tea stall actually means fifteen.  Before the bus had even stopped properly, passengers rushed toward the stall as if someone had announced free salvation.  For a moment, it looked funny to me.  People who had been sitting lazily for hours suddenly became athletes.  Blankets fell.  Bags slipped.  Sleep vanished.  Even the old coughing man walked faster than before.

 

            Because tea during winter is never just tea.  It is temporary hope served in a glass.

 

            Steam rose from the aluminum kettle like prayers escaping toward the sky. The tea seller moved quickly with blackened hands hardened by years of heat. His stall was tiny…just a wooden counter, a stove, some hanging biscuit packets, and a bench tilted slightly to one side.

 

            Yet in that cold evening, it looked more important than luxury hotels.  Sometimes life reduces happiness to very small things.  A dry place during rain.  A chair during tiredness.  A hand during grief.  And tea during winter travel.

 

            I also stepped down from the bus.

 

            The cold air hit my face sharply. Somewhere nearby, a dog barked at nothing visible. A tractor passed slowly through fog carrying sugarcane. From another tea stall farther away came the smell of burning coal.

 

            I ordered tea and stood quietly near the stove.  Passengers surrounded the stall with the seriousness of politicians surrounding power.

 

            One man shouted, “Less sugar!”

 

            Another said, “Extra strong!”

 

            A third asked, “Put ginger!”

 

            A fourth wanted disposable cups because he feared infections.

 

            The tea seller nodded at everyone with the patience of a saint who had already accepted humanity’s foolishness long ago.  And then I remembered another tea stall incident from years earlier.

 

            It happened somewhere in another town.

 

            That tea stall stood directly opposite a police station. I used to stop there occasionally during travel. The owner was a thin middle-aged man with tired eyes and extraordinary observation skills. He knew more about human nature than many professors.

 

            One afternoon I was standing there with a cup of tea in my hand when suddenly a CRPF truck stopped near the stall.  Around fifteen or sixteen constables jumped down together.  Heavy boots.  Rifles hanging.  Dust rising.

 

            One of them shouted cheerfully, “Oye bhai, make tea for all of us!”

 

            For a moment I thought the tea seller had become lucky.  Sixteen cups together meant good business.  But to everyone’s shock, the tea seller immediately refused.

 

            “No,” he said calmly. “I cannot make tea for all of you.”

 

            The constables laughed, thinking he was joking.  One of them even took out money in advance.

 

            “Take payment first then,” he said. 

 

            But the tea seller shook his head stubbornly.  “No. I have to serve the police station people and other customers too. I don’t have enough milk.”

 

            The CRPF men looked surprised.  People nearby exchanged confused glances.  Even I was shocked.  Which shopkeeper refuses sixteen customers?

 

            The constables waited a little, smiled among themselves, and then finally left after buying biscuits and cigarettes only.

 

            For days that incident remained in my mind.  Not because the tea seller refused business…ut because he refused it without fear.

 

            A few days later I again stopped at that tea stall and asked him the reason.  He laughed while washing glasses in hot water.  Then he said something that still makes me smile.

 

            “Sir, if I had made sixteen cups for them that day, then sixteen complaints would also have arrived.” 

 

            I laughed.  But he continued seriously.

 

            “One would say sugar is less. Another would say sugar is too much. Third would complain tea leaves didn’t boil properly. Fourth would ask why the tea is cold. Fifth would compare it with tea from another state. Sixth would want more ginger.” 

 

            He smiled knowingly.  “Sixteen cups… thirty-two complaints.”

 

            I burst into laughter.

 

            The tea seller also laughed and continued pouring tea into glasses as if he had decoded humanity completely.  That day while returning, I kept thinking about his words. 

 

            Human beings are strange creatures.  We ask life for blessings… and after receiving them, we immediately begin reviewing them.  We complain inside comfort.  We criticize inside safety.  We search for flaws even while drinking warmth in winter.  Perhaps dissatisfaction is humanity’s oldest addiction.

 

            Back at the present tea stall, passengers were still busy giving instructions.  One man returned his tea saying it was too cold.  Another demanded more sugar.  A woman complained the cup was dirty.

 

            The tea seller silently adjusted everything without argument.  And suddenly that old tea seller’s words echoed again inside me:

 

            “Sixteen cups… thirty-two complaints.”

 

            I smiled alone.

 

            The man standing beside me misunderstood and asked, “Tea is good?”

 

            “Yes,” I replied softly, “very good.”

 

            But I was not talking about the tea.  I was talking about life.  There is something deeply philosophical about roadside tea stalls.  Rich and poor stand together there.   Officers and laborers drink from similar glasses.  Travelers from different religions warm their hands around the same stove.  For five minutes, social status becomes weaker than winter.  Even silence tastes similar there.

 

            A young boy at the stall was continuously washing used glasses in a bucket of lukewarm water. His sweater had holes near the elbows. Yet he kept smiling while serving everyone quickly.

 

            I wondered whether he attended school.  Or whether life had already employed him permanently.  Winter often exposes invisible workers.  Tea sellers.  Drivers.  Night guards.  Bus conductors.  Roadside mechanics.  People who remain awake so others can travel comfortably.  Society remembers successful people.  But civilization survives because of unnoticed people.

 

            The bus driver stood apart smoking quietly.  Drivers have a different relationship with tea.  For passengers, tea is refreshment.  For drivers, it is responsibility.  A sleepy passenger risks missing his stop.  A sleepy driver risks many lives.

 

            I noticed his tired eyes staring into the darkness ahead. Perhaps he was mentally calculating the remaining distance, the fog density, dangerous turns, and hidden potholes.  Some professions never fully relax.

 

            Army life had taught me that.  Even during rest, a soldier’s mind remains half-awake.

 

            Perhaps that is why I always observe drivers carefully during long journeys. In some silent way, they resemble soldiers…carrying strangers safely through uncertain roads.

 

            The tea arrived in my hands.  The glass was too hot to hold properly.  Steam touched my face.  And suddenly the entire winter evening felt softer.  It is strange how quickly tea changes human behavior.   People who were irritated inside the bus now stood peacefully.  Arguments paused.  Phones disappeared into pockets.  Hands became warm.  Faces relaxed.  Tea does not solve problems.  But it temporarily makes problems sit quietly in one corner.  Perhaps that is enough sometimes.

 

            An unsaid truth of life is: “Human beings survive not only on food…but on pauses.”

 

            A pause between two struggles.  A pause between two responsibilities. A pause between yesterday’s regret and tomorrow’s fear.  Tea stalls provide those pauses.  That is why travelers love them.  Not because tea is extraordinary……but because life becomes slower there for a few minutes.

 

            I looked around carefully.

 

            One passenger was staring silently into the steam rising from his cup as if remembering someone far away.  Another was laughing loudly with strangers he would never meet again.  A truck driver was warming both hands near burning coal.  Two village boys were sharing one tea because perhaps buying two was unnecessary luxury.  A stray dog sat near the stove understanding that kindness usually becomes easier in winter.

 

            The fog grew thicker.  Somewhere distant, a train horn floated through the night.  And for a brief moment, the tea stall no longer looked ordinary.  It looked like a temporary shelter built by humanity against loneliness.

            Perhaps that is what all small gathering places really are.  Tea stalls.  Bus stops. Army bunkers.  Hospital waiting rooms.  Railway platforms.  People arrive there as strangers but leave after silently sharing pieces of the same human exhaustion.

 

            The conductor suddenly shouted, “Let’s go! Bus leaving!”

 

            Immediately peace broke again.  Passengers hurried back carrying unfinished tea, biscuit packets, peanuts, and urgency.  One man burned his tongue trying to finish quickly.  Another requested “one parcel tea.”  Someone forgot gloves on the bench and returned running.

 

            Life resumed its movement.  I stood for a second before boarding.

 

            The tea seller was already washing glasses for the next group of travelers who would arrive soon from another direction, carrying different stories and same tiredness.  Roadside tea sellers witness thousands of lives without becoming part of any.  They hear political debates, love stories, business failures, family tensions, exam worries, drunken confessions, and travel frustrations.

 

            Yet they remain standing beside boiling kettles like silent philosophers.  Perhaps wisdom does not always live in libraries.  Sometimes it stands beside highways making tea.

 

            I climbed back into the bus.  The windows had fogged again.  Passengers wrapped themselves once more inside blankets and silence.

 

            The engine started heavily.

 

            Outside, the tea stall slowly moved away into darkness until only its tiny yellow bulb remained visible.  Then even that disappeared.  But warmth remained inside.  Not only from tea…but from the realization that human life moves forward through such tiny pauses.

 

            We think great achievements keep people alive.  But often it is smaller things.  A conversation.  A memory.  A hand on the shoulder.  A winter tea stop during a long journey. 

 

            The bus moved deeper into fog.

 

            Someone near the back seat had already started snoring again.

 

            And I smiled quietly near the window thinking:  “Perhaps peace is not a destination.  Perhaps it is only a five-minute tea break during a difficult journey.”