i grew up with idlis, peanut chutney and milky swirls of cardamom and ginger. i grew up with amma asking me to watch as the milk slowly rose in her small steel pot. we called it masala tea in my house, not chai. amma had a set recipe, starting with water and tea leaves, adding fresh cardamom, cloves, cinnamon and sometimes ginger, too, if our throats were sore. she would add one cup of milk using the same steel cup twice a day, boiling it over until the pot came down to a gentle simmer. then, she would strain it out using a small mesh sieve into white floral tea mugs, serving it to my father first with minimal sugar, and then adding fresh cut jaggery into her own cup.
i was not allowed to drink tea as a child. amma said she didn’t want me to bounce off the walls any more than i already was. i never really learned how to make tea either, so i watched my amma from afar as she elegantly placed all of the ingredients to concoct a mug of love and warmth.
each afternoon, amma, nanna, akka and i would sit around our rectangular kitchen table, sipping on some piping hot, freshly brewed tea with a small snack of indian crunchies — it became a ritual. we would chat as if we were friends, not just family. amma would warn us about how hot the tea would be after she served it and i would still burn my tongue anyways. akka and i would fight over small things that we really didn’t care about, and amma would yell at us for yelling at each other. eventually, nanna would get sick of us girls chatting about nonsense and would leave to go watch his cricket. it was home — everything i want right now, everything I regret forgetting about.
i didn’t make tea myself until i was in college with my best friend from northern india who was more versed in making tea. she called it chai and made it a little bit differently. she didn’t really measure the milk and made it based on her gut. a chai made with independence, whilst my amma’s lingered with familial flavors of togetherness. my roommates and i would sit around our living room table a few times a month, sipping on her delicious chai and spilling tea about our friend group. it was a foreign feeling to me, to not do this with my akka around. silly little fights with someone new who didn’t call me stupid in telugu — they called me stupid in english. i told myself i liked this new me, calling myself “sri” instead of “srilekha” and wearing low cuts with no red dot on my forehead. i donned a version of myself that was underneath layers of cardamom, hidden from the world over fear that amma would no longer make tea for me with the same love she had years ago.
my younger self, sitting at the kitchen table, no longer has to wait for my turn in the kitchen. i usually make tea for just myself now. i stand in my kitchen now, as amma stands in hers. i am both the chef and the audience, as amma cooks for nanna and akka. i make my food in a rush before my nine am classes, with instant noodles and pasta, as amma cooks after her workday is over, with fresh vegetables and spices. mine is not nearly as spicy as hers, but i find comfort in knowing we share the same roots.
there is a beauty in the solace that i received in university, from this new chai my roommate introduced me to. my friends became a family, with a basement level apartment infested with ants at some point, walls dotted with strange tapestries and a room full of stuffed plushies i always wanted — a place i now call home.
i miss the days I spent with my amma and nanna and akka at my kitchen table, where we could sit, eat and enjoy each other’s company. there was a comfort and an ease in doing nothing at all while day dreaming and fucking around. i thought i had a whole lifetime of immaturity left to live, but there is no more child in my life; i am not her anymore. when i go home, things will be different, i know. no matter how much i want to be thirteen again, i am now turning twenty one. a child better off alone. a child who sometimes (mostly) disappoints. a child who is too american to be indian, and too indian to be american. a child who wants so badly to embrace a culture that is tainted with unagreeable values. a child who disobeys. a child who is no longer a child. a child who now drinks chai in a mug without flowers.
the chai i drink today is different, but i love every sip of it. today, i drink it in my basement apartment, but at home, my chair is empty at the same kitchen table i sat at for years. where my amma, nanna and akka now sit together a thousand miles away. the chair is still there and it is still empty. waiting for me, hopefully with unconditional love and a warm embrace in front of a mug of amma’s chai.
MiC Columnist Srilekha Cherukuvada can be reached at srilekha@umich.edu
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