Maasi was mad pissed. No! It wasn’t someone not returning chai glass on time. The culprit was the weather. It’s been raining. And I knew she was finicky about people making small talk especially if someone begged a question. I asked one: Maasi! Chai milega kya? And then the rant started again. From weather, the rant shifted how stupidly people behaved in her chai shop. How moronic was I to have even posed such a question to maasi. Obviously it was raining, and it was just eight o clock in the evening in Baroda. Why shouldn’t anyone go out on the streets in Fatehgunj and have a cutting? And there I was, asking Maasi Chai hai kya?
Later, I realized it wasn’t even my question. Someone asked for four chais and took eight instead. That was the trigger. She could only serve fourteen chais at a time. If you are not in that fourteen, you are supposed to wait for the next round. And this guy had taken eight glasses out of the fourteen. And if someone breaks a glass, her rant would continue till the next day. These fourteen glasses would change hands throughout the day till 11 PM when an ugly looking dabba (a police truck) would pull up next to her kitli. The constable would blow his whistle as if he just wants to witness that scramble of the young people hanging out at maasi’s for about half a minute till police truck is comfortably parked in the middle of the road trying to shut down the city for the night. A few would walk next to their motorcycles and continue their chats, as if they are going to start their machines at that instant itself. But they would hang on. When the constable would be convinced that the day’s adda is coming to an end, the dabba would turn right towards Sadar Bazar in Fatehgunj. Maasi is usually not bothered about the policemen. Sometimes she is ready to take on the establishment when a cavalcade of the local municipal corporation’s vehicles comes to bother her or the other stalls, usually on the days when some local dignitary is passing by Fatehgunj. But on the other days, she keeps chasing youths who have no parking sense.
There are phenomenally interesting people who come to chat with maasi in the day and towards fixed evening. I never asked their names but I have seen them coming to her and either she is taking something from them or giving them a cup of tea. Undoubtedly, there are more people in the latter category but from some of these people, she takes things apart from money. There is one kaka, who come in a cycle. He usually supplies her puffs and breads. He would make a point to engage her in some kind of a banter before taking off for an errand. On days when it rains, she offers him chai. Their discussions range from spoilt bread from the previous day to the evictions across the city by the local municipal JCBs. They discuss the news that matters to them. I have seen them for the last three and a half years. On ramzan days, he is pensive. Maasi would talk less to him. One day she told me, that Ramzaan and Shravan fasts are rigorous and not meant for chicken like me. Both of them looked at me and started laughing. I just managed to smile.
Even after a kidney surgery earlier this year, Maasi must have been fasting. I wonder why she chased a bunch of foreign students from her stall the other day and that bakery wallah Kaka rebuking the boys for bringing eggs to near her stall during shravan months. He didn’t ask her if she was fasting but all of that conversation was subtle. One could almost see their eyes speak for a brief moment which I imagined to be: “I know you’re fasting for Shravan just like I am fasting for Ramzaan”. Namaaz for maghreeb was an hour away so Maasi didn’t offer him any chai. Kaka left. I realized I may not see him again nor will I witness this transaction again. How precious that moment was. As a student of social sciences, it was definitely profound, as a bystander, it was overwhelming. I don’t want to engage in any loud sloganeering for communal harmony in a state like Gujarat but here on the streets of Fatehgunj, it was implicit. Unlike some social or political science expert writing eight column full of words arguing against a proposed bill on protection of communal strife, constantly naming Vadodara or Baroda in his article, Maasi and this Kaka’s bond is simple and doesn’t necessarily reflect the kind of notoriety that this state has gained over past few years. I also know that for these people a proposed bill on communal harmony would not mean a thing. But I think I am against the sweeping statements made a group of people about a place without visiting them while bringing these places under the national radar to detect notoriety and consistently use these places as examples. Yes, you may have done a great service to the people affected by such strife but you may also give in to the schemes of the people who want such events to occur at a given place.It is not the police presence but sometimes for me, in Fatehgunj, it is Maasi’s presence that generates a feeling of security. I guess that’s all I want to say.