Cutting Chai !

An art installation on Cutting Chai at the Kala Ghoda festival

‘Give me two cutting’ shouted a colleague. That was some months ago after a careless & loud ‘would you care for a tea’?!? I was new to Mumbai, staring wide eyed at every interaction & new culture. And this was my first tryst with a roadside tea shop in Mumbai. There were a group of us. And his sound thundered. ‘Dho cutting chai’ ( RTT: Two cutting tea) ‘Cutting?”

The infamous imagination wandered. “Cutting?” Now what was that !?! Whatever could it be ? I rankled all of my ramshackle brain.

And just as the tea was getting made, i conjured up the following.

Could it be ‘cutting edge’ tea? Like embellished with secret potions of nectar and holy water. Perhaps it had some technology infusion. Perhaps it helped survive the heat and the crowd. And gave a degree of resilience ! All of that could fall under the category of ‘cutting edge’.

Or perhaps it was to do with ‘cut’ as in ‘take a cut’. As in bribes. As in stock market gains. And so on. So, perhaps ‘cutting’ meant the shop keeper would take a sip before serving it to you, perhaps !

Or perhaps it was tea with lesser quantum of sugar, milk, tea powder. You know, tea where some quantity of regular ingredients were cut off !?! Budgetary necessities. Perhaps dietary !

Perhaps it was tea to give you an incisive cut !! Like in Julius Caesar, ‘this was the most unkindest cut of all’ !

Maybe it was to do with multi lane driving, where one driver from another lane ‘cut into your lane’, and the tea kind of cut into your routine.. That sounded far fetched.

The mind wandered and multiple visages of tailors dangling big scissors to accountants with spreadsheets, to doctors on operating tables with a phalanx of anaesthetists came up.

To put a stop all the floating images that were terrifying me further, with a hesitant quiver, i asked ‘err…what is cutting tea’ ?

There was a cumulative commotion of explanations. And the essence was ‘one’ ‘tea’, split in two ( or more) glasses for two (or more) people. And variants there on !

I said, “ah ! Back in Bangalore, its called ‘By – Two’ ” and before i could explain that its origins were in ‘one cup divided by two’, one wisecrack in the group, asked aloud : ‘Bite Who ? That sounds violent !”

I was new here. And i wanted to make friends. And in all seriouslness i said : “Yes. By-two sounds so violent. Cutting is so smooth’. There was a solemness that emerged from nowhere. And i gulped the tea.

I have embraced Mumbai since then, with multiple rounds of cutting tea ! That group member who abhors violence, for some strange reason goes the other way when i walk by.

(This post was inspired by a rekindled memory, thanks to an art installation on ‘Cutting Chai’ at the Kala Ghoda Festival )

14 thoughts on “Cutting Chai !

  1. This post makes me smile. Sometimes it’s really better to go with the flow.

  2. Braja says:

    Aw, Kavi, that was sweet…like chai 🙂

  3. Vijay says:

    “…Cutting Edge Tea…” funny term.

    Nice article.

  4. manju says:

    “Cutting chai”- typically Mumbai!

  5. Priya says:

    Cutting Tea is pretty interesting in this recession period.

  6. Cutting Chai is a term I know ever since I went to school. It is dying out now and probably will get classified as archaic expression as Irani Hotels are getting replaced with Baristas and CCDs!

    But there is no match to cutting chai!

  7. “by 2”, “by 3″……this used to be our most enjoyable social time with friends during college days when money was a big deal…..

    but, it is one of the fondest memories i treasure…..as we used to sip away the chai for hours….

  8. Sujatha says:

    I vote for ‘by two’! I would have gone through a smiliar exercise, trying to make sense. I’m glad something reminded you of this.

  9. Hilarious! I couldn’t stop laughing for a while…Yearning for ‘do cutting mumbai chai’ now:) Goes to prove that each state is like a different country altogether, in India!

  10. Wow!! Its amazing that you thought of so many different possibilities for the word ‘cutting’!!

  11. Jeevan says:

    Something we had in valparai is called Cutten Chaya. It is a tea made with hot water than mixing milk.

  12. nsiyer says:

    Hey Bhagwan! This Kavi is too much. With endless time and space, I am sure you would have written a dictionary on ‘Cutting’

  13. amreekandesi says:

    I remember my amusement when i had my first ‘cutting chai’ a few years back with my then Mumbai colleagues.

    Quite the fascinating expression!

    I just discovered this blog, and like your style of writing. Will be back for more!

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