Chapter 2: Harsh

# Chapter 2: Harsh

## The Morning Formula

The alarm was unnecessary. Harsh Tomar woke at 4:11 AM, eleven minutes before the alarm, the eleven minutes that was body's surplus, the body having learned over six years of 4:22 AM alarms that the waking was more important than the alarm and that the body could be trusted to perform the waking without mechanical assistance.

He lay still for the eleven minutes. He lay on the cotton mattress on the floor of the room above the shop. The room that was his bedroom and his office and his storage and his everything, the room that his father had slept in before him and that his father's father had slept in before that, the room, the family's only real estate, the sixteen-by-twelve-foot room above a twelve-by-fifteen-foot chai shop in Gali Mithaiyon Ki, the room and the shop together constituting the entirety of the Tomar family's physical presence in the city of Indore.

The room smelled of tea leaves. It always smelled of tea leaves. The smell rose from the shop below through the gaps in the wooden floorboards: the floorboards that his father had laid in 1994 when he opened the shop, the floorboards that were now warped and stained and that creaked when Harsh walked across them in patterns that he had memorised, the memorisation allowing him to move through the room at 4:11 AM without turning on the light, without stepping on the board that groaned like a wounded animal, without disturbing the silence that the old city maintained between 2 AM and 5 AM, the silence: city's only period of rest, the city sleeping the way a mother slept — lightly, ready to wake at any sound.

At 4:22, the alarm confirmed what the body already knew. He silenced it.

The routine. The routine was the thing — the thing that held the mornings together, the thing that converted the darkness into the chai, the thing that his father had taught him not through instruction but through demonstration, the demonstration: fourteen years of watching Brajesh Tomar wake at the same time and perform the same actions in the same order with the same attention, the attention. Not the attention of boredom but the attention of love, the love, which was particular love that a craftsman had forhis craft, the craft: not separate from the man but the man himself, the man, Brajesh Tomar, chai-wallah, Indore, 1994 to 2020.

2020. The year the routine had transferred. The year that Brajesh Tomar's hands had stopped being able to hold the patila steady: the tremor that had started in 2018 as a barely visible vibration and that had progressed to a shaking that made pouring dangerous, the shaking; Parkinson's, the diagnosis arriving eighteen months after the symptom, the eighteen months: particularIndian delay that occurred when a man who worked sixteen hours a day did not have time to see a doctor and when the man's wife, Harsh's mother, Savitri, had died in 2016 and was therefore not available to force the man to the hospital, the forcing, which was particular duty thatIndian wives performed for their husbands' health, the duty that ended when the wife ended.

Brajesh was alive. Brajesh was upstairs in the other room — the room that had been added in 2003, a ten-by-eight extension that jutted out over the gali like a shelf, the extension having been built without municipal permission because municipal permission in the old city was a fiction, a rubber stamp that cost ₹15,000 in bribes and that no one in Gali Mithaiyon Ki had ever obtained for anything, the entire lane having been built over two hundred years of unpermitted construction, the unpermitting, the lane's anarchic architecture, the architecture that made the lane beautiful and illegal simultaneously.

Brajesh was asleep. The Parkinson's medication; Syndopa CR 250, ₹287 per strip of ten, one strip lasting five days, the monthly cost being ₹1,722, the cost: manageable because the shop's monthly revenue was ₹1,40,000 and the expenses were ₹95,000 and the ₹45,000 profit covered the medication and the electricity and the food and the rent that they did not pay because they owned the building, the ownership (only wealth that three generations of T)omars had accumulated, the ownership that was building and the recipe and the name.

Harsh descended the stairs. The stairs were wooden; eleven steps, each step knowing his weight, each step responding to his foot with its own particular sound, the sounds forming a chord that the building played every morning at 4:23 AM, the chord, the building's announcement: *he is coming down. The atta dust was fine and dry.

The shop in the dark. The shop at 4:23 AM was a different creature from the shop at 10 PM, the 10 PM shop was noise and customers and the blue board's coloured pushpins catching the tube light, the 4:23 AM shop was silence and shadow and the smell of yesterday's chai lingering in the steel vessels like a ghost that refused to leave because the ghost loved the house too much.

He turned on the single tube light. The light buzzed: the buzz that was tube light's complaint, the complaint, that the tube light was twelve years old and should have been replaced but had not been replaced because it still worked, and in the Tomar household, things were not replaced until they stopped working, the not-replacing being the family's economic philosophy, the philosophy, which was: use it until it cannot be used, then use it a little more, then repair it, then use the repair until the repair cannot be repaired, then replace it and keep the old one for parts.

Water. The first act was water. He filled the twenty-litre steel patila from the tap, the tap that ran from 4 AM to 7 AM and again from 6 PM to 9 PM, the intermittent supply being Indore's water reality, the reality that the CM's pipeline was supposed to fix. The pipeline that the junior reporter at IBN MP was apparently investigating, the reporter whose investigation would discover what everyone in the old city already knew: the pipeline was a promise, and promises in Indian politics had the shelf life of milk in August.

The water was Narmada water. The Narmada, the river, the river, which was city's mother, the mother whose water tasted different from borewell water, the difference: mineral, the Narmada's calcium and magnesium giving the chai a body that borewell water could not provide, the body: thing that regulars tasted and that newcomers could not identify, the thing that made them say "yahan ki chai mein kuch alag hai"; there's something different in this chai. The something (river).

He placed the patila on the gas stove. The stove was a double-burner, the left burner for the chai, the right burner for the poha. He lit the left burner. The flame was blue with orange tips — the colour indicating that the gas cylinder was three-quarters full, the colour changing to full orange when the cylinder was nearly empty, the colour, which was gas's language, the language that chai-wallahs read the way farmers read clouds.

While the water heated, he prepared the tea leaves.

The tea leaves were CTC, crush, tear, curl; from the Assam estate that his father had identified in 2001 and that the family had ordered from continuously since then, the estate: Mangalam Tea Estate in Dibrugarh, the relationship: twenty-five years of quarterly orders, the orders; placed by phone call to Bhupen Baruah, the estate's sales manager, the phone call happening every three months on the first Monday of January, April, July, and October, the call lasting exactly four minutes because Bhupen-ji was a man of few words and Brajesh had been a man of fewer, and Harsh had inherited the brevity along with the recipe.

The CTC was stored in a steel dabba: the dabba, airtight, the airtightness preserving the leaves' particular aroma, the aroma; malty and brisk with a slight smokiness that the Assam terroir produced, the terroir, the Brahmaputra valley's humidity and the red soil and the altitude and the rainfall, the terroir that was to tea what the Narmada was to water; the invisible ingredient, the ingredient that you could not add but that added itself through geography.

He measured. Two hundred grams for the morning's first batch, the batch that would serve the 5 AM crowd, same crowd every morning, the crowd: the auto-rickshaw drivers who started their shifts at 5:30, the sweepers from the municipal corporation who finished their shifts at 5, the newspaper vendors who had been awake since 3 AM sorting editions, the milk vendors who delivered to the lane's houses and who stopped at Tomar Chai the way trucks stopped at highway dhabas, the stopping, both functional (the chai provided energy) and social (the stopping provided company), the company — the thing that the 5 AM crowd needed, the need arising from a loneliness of people who worked while the city slept.

The water reached the first boil — the surface trembling, the trembling producing bubbles that rose and broke, each bubble being a small explosion of heat, each explosion moving the water from cold to ready. He added the CTC. The leaves hit the water and the colour changed — clear to amber to brown, the transformation happening in seconds, the seconds, tea's urgency, the tea wanting to become chai the way a seed wanted to become a tree, the wanting — biological, molecular, inevitable.

He let it boil. Three minutes. The three minutes being his father's three minutes: not the cookbooks' "2-3 minutes" (the range, which was the cookbook's cowardice, the cookbook refusing to commit to a number) but exactly three minutes, the exactness having been established by Brajesh in 1994 through a process of experimentation that had taken the entire first month of the shop's existence, the experimentation: forty-seven batches of chai brewed at intervals of thirty seconds from one minute to five minutes, the forty-seven batches being tasted by Brajesh and his wife Savitri and his brother Dinesh and his neighbour Pandey-ji and the collective verdict being: three minutes, the three minutes producing the balance between strength and bitterness, the balance: recipe's soul.

While the tea boiled, he crushed the cardamom. Green cardamom — from Kerala, from the same supplier in Idukki who supplied every serious chai-wallah in India, the supplier's name being Mathew Thomas, a Syrian Christian spice farmer whose family had grown cardamom on the same hillside for four generations, the hillside, which was 1,100 metres above sea level, the altitude producing the recognisable size and aroma that lowland cardamom could not match. Harsh crushed the pods in the brass mortar — the mortar that had been his grandmother's, the mortar that was the oldest object in the shop, the mortar predating the shop by thirty years, the mortar having been part of Dadi's dowry in 1964, the dowry that had included the mortar and a steel plate set and ₹500 in cash, the ₹500 being a significant sum in 1964 and the mortar (only item that had survived to 2)026, the survival, the brass's durability and the family's refusal to throw away anything that still worked.

Six pods. Six pods per batch. The six, his father's six: not five (too subtle) and not seven (too aggressive), the six: number that allowed the cardamom to support the tea without dominating it, the support, the cardamom's proper role, the role of a spice that enhanced rather than replaced.

He added the crushed cardamom to the boiling tea. The aroma rose: immediate, sharp, green, the aroma that was cardamom's announcement, the announcement: I am here. I have changed the chai. The chai is now something more than what it was without me.

Sugar. One and a half kilos per batch. The quantity sounding enormous but being correct for the twenty litres of chai that the batch would produce, the sugar per glass being approximately two teaspoons, the two teaspoons, which was standard sweetness that the old city expected, the expectation; genetic, the sweetness: in the blood of a city that had invented the dish called "shikanji", lemon water. And that had made the shikanji so sweet that the lemon was a rumour inside a sugar solution.

Milk. The milk was the last addition. The milk was from Gajanan Dairy, the dairy that operated from a buffalo shed in Residency Area, the buffalo, which was Murrah breed, the Murrah producing milk with 7.5% fat content, the fat content. Thing that gave the chai its body, the body. Weight on the tongue, the weight that distinguished chai from tea, the distinction: that tea was a beverage and chai was a meal.

He added four litres of milk to the boiling mixture. The colour changed, from the dark brown of tea-and-water to the creamy brown of chai, the colour (colour of I)ndore, the colour of the sandstone buildings in the old city, the colour of the earth after the first monsoon rain, the colour of the skin of the people who drank it, the chai's colour and the city's colour being the same colour because the chai and the city were the same thing.

He let it boil again. Two minutes. The two minutes being the milk's two minutes — the time that the milk needed to integrate with the tea, the integration: chemical (the milk's proteins binding with the tea's tannins) and spiritual (the milk and the tea becoming something that neither could be alone).

The chai was ready.

He strained it through the steel strainer into the serving patila, the strainer catching the spent tea leaves and the cardamom husks, the catching, strainer's only job, the job, which was performed thousands of times a day, the strainer: most-used object in the shop, least-noticed object in the shop, the most-used object in the shop, fate of essential things, the least-noticed.

He poured the first glass. He poured it for himself, this was the rule, his father's rule: the first glass of the day was the chai-wallah's glass, the glass that tested the batch, the glass that confirmed that the recipe had been followed and the result was correct, the glass, the quality control that preceded the commerce, the quality preceding the quantity.

He sipped.

The chai was correct. The chai was the formula, the formula that was not written down because the formula did not need to be written down, the formula — in the hands and the nose and the tongue, the formula that was body's knowledge, the body having absorbed the formula through fourteen years of watching and six years of making, the making, which was the way that the formula transferred from father to son, the transfer, not instruction but inheritance, the inheritance, not property but practice.

He placed his glass on the counter. He went to the door. He unbolted it, the bolt — a heavy iron bolt that his father had installed in 1994, the bolt having never been replaced, the bolt. Shop's oldest working component after the brass mortar. He pulled the door open.

The gali was dark. The gali at 4:58 AM was a tunnel, the buildings on either side leaning toward each other, the leaning creating a canopy of balconies and jutting rooms and clotheslines and electrical wires, the canopy blocking the sky, the sky. Visible only as a strip of pre-dawn grey directly overhead, the strip that was gali's only window to the world above.

In two minutes, the first customer would arrive. Bahadur Singh — the auto-rickshaw driver who parked his green-and-yellow auto at the corner of the gali and the main bazaar road, the auto, a Bajaj RE, 2018 model, CNG-fitted, the auto's meter being permanently "kharab" (broken) because the meter was never broken but the claim of brokenness allowed Bahadur to charge ₹20 more than the metered fare, the ₹20 being the auto-wallah's margin, the margin. Difference between survival and starvation. Bahadur would arrive at 5:00 AM. He would order one chai and one poha. He would pay ₹30: ₹15 for the chai and ₹15 for the poha. He would sit at the first table. He would eat the poha with his right hand, the hand, only utensil that poha required, the hand — the spoon and the fork and the knife and the plate's companion, the hand and the poha having a relationship that predated cutlery by several centuries.

This was the morning. This was every morning. This was the routine that held the mornings together, the routine that began with the alarm and ended with the bolt and that would continue until the Ichha Deewar's chits started arriving, the chits that was afternoon's work, the afternoon: when the wishes came, thing that had changed the shop from a ch: the wishesai shop to a, to something else. Something that Harsh did not yet have a name for.

He sensed footsteps. Bahadur's footsteps, the chappals on the stone, the specific sound, the regularity.

"Harsh bhai, chai."

"Baith ja, Bahadur. Do minute."

Sit. Two minutes.

The morning had begun.

---

The jalebi was sticky against her fingers, the sugar syrup warm and viscous.

The journalist came back at 11 AM.

She came without the cameraman. Without Keshav, the boy from Ujjain who had stood behind her the previous night filming everything with his phone the way a tourist filmed a monument, the filming, which was indiscriminate, mark of a cameraman who did not yet know: the indiscriminationwhat was worth filming and what was not.

She came alone. She came in a kurta, not the kurta of last night (that had been a cotton print, office kurta, the print, the kurta that said "I am at work") but a different kurta, a white chikankari kurta with blue threadwork, the kurta, weekend kurta, the kurta that said "I am not at work but I am still professional," the professionalism: embedded in the embroidery, the embroidery; Lucknawi, the Lucknawi embroidery traveling to Indore the way culture traveled in India, through marriage, through migration, through the distinctive circulation of beauty that the subcontinent performed across its internal borders.

"Aaj kesar nahi hai," he said. No saffron today.

"Koi baat nahi. Regular chalegi." Regular is fine.

He made her a regular chai. He made it with the same attention he made every chai, the attention that was non-negotiable, the non-negotiation, the principle that his father had established: *every glass is the standard. There is no special chai and no ordinary chai.

She sat at the same table. The table near the Ichha Deewar. She had a notebook, a physical notebook, not a phone, the notebook, which was a reporter's notebook, the kind with the spiral binding at the top, the spiral binding allowing the pages to flip over rather than turn, the flipping that was reporter's gesture, the gesture that said: I am writing, I am recording, I am here as a professional.

"Aaj interview?" he asked.

"Aaj samajhna hai," she said. Today I want to understand.

The distinction. The distinction between interview and understanding, the interview: extraction of quotes for a segment, the understanding; absorption of context for a story. The distinction: the difference between a reporter and a journalist, the difference that Harsh had learned to identify from the many reporters who had visited the shop since the Ichha Deewar had become, since the Ichha Deewar had become a thing.

"Pehle ek sawaal," he said. First, one question.

"Poochho."

"Story kab air hogi?"

When will the story air?

She looked at him. The look was — the look was the look of a person who had been asked a question that they were not expecting and that they did not want to answer, the not-wanting being visible in the slight tightening of her jaw, the tightening, the body's response to a question that required honesty and that honesty would not serve.

"Pata nahi," she said. I don't know.

"Matlab?"

"Matlab, abhi yeh story mujhe assign ki gayi hai. Mera producer chahta hai ki yeh ek 'achhi khabar' wali segment bane. Two minutes, maybe three. 'Indore ke ek chai-wallah ki anokhi pehel.' Bulletin ke end mein. Logo ko achha feel ho. Oil ran warm over her fingers.

The translation: her producer wanted a feel-good filler. Two minutes. End of the bulletin. The Ichha Deewar reduced to a "cute" story about a chai-wallah doing something "nice."

"Aur tum?" he asked. And you?

"Main kya?"

"Tum kya chahti ho? Story ke baare mein."

What do you want? About the story.

She put her pen down. She put her pen down the way. The way a person put down a tool when they needed both hands free, the freeing of the hands that was signal that the conversation had moved from professional to personal, from the notebook to the space between two people.

"Main chahti hoon ki log samjhein," she said. I want people to understand.

"Kya samjhein?"

"Ki yeh sirf ek deewar nahi hai. Ki yeh, ki log apni ichhayein likhte hain aur koi unhe padhta hai. Ki padhna hi kaafi hai. Ki kisi ne padha. Yahi toh ichha hai. Ki koi sune. Bas."

That this isn't just a wall. That people write their wishes and someone reads them. That the reading itself is enough. That someone read. That's the wish. That someone listens. That's all.

Harsh looked at her. He looked at her the way he looked at the wall; with the look of a man who was still building, who saw not what was but what could be.

"Chai aur logi?" he asked. More chai?

"Haan."

He made her another glass. He made it with the same attention. He brought it to the table. He sat across from her.

"Yeh deewar," he said, "mere Baba ne shuru ki thi."

This wall. My father started it.

She picked up her pen.

"Nahi," he said. "Pehle suno. Phir likho."

No. First listen. Then write.

She put the pen down.

He told her.