Connaught Chaiwalla

The place, Connaught Place, New Delhi.

The place is famous for its coffee clubs and tea houses. Most political and corporate strategies used to be discussed and finalised at these coffee clubs and tea houses at one time. But the best tea to be had at Connaught Place is from the 'kettlewala' who goes around the parking lot. Always smiling, and always present. In the heat of the Capital's summer, or in the biting cold in the winter... He is always around.

He knows all the vehicles and all the drivers. Most drivers call him by his first name, while he also waves in recognition to some drivers. Caught up with modern times, he now serves tea in a plastic cup and has gone along with inflation and his cup now costs five rupees. I remember having tea from his brethren at Connaught Place in 1987 for one rupee and was served in a clay pot that could be smashed near the dustbin.



The Connaught Chaiwalla - actually thats a good term... I coined it just now - is a good example of marketing at its best. He exhibits -
(1) Enterprise
(2) Innovation
(3) Location
(4) Customer Access
(5) Quality

Enterprise - He beats all the coffee clubs and tea houses hands down. He is able to move all over Connaught Place. He gives a free cup of tea to those who would prevent him from conducting his business. A free cup of tea is also provided to the custodians of the parking lots on occasion, though not as a rule. He walks about in small circles, waiting to exhaust his refill of tea and then walks back to his filling up joint... like a fuel pump...

Innovation - He does not need a ferry-cart or a hawking stand. The heating unit is below the Tea Kettle, and comprises blown out charcoal that keeps it warm. He carrys wax paper strips to get the charcoal burning again. The paper strips are actually agarbatti sticks, wrapped in paper and then coated in candle wax. He inserts the ignited strip inside the stove and waits for the flames to get stronger before he blows them out. The plastic glasses for tea are carried in an outer pocket on his pant. This is actually a worrisome aspect.

Location - Location, Location LOCATION!!! The cornerstone of any successful business. What can be better for selling chai than all over Connaught Place? Any person wandering in and out of Connaught Place or trapped in the myriad parking areas needs Chai, period. And these wonderful souls are not in search of the "Tea House" tea, usually, the 'dip dip wali' chai. What is needed is a small cuppa of good honest extra sugar extra milk thick strong chai... what would actually pass of as a 'daaba wali' chai. And, our Connaught Chaiwalla provides this service. On Location, available, every time you look around.
Customer Access - That he is, - accessible... totally. You can chat with him all that you want. He answered all my pesky queries with patience and a smile. And yet, when I proudly told him that I wanted to put him on the internet, he seemed to know all about it. He said that at least one foreign tourist talks to him in detail every week, and each one promises that he would figure on the internet. Sometime, somewhere, somehow, I predict that he would use GPS and Blackberry and get his email chai orders and also through SMS. He will locate the vehicles with GPS and may also start his own franchise service. I hope he does not do so. Today, he is definitely accessible, face to face, talkative, smiling and a provider of a good honest cup of hot tea.
Quality - He has an answer to every cynical question that you may put to him about the quality of his Chai, the tea-cups and his kettle. Actually he has you at a disadvantage - for you do not know the quality of the tea-making location, the milk storage containers, the sugar storage bins and the clean up place for his kettle. What you see is what you get. Because you do not see where it came from in the first place. Some of his answers include - (a) you should see the other tea stalls in the area, (b) hot boiled water does not contain any live germs, (c) plastic cups are cleaner than the best cup in the best Tea House. About himself, he says - (a) I do not touch the Tea or milk with my own hands, (b) How do you know that you are cleaner than me?


Which tea do you prefer? The 'dip dip wali' or the 'daaba wala'?
This is THE question of the emergence of the 21st Century and the Software Parks and Corporate India. Here you are, earning a five-figure salary, ensconsced in an air-conditioned office room or in a swanky conference hall, and you need a strong cup of tea to get your grey cells going. And what do you get? Some of the most frail looking cutlery, Tea Cups with bone handles, and hot water, milk powder (or milk if you are not lucky), and tea bags. I cannot figure it out. You need tea, and you are an Indian, then you need the best tea that you can get - in thick milk, with lots of sugar and strong tea leaves that you can spot at the bottom of your cup.
So, what would you prefer? The Tea Bags? Its usually now termed as the 'dip dip wali' chai. The tragic aspect of this development of the 21st Century is that even the chaiwallahs in long-distance trains and railway platform canteens are now turning to the 'dip dip wali' chai. I hope that this virus does not spread to the innumerable dirty-in-their-own-unique-way daabas that are all over the country of ours. The sight of that daaba chai maker, in his own significant manner of allowing months of grime to rest on his body, swing off the cup of tea is enough to make anyone feel that he is going to get a good cup of tea.
The amazing aspect of Connaught Place is that you get Chai of all chorts... - The mendicant Connaught Chaiwalla, the Tea House bone china tea-bag 'dip dip wali' tea, the udipi hotel tea at Hotal Saravana Bhavan and other similar ones, the tea from the very terrible tea machines (I hate them for destroying the diversity of India), and the hidden side-lane daaba imports in the middle lanes of Connaught. There are daaba imports from Punjab-Haryana imitations who vend makki-ki-roti and sarson-ka-saag, and will sell you a grimy glass of 'daaba wala' chai. These places are usually apna-sort of rajma rice joints that sell enormously during lunch time. Imagine the global warming rise locally inside airconditioned office rooms after ten colleagues wander back after gorging on dal fry and rajma rice. You would need a special type of air freshener after their united contribution to inner-room localised climate change.
The noble chaiwalla from Pathanamthitta - located at Connaught Place
Anyways, I remember a tea-stall outside the Air India building. In those years, ie 1986-1990, prior to the Internet... and later, maybe upto 1997, there would be long queues at the Air India building to purchase tickets on Air India and Indian Airlines. Friends from the US, two professors and their spouses, had purchased the 8-day travel as much as you want tickets from Indian Airlines using dollar payments. They wanted to finalise their ticketing routes. And the ticketing clerk at the window had given them a token that said 238 or something like that, which meant simply that they were No. 238 in the queue. And I was stuck... and needed tea, and so I wandered off to the chaiwalla on a small wooden platform outside the Air India building.
Those were the pre-terrorism scare days, and there were telewaalas and hawkers around every sensitive building. This chaiwalla had two absolutely dirty benches next to his wooden stall. I spread a copy of the Hindustan Times and sat there for about 4 hours or more, having nearly 6 creamy sugary scones and about 7 cups of tea and chatting with the great soul on everything from Ronald Reagan to Perestroika to the topic of those times... Globalisation. This noble soul was from Kerala, looked like a Haryanvi, dressed like a Pathan and talked like a Delhi Transport Bus Conducter. You can imagine the national appeal oozing out of him.
He felt that Ronald Reagan should go ahead with Star Wars, and that would give an excuse to Gorbachev to avoid Perestroika. At that time, I had not known that this noble person was from Kerala. Upon enquiry, he told me that he was from Patthanamthitta, in the manner in which only certain Keralites from Patthanamthitta can swirl the word around. Not all Keralites can say so. I loved him for his phonetic expertise, for he soon went into a Jhajjhar accent from Haryana in explaining why a tourist-taxi driver from Chandigarh should eat at an Udupi South Indian restaurant. According to my friend, all Haryanvis should eat Idlis and get to move up in life. And drink up on his tea, of course.
My man from Patthanamthitta had an interesting theory about globalisation. He said that Shri Narasimha Raoji, the Prime Minister of India, was quite lost about globalisation. He should have made a special Ministry for globalisation and the Minister should be located in Dubai. He felt that the Government of India should have at least 4 ministerial offices in Dubai, Singapore, Chicago and London. He said that Indians are already global and they have lots of money and they would have a lot of contacts. If we open offices and single-windows in Delhi and wait for investments and want the heavy business kings to negotiate with our babudom... my man from Patthanamthitta felt that was like boiling the same pan of tea again and again... and hoping that it would become falooda... Actually he said - "aap chaipatheli ko baar baar ubalenge tho falooda tho nahin na aayega..."


The best tea that you can drink where Janpath meets Connaught Place.

2 comments:

  1. Bharat, appreciate this piece. The part aboout “national appeal oozing out of him” is precious.

    At some point look at the golawallahs and kids.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Good one Bharat..... appreciable as always

    ReplyDelete