It seemed ages since this corner had seen life. Years back, this very spot epitomized the city's social fibre. Karim Chacha's tea stall or how that plywood board read out in colored chalk "Karim Tea Stoll". No big bucks would give you the same ambience as this stall set at the most dramatic location, on an old bridge that served its purpose as a crossing over a dry riverbed littered with sea of garbage. Karim chacha was a great man in his small way. With his navel showing vests, that seldom covered his potbelly, he was the most amiable personality in the business. People would just walk to him and pour out their woes. He remained a patient listener to the harshest of speakers. His stall was a neutral zone, where the rich in their Austins would sip his "Masala" tea sitting next to the truck drivers driving by from Punjab on their way to deliver goods to the industrial guzzlers at the other end. No other place enjoys this intermixing of social classes except for the city jails for some godforsaken reason. I still remember the brown leather covered transistor, whose crackles would have hordes listen to the cricket commentary over cups of tea and crisp "samosas" as Kapil's devils would take on the world. Not to forget, the wisecracks his baritone voice would echo bringing Mona Lisa to bare her teeth.
In this colored environment, I would come after my journalism classes, to hear the city speak out with total frankness, with no fear of suppression and also watch the variety of Ambassadors that crawled through the bridge for no other make had won over the Indian man like Ambassador- the car of the common man. I knew I had become a regular, when Karim chacha would beckon me to come and drink tea as I walked past everyday. A businessman, no doubt, but the love he put into it, made you feel so much at home, especially for a young man like me who had come into this strange city with big hopes and no one to call family. Karim Chacha did remove the quandary over the last case, so did the other regulars who all felt we were a huge family bound by tea – Karim Chacha's tea. It was in cold dreary monsoons that his pipping hot "Masala" tea revitalized you beating green tea hands down. Inflation hit the city, and prices just soared, but Karim Chacha still sold his tea at one rupee. The tea stall was a social club in itself. It was here, uplifters of democracy sat deciding when to hold the next strike, to help the common man, ensuring no pay that day. Irony and politics seem to complement each other. It was here, Religion and caste knew no barrier as people celebrated Diwali, Eid and Christmas with the same revelry. It was here, the first crackers were burst when we lifted the World Cup and it was here, that the heaviest collection box for the Bhopal victims was sent from, though there is a rumor that I would love to believe that Karim chacha filled all his earnings that week into the box. He was that sort of a man. To help even in utmost adversity. To do so with a dowry ridden daughter at home, it is not an easy job to be giving away money for charity. Charity often has been considered a luxury by middle classes, but it is people like Karim Chacha who make us realize that there still is a human element to it. Karim Chacha's father had left this small tea stall to him, since everything else was lost when the country divided into 2 bits. His father never reached the border, and secretly, I am happy about that fact.
Soon, I was shifted to a leading daily's office in the city centre and my meetings with Karim chacha became a page in my diary. Years later, I heard of a freak accident as a motorcyclist skidded over the tarmac ending up in two casualties. Needless to say why I feel a void as my air conditioned chauffeur driven Mercedes crawls over the bridge.
