Chai, Chai Quotes

“Duties can be taught but not the responsibilities.”
― Bishwanath Ghosh, Chai, Chai: Travels in Places Where You Stop But Never Get Off

“When you enter the home of God, you should get rid of all worldly distractions—that’s the message of the Khajuraho temples.”
― Bishwanath Ghosh, Chai, Chai: Travels in Places Where You Stop But Never Get Off

“It is, however, not the thought of your own death that makes the sight of the biers so terrifying: it is actually the thought of your near and dear ones being carried away in that fashion. It is a thought you consider secretly in the deepest crevices of your heart, not even sharing it aloud with your own self.”
― Bishwanath Ghosh, Chai, Chai: Travels in Places Where You Stop But Never Get Off

“Even the simplest of lives must have a routine. Or maybe, it is the routine that makes lives simple.”
― Bishwanath Ghosh, Chai, Chai: Travels in Places Where You Stop But Never Get Off

“I had, by now, travelled about half the breadth and almost the entire length of the country. If I were to join with a pencil the places I visited during the past few weeks, I would be drawing a crude ‘S’ on the map of India. These are places that don’t mean a thing to you because you never get down there, but at the same time they mean the world to you because no train journey is complete without them. They are irrelevant, yet they are a ritual. Next time when my train halts at any of these junctions, my mind would be racing back to the lanes and bylanes of these towns, which I know now like the back of my hand. But since I have been there and done that, I would, in all probability, be standing at the door of my coach and looking out for the man calling, ‘Chai, chai!”
― Bishwanath Ghosh, Chai, Chai: Travels in Places Where You Stop But Never Get Off

“I’m a Bengali,’ I said. His face lit up. ‘Oh Bengali! Bengali, Malayali same thing. Communism, cinema, culture . . .’ He could have gone on talking, but his English was as limited as my Malayalam. Though I could see from his eyes that he was genuinely happy to have me in that chair. I was glad that he did not speak English or else it would have broken his heart to know that I never lived in Bengal and was, culturally, more of a UP-wallah. I have let down—and even offended—quite a few Malayalis during my visits to Kerala. Upon knowing that I am a Bengali, they would presume that I hailed from Calcutta and was bound to be a distant relative of Jyoti Basu. Once, I was at a small gathering in Trivandrum, where a young man, in order to impress me about his knowledge of Marxist literature emanating from Bengal, asked me, ‘So what do you think of . . .?’ He named someone I had never heard of. ‘I am sorry, but who is he?’ ‘What? You never read his books?’ he was scandalised. ‘He is such a great writer.’ I told the young man that I had never heard of this writer. He was indignant. ‘What? You never heard of him? He is also a Ghosh, then how come?’ ‘I am sorry, but I have never heard of him.’ ‘What? You never heard of him? He is one of the leading lights of communism. How can a Bengali not read him?’ I told him I had never lived in Bengal and that the communist movement did not interest me much. ‘Oh, so where are you from?’ ‘I am from Kanpur, in Uttar Pradesh.’ ‘But you surname says you are a Bengali.’ ‘Of course I am a Bengali, but born and raised in Uttar Pradesh.’ ‘Oh, so you are a rootless Bengali. No wonder.’ The young man looked smug as if he had won a battle and he poured himself another drink. He looked around for approval but, fortunately, the other members at the gathering kept a straight face.”
― Bishwanath Ghosh, Chai, Chai: Travels in Places Where You Stop But Never Get Off

“I’m a Bengali,’ I said. His face lit up. ‘Oh Bengali! Bengali, Malayali same thing. Communism, cinema, culture . . .’ He could have gone on talking, but his English was as limited as my Malayalam. Though I could see from his eyes that he was genuinely happy to have me in that chair. I was glad that he did not speak English or else it would have broken his heart to know that I never lived in Bengal and was, culturally, more of a UP-wallah. I have let down—and even offended—quite a few Malayalis during my visits to Kerala. Upon knowing that I am a Bengali, they would presume that I hailed from Calcutta and was bound to be a distant relative of Jyoti Basu. Once, I was at a small gathering in Trivandrum, where a young man, in order to impress me about his knowledge of Marxist literature emanating from Bengal, asked me, ‘So what do you think of . . .?’ He named someone I had never heard of. ‘I am sorry, but who is he?”
― Bishwanath Ghosh, Chai, Chai: Travels in Places Where You Stop But Never Get Off

“But tell me one thing, why do Bengalis still use surnames that indicate their caste? We used to do it in Kerala fifty years ago, now we don’t do it any more. But you people still use Mukherjee and Chatterjee and so on.’ I did not have an answer to his question, but I knew that the question was a well-meaning one, asked out of innocent curiosity by one member of the communist society to another presumed member. He did not know that I actually hailed from the Hindi heartland, where people wear their caste names like medals. Casteism in Uttar Pradesh is so rampant that it can lead to embarrassing situations in day-to-day life because of two certain surnames—Sharma and Verma. There are two varieties of Sharma, one the Brahmins and the other the craftsman community, such as carpenters, called Vishwakarmas. And there are two varieties of Vermas, one the Kayasthas and other the mallah or the boatman community. The uppercaste Sharmas and Vermas never miss a chance to point out that they are not to be confused with the other set of Sharmas and Vermas. I was witness to such an incident, while in college in Kanpur. Among my many friends, there were two Sharmas, one Anil Sharma, a boy from a well-to-do family, and another Sunil Sharma, who rarely spoke about his family. One winter afternoon, while I was having a smoke with Sunil at the parking lot, Anil came by. I introduced them to each other. ‘Meet Sunil Sharma,’ I told Anil. Anil somewhat hesitated to shake Sunil’s hand but when he finally did, the first thing he asked was, ‘Are you the Brahmin Sharma or the Vishwakarma Sharma?’ Sunil’s face went red with embarrassment, but he mustered a smile and said, ‘Vishwakarma Sharma.’ ‘No wonder. I could tell that,’ Anil grinned and took leave, leaving me red-faced. But that was then. Today, Anil could have been lynched for that arrogant grin, because power has gone to the hitherto-suppressed classes. Either way, the fact remains that caste rules. Compared to Uttar Pradesh, Kerala might be a paradise, where caste is nearly irrelevant in public life, but are there not people who still take pride in being called a Nair or a Nambiar or a Menon? I wanted to ask Mr Sankarankutty that, but I let it be. His question was, after all, a well-meaning one. By now, I had completely forgotten that a whisky bottle was sitting there. The conversation with him had distracted me from my hypochondria and I felt perfectly fine. After he left, I reached for my skipping rope and jumped five hundred times non-stop. I knew I was in perfect shape to climb even a mountain.”
― Bishwanath Ghosh, Chai, Chai: Travels in Places Where You Stop But Never Get Off

“Cigarettes and communism have always gone hand in hand since there can be no better way of building comradeship than sharing a smoke. I”
― Bishwanath Ghosh, Chai, Chai: Travels in Places Where You Stop But Never Get Off

“In that playground we played cricket during winter afternoons—the neighbourhood boys, irrespective of which school they went to. Someone would own the bat, someone would contribute the ball, and someone else would bring the stumps. Pads and gloves were a luxury and largely unnecessary. The umpiring would be done by someone who had done with batting for the day, even though his decisions would often be overruled by the ‘third umpire’—one of the neighbourhood ‘uncles’ closely following the game standing at the gate of his house.”
― Bishwanath Ghosh, Chai, Chai: Travels in Places Where You Stop But Never Get Off