My village tea shop is just a memory

Three months ago, I visited my village situated adjacent to the metropolitan city after a long gap of 20 years. Reaching the main junction of the village road, I looked around to see my favourite tea shop owned by Raman. To my shock, the shanty with the tiled roof had been demolished and a three-storey building was constructed there giving no clue at all about the tea shop that once existed there.

In my memory, it was an old ramshackle tea shop with two rooms; one small room used for the kitchen and another big one used for dining. The whole tea shop was blackened with soot as smoke emanated from the burning firewood in the kitchen. A few rickety desks and benches with an almirah in the middle of the shop always welcomed customers.

The smudgy towering almirah in which different food items were stacked was the main attraction of the tea shop. The owner of the tea shop was an octogenarian who always wore a dhoti and spent the whole of his life at his tea shop as far as I could remember. He had his house nearby, but he never went there except for emergencies.

Early morning business started only after his ablution in the nearby temple pond. After offering prayers in the temple and sporting sandalwood paste on his big forehead, he would begin his day of business. His life was going precisely like a machine; no faltering and no breaking down.

Sharp at 5 am in the morning, he started his business. Many of his early morning customers were the people from around his neighbourhood. They routinely swarmed his tea shop to have a glass of hot tea to prepare them for the day's grind. Then, the slow mode of business would turn to fast business till 9 O'clock in the morning.

During the period of 1984-86, I used to frequent this tea shop for relishing his delicious food delicacies. I used to take my seat behind the almirah, where few could meddle with me. Once the food items were served to me, I would pick the piping hot crispy vada and dip it in the Bengal gram curry and knead well with fried pappadam. The whole stuff would then turn into a paste. With piping hot tea, this would be taken in. Sometimes, Raman (we fondly called him Ramooppan) with a magnanimous heart would give me one or two more vada free of cost to fatten and finish my brunch.

Now all is gone. The foodie also passed away five years back. With his death, the delicious recipe of foods that once tempted and tickled many palates of the villagers also gone forever. For a moment, my heart vainly longed to see him. But the fact that the tea shop and its owner passed into oblivion made my heart heavy with sorrow.

Yes, death is a reality, and it will come any day uninvited. Time is a juggernaut that pulverises everything on its way slowly and steadily. Whatever we treasure today will definitely be lost forever tomorrow. This hard truth made my heart light and I continued my journey to my ancestral house a few furlongs away.