Photos and Words

On a Sunday afternoon three weeks after I arrived in Bangalore, I found myself sitting in a tea house, feeling that, for the first time since I landed in India, I did not want to order masala chai. The tea house was the one in Cunningham Road, the same tea house I went to yesterday and the day before, all day last week and three times the week before that. It was a fairly quiet place and centrally located, a convenient place to do interviews for my research.

I know the masala chai served there by heart. It comes in a tall tin pot and small round cup with sugar cubes on the side, smelling more of cardamom pods than the ginger and cinnamon that also flavor the tea. The people I met always smile when I tell them how much I love masala chai, whether it’s the tea house…