Masala Chai

On my way home from New Delhi I ordered a chai tea from Starbucks during my layover in Amsterdam. It was this tea that reminded me of the feeling of not belong for the first time in six months.

I suppose I ordered it out of habit. During my time living in India I drank masala chai like it was my second job. Black tea and cardamom pulsed through my veins from morning until the songs of the Ganga Aarti rang in nightfall. 

No day passed that didn’t include masala chai. I would be offered it at every turn, in the homes of the people I visited because of my work, at the ashram, and by men on the street. Word of advice, masala chai is the only safe thing you should accept from Indian men smoking bidis. 

The free chai I was offered during the day was not always enough to quench my sugar-fueled thirst. I would order it alongside dinner at my favorite restaurants or from the kitchen at the hotel while I sat on my balcony. I even would go to the shop down the street to obtain a bar of dairy milk, my favorite Indian chocolate, to make my chai drinking experience all the more lovely.

As I stood before the Starbucks in Amsterdam I did not think I longed for India or anything really. I knew I couldn't stay in Asia forever and the only logical progression for my life was to come home. I did miss my parents and my dog.

Truthfully, I looked forward to this day. During my first month in India, it was dreaming of the day that I would again be on American soil that kept me going. I would remind myself that life would be easy again, I would have hot water and would not have to place my life in the hands of taxi drivers. But when this day arrived it was the tea that showed me everything felt wrong.

The woman behind the counter handed me the chai tea with no expression. People in India don’t smile at strangers either but in their world human connection is undeniable.

The feeling of a Starbucks cup in my hand was unfamiliar and artificial but I grasped it anyway. Very first wordy, I remember thinking, and then without thought, I drank. The beverage flooded my mouth with syrupy sweetness and flavors of the West. I was repulsed. I would have thrown it in the trash but I was too busy calculating my losses. How do five euros convert to rupees? How many dinners could I buy with that?

I had never had chai tea out of India and I thought it would be at least remotely similar to all of the cups I downed during my trip, but there was nothing similar about it. 

It was fake and I was standing in an airport hoping to belong in a sea of people that felt fake. I was suddenly extraordinarily aware that I had not shaved my legs in two months and that the wide-leg pants I bought from a market in Sri Lanka looked extraordinarily out of place.

It wasn’t just the pants that looked out of place it was all of me. The white shirt that I was wearing was stained with dust. My hair had not been colored or cut in months and there was a gnaw mark on my backpack where a rat tried to chew through the shoulder strap. 

But Christina, you were a blonde woman living in India. Didn’t you get used to feeling out of place? Yes and no. It was no doubt that my physical appearance and system of beliefs rarely belonged in India but there is something about blatantly not belonging that gave me the freedom to not try.

I came close enough to belonging in Amsterdam that I did not belong at all. If I tried hard enough I could fit in with the well-dressed Europeans that filled the airport but I had forgotten what trying felt like. And truthfully, I did not want to go back to a life of trying.

What if I told you that I still drink that horrible chai every day and then halfway through my drink I realize I do not have to continue drinking. What would you think? I don’t mean this literally but figuratively. Place a gun to my head and I will not suck down this westernized version of masala chai but I do drink down ideas of belonging every day.

I catch myself thinking that this life I want is too abnormal, that if I just lived in the way other people live I will be expected to. But then I realize, I don’t truly want this. I do not want to belong with a group of people who don’t even belong with themselves.

Once the horrible sugar and flavors have coated my teeth and mouth I realize I can decide to not belong and to not try at belonging. This state of not belonging is where the world’s best masala chai can be found.