pink city blues
man, Chai Stand, Rajasthan
The Pink City of Jaipur is decked with lots of colors besides pink.
The pink that makes Jaipur famous which appears on its original buildings, are indeed a site of architectural beauty to see. It’s a history page in real life. While, a temporary resident of Jaipur for some days, I enjoyed the pastime of watching people in the foreground: pedaling bikes, buying flowers, making chai, and eating chloe khuche, sev puri and momos – these were some of my favorites.
Amidst this all, there are men and women standing, looking and waiting. For what? Everything. And everyone. As I was waiting for a chai with a roll of bread, I also saw this man waiting. I wondered how many times he’d come here, how many chai’s had he sipped in his lifetime. I also wondered, where he’d been before now -at nearly 10 in the morning- looking well worked and ready for a hot chai break.
He didn’t speak English.
I didn’t speak Hindi.
Our hand gestures were friendly colloquy, communicating approval, a thumbs up by me and then a concurrent exchange of wide raised eyes of delight. Now, we accented the pink city, impressed with the rosy brown contents inside our disposable mortar wares.