Chai Pilgrimage

Ganesh is the elephant-headed God in the Hindu tradition who is honored at the beginning of all ceremonies and endeavors. He opens the Way. We offer our love and gratitude to the One who blessed us with inspiration, guidance and protection, and continues to remove all obstacles on our Chai Pilgrimage. I have always loved elephants. Maybe that’s why I instantly connected with Ganesh when I first ‘met’ him. I made this Ganesh (available here) to remind me of his wonderful attributes and immense wisdom.

Ganesh is the inspiration for probably millions of artists. Everywhere we turned, we saw his image. We sighted this Ganesh-in-motion on the back of a rickshaw in Kathmandu.

We passed this Ganesh on a narrow alley in old Kathmandu. He seemed to be glowing.

I colored this ‘chai wallah’ version of Ganesh in my sketchbook.

Our friend Veejay is an artist living in Varanasi. He’s made (literally) thousands and thousands of Ganeshes.

Veejay’s brother, Deepu, carved this Ganesh for us.

And this special “lucky Ganesh penny” sits on my desk — my friend Amanda sent it to me from India.

I love to surround myself with reminders of the Divine, because it does just that — reminds me to REMEMBER. This is something I definitely ‘took’ from my visits to Nepal and India. Here, my days are filled with so much activity–work deadlines, cooking, cleaning, errands, and exercise — that I appreciate the reminder to pause for a moment, breathe, and give thanks. Whether the reminder is an image of Ganesh or Buddha, or even a vase of flowers or a walk in nature, it takes me to the same place within. Peace.

In addition to stories from our India travels, our chai pilgrimage continues on at home in New Mexico. Saturday was the big Bhandara Festival at the Hanuman Temple here in Taos. It was Neem Karoli Baba’s 35th Mahasamadhi anniversary. 108 Hanuman Chaleesas were sung from 4 am until late afternoon while a huge feast was cooked outside over fires. We made one of the many 13-gallon pots of masala chai that day. Below, Patrick smashes loads of ginger to make a warming-chai for the chilly, Fall morning.

After the tea and cardamon steeped, Jessie and Patrick strain the masala into the sweet, boiled milk.

And Maharaj-ji got the first sip as always.

We were especially happy the frost held off on our garden so we could bring flowers for Bhandara. Dhalias, gladiolas, zinnias, zulu princes, cosmos,

and thousands of marigolds for malas!

These are the Bhandara t-shirts I designed this year for the temple. I wanted it to be really kid-like and playful. The young Hanuman is printed large on the back of the shirts. He is trying to catch the sun made from his tail. (Patrick is wearing this shirt in the top photo.) An older, wiser Hanuman is printed small on the front with Maharaj-ji’s saying, “Love everyone, serve everyone, remember God.”

I wish I had pictures of the BEAUTIFUL temple room, the kids’ performance of the Ram Lila, and the fancy new chai dukhan that our friends Baltizar and Ananda made…but my camera’s batteries were out of juice. It was a really sweet day filled with many prayers and community. So many Indians make the pilgrimage to Taos, too, coming from all over the country, bringing India closer to home.

Our favorite way to drink chai in India is in tiny, one-use clay cups. If there are 3 chai wallahs next to each other, we always choose the one with clay cups. It’s authentic, tactile and fun. And the cups themselves are beautiful, in the most simple way. Many travelers attempt to carry one home to remember India by, taking the utmost care to preserve the delicate vessel by swaddling it with meters of fabric. I know—I’ve tried.

In Benares, we followed every man carrying a basket of clay cups on his head in search of “the potter behind the wheel”. Eventually, we found him. We met Mata Prasad, a clay pot wallah, in the courtyard of his family’s compound near Assi Ghat. It was the morning of Shivaratri, and although he was not working, he welcomed us to sit with him. Hundreds of clay pots laid out to dry on the roof covering his workspace—a simple open-air room with a dirt floor, a wooden bed, hooks for his clothes and a potter’s wheel.

Mata Prasad’s six grandchildren swarmed around him, and as their shyness wore off, they revealed a common twinkle in their eyes, a trait they obviously inherited from their grandfather. His name means “Gift of the Divine Mother.” His voice is aged and raspy but high-pitched and playful. He speaks Hindi with long, drawn-out syllables, and if you could only hear him and not see him, you would hear his smile.

We share a mutual friend, Hement Ji, who translated for us. “This is my small factory,” he told us. “Making these pots has been a tradition in my family for many generations.” We asked when he first learned his craft, and he exhaled a heavy chuckle. His eyes opened wide as he looked back in time. One of his first memories was playing with the water buffalo and cows when he was 13 or 14 years old—back when the British were still here. “Maybe, I was 15 or 16 when I started working,” he said. “This time I am not remembering, but I am guessing I am 60 or 70 years old.” If you do the math, he’s been spinning pots for a long time.

We returned the following day to observe Mata Prasad in action. He was wearing the same faded red t-shirt, white lungi, and kid-like smile. He squatted in front of his wheel, nearly an inch from the earth, picked up a large wooden pole and pushed the stone wheel in a counter-clockwise direction until it twirled out of its awkward wobble into a mesmerizing whirl. He had an economy of movement, gently touching the mound of clay and patiently waiting for it to form him a pot. Each one appeared like magic from behind his hands, and he effortlessly freed it at the base with a string he wore around his left wrist. After the pots sit in the sun to dry for one day, he makes a fire in a small mud room and bakes the pots for 12 hours until morning.

Mata Prasad spins about 500 pots in a day. The three shapes and sizes are used for yogurt, milk sweets and chai. When Patrick asks if he drinks chai, he laughs. “Huh, Huh,” (yes, yes) as he moves his head from side to side in the affirmative ‘Indian head waggle.’ “Two times in house, and wherever I will go, my customers, who purchase my pots, they offer me chai, chai, chai.” These half-baked, biodegradable cups, called puruas in Benares, are used once and then returned to the earth.

Nothing quite compares to drinking chai from one of these clay cups. Its primitive shape cradled in your hand and its warm dry rim on your lips accompanied by an earthy smell and taste strikes a tribal cord deep in your bones. When I tell Mata Prasad I prefer drinking chai in puruas, he quickly agrees, “Huh, Huh, because this is holy Ganga Ma’s clay. ” He uses clay that forms on the holy river’s banks after the monsoons, so like his name, Mata Prasad’s clay pots are also gifts of the Divine Mother.

As we say Namaste and thank him, he replies, “You are most welcome to come back again.”

And just so you can be amazed too, we have it all on video below!

Click image to read text.