Chai Pilgrimage

Click the arrow below to hear these women singing, or click the link to download the mp3.

Choti Maharaj’s Ashram in Vrindavan, India: Sita Ram Radhe Sham

Religion and Spirituality are the essence of Indian culture. At any time, wherever you are, there are reminders of India’s religious diversity and our relationship with the Divine.

Religious dress distinguishes Hindu women in saris, Muslims in burqas and Tibetan Buddhists with red and yellow robes. People greet one another with hands over their heart while saying the sacred salutation “Namasté” or “As-salam Alaykum.” Children are named after Hindu Gods and Goddesses or companions of the prophet Mohammed. Even restaurants and other businesses bear the name of God, like Buddha Airlines, Hanuman Tea or Ram Milk Sweets.

God’s names echo across the city, as chants from temples or the call to prayer from mosques broadcast through blaring loudspeakers. Throughout the day there are processions celebrating a marriage with drumming, dancing and flashing lights, or honoring a death by carrying the colorfully wrapped body through the streets, chanting Ram Nam Satya Hai (the name of God is Truth). Flowers, ghee lamps and incense are offered at roadside shrines. Street musicians sing devotional songs to God. Wondering monks ask for alms. Images of Hindu deities hang on the walls of chai shops while carved stone icons silently observe.

Although chai is not a doctrine of any faith, (except perhaps our own), it seemed to be the element that transcended all gender, age, caste or religion. Like God, chai was everywhere. So, as we traveled through Nepal and Northern India, we drank up not only chai, but also the rich spiritual way of life.

Click the arrow below to hear one man’s morning prayer on the Ganga in Benares, or click the link to download the mp3.

Ganga Solo

Sikkim, India: Rumtek Monastery Chanting

After several months of reorganizing our lives around the trip, preparations were finally complete. They had to be. We bought cheap, non-refundable airline tickets, told our clients that we were leaving, and our house renters were moving in the next day. We carefully packed a pile of necessities that had accumulated in the middle of the living room into our backpacks.
“Water filter.”
“Check.”
“Flip flops.”
“Check.”
“Toothbrushes.”
“Got ‘em.”
And so on.
Then, on a full-moon winter night, we took off for the other side of the world.

We set our intention to spend the next four months thoroughly steeping ourselves in chai culture. Our mission: to connect with people and document our experiences with chai drinkers (which in Nepal and Northern India is just about everyone), tea farmers, tea leaf pluckers, fellow chai wallahs (makers of chai), tea cup potters, spice merchants, dudh wallahs (milkmen) and the cows too. We realized this was much more than a creative research project. It was a personal pilgrimage to the land where chai was born and continues to flow in every home and at chai stands on every street.

Although we enjoyed one the most memorable times in our lives, it was not easy. For a foreigner, a full India experience includes a certain degree of discomfort. Inevitably, you get sick, either from amoebas in the water, a chronic cough from the thick pollution, or any number of obscure viral illnesses. Often, frustrations are brought on by cultural gaps and attachments to what we perceive as ‘normal’. Litter, noise, spicy food and extreme smells overload the senses. At the same time, the lack of a Western standard of personal space amongst a billion people, and the sometimes-frightening, heightened awareness that we are living in the mystery and anything could happen, became endearing. We oscillated between ecstasy in the present moment and longing for home and our own bed. We prayed continuously, laughed a lot and were constantly reminded of how blessed we are. This is what made our chai pilgrimage a spiritual journey.