Read this travelogue written by Prof. Shiva Aithal, revealing the traveller’s transformation from a tea lover to a coffee lover.
Usually, the sun is not fully up when I leave my town, Parbhani in Maharashtra, towards Udupi in Karnataka. A drive of one thousand kilometres towards the coastal town cruises with amazing transformations of every nature and kind, occurring every fifty kilometres not only in humans but also in the nature around. Not only does the dusty air in the beginning gradually transform into oxygen-rich greenery, but there also occurs a transformation in one of my “chaiophile” characters.
As I start the engine, the town still sleeps under a faint haze of darkness, as though the night has not yet decided to withdraw. The air is cool as I start to drive, carrying a crispness that convinces you, though only for a brief period of time, that summer and its heat are just a myth, an invention of pessimists who needed something to complain about. As I drive through towns, villages and cities, one common visual appearing regularly around the roads is the passing by bus stands, which are alive with their own strange theatrical ambience of people striving for a glass of “chai”. Chai sellers rattle their steel tumblers with the confidence of musicians striking the first note of dawn. Conductors, wide-eyed and loud, call out the names of distant towns, testing the strength of their throats against the morning air. A pack of stray dogs gathers near the tea stalls, not aggressive, not even particularly alert, but engaged in what looks like a lazy conference of equals.
Around one such roadside tea stall, I stop my car to join the ritual. My own day cannot begin without that half-glass of chai, sharp and scalding. Tea in Parbhani is not a luxury. It is the handshake of the morning, a ritualistic greeting with life that tells you that life has turned its wheel one more time. The man at the stall knows chai lovers like me very well enough to squint at me through the steam and say, “Ya Saheb! Have this Golden chai, after all, a strong tea makes a strong day.” He says it like scripture, like something handed down by his father and his father before him. I nod, accepting the wisdom, and take my first sip, the heat confuses my tongue. That is my fault, not the tea’s, as I sip further, the authenticity of Marathwadian chai reigns supreme not only on the tongue but also takes over the mind and body, just like that refresh button in modern gadgets.
At my feet, a mongrel wags his tail. He knows my weakness for biscuits and knows equally well that biscuits are only designed to break easily, especially as part of their share. When a piece drops, he claims it with the grace of an evolved beggar who, once a fierce food hunter on his own, the prince of jungles, has long since understood both his poverty and his patron’s habit. Nothing here is dramatic, but nothing is casual either. The rhythm of the road begins in such small exchanges.
I drive and move out, my vehicle carrying us into the countryside, where interruptions dictate the journey more than milestones. A man selling roasted popcorn or groundnuts fans air to the coal beneath his kadai with one hand and with the other waves to every passing vehicle with the solemnity of a diplomat greeting visiting delegations. A man with a turban, and a stick around his shoulders strolls along with a camel herding a fleet of sheep which trudge along the dusty sidewalk. And as always, the cows and buffaloes, eternal squatters of Indian highways, whose confidence in their immobility surpasses all authority, traffic, police, or time, bring the speedometer down, testing your patience as a long-distance driver.
As I reach Solapur, via Osmanabad and Latur and cruise towards Bijapur, the sun is already up, and the day has found its pulse, my poetic sense of cool breeze is hammered, and I join the queue of pessimists who whine at the scorching sun. The gentle AC inside the vehicle is a solace. A bit earlier, when the sun was yet to display its majestic rise, the roadside area till Latur is dense with smog from fields and also occasionally from coal-fired stoves. All along the trip till Solapur Tea reigns here as monarch, unquestioned and unchallenged. Every other shop is a stall, and each one claims to be better than the last. I stop at the outskirts of Solapur along the highway, an old man with a gravelly voice, and a touch of Urdu or Pharsi with some broken shayari calls to me, “Try here, saab. My tea makes people forget their woes. Even doctors come here secretly, and believe me, tea is an actual cooler inside your body, you’ll fully forget this outside heat.” He says it without irony, with the assurance of a man who knows the power of his brew.
I sip. It is indeed good. Sweet, heavy with cardamom, and strong enough to straighten a long drive complaining spine. Two sparrows flutter dangerously close to my glass, trying to steal the sugar crystals that stick to the rim. “See, even the birds approve,” the vendor chuckles. I laugh with him, but his point is well made. Solapur’s tea is a kind of natural medicine capable, if not of curing all, at least of softening what life refuses to fix. The old man with another broken shayari insists it even cures breakups and heartbreaks. I have not tested that claim, but I do not quarrel with the suggestion.
The road from Solapur carries me into Bijapur, and there my loyalty begins to falter. As the Gol Ghumbhaj hastily passes by, I stop near a stall, and I ask for chai. The man serves me a lukewarm liquid that tastes like water, faintly acquainted with leaves. He smiles, lips stained red with paan. “Special chai, saab,” he says with pride. I grimace. “This is special?” He shrugs. “People come here for Gol Gumbaz, not chai.” His words are without malice, as if he himself does not quite believe in the virtue of his product. A crow perched on the electric wire caws, as though mocking both of us. I leave half the glass behind, unwilling to complete the humiliation. As a regular passerby and already explored the Ghumbaz in my heydays, the monument doesn’t interest me today, nor does this town’s blatant chai. The transition of the transformation has just begun. I move ahead.
Hubli greets me next, but things only worsen. At one stall, a stray domesticated cat near the counter greets every customer with meows as if it’s saying “Coffee! Coffee! Coffee!” The vendor beams, as I enter “My cat invites customers,” he explains. I ask dryly if the cat also drinks. He laughs. “No, saar. But sometimes it spills the cup. His blunt sense of humor is matched by his brew. The coffee is flat, I leave half a cup aside and order tea, the tea leaves me uninspired. Even the cat, tilting its head at me, seems to say, I had already warned you, you only misinterpreted. I leave with a bitterness not from feline or caffeine but from disappointment.
And then, as though to reward patience, the road changes. Past Hubli, the land begins to rise. Trees thicken. Shadows lengthen. As we reach Sirsi, the air grows cooler, heavier with the scent of damp earth. Waterfalls tumble down rocky slopes, spilling like silver threads across green curtains of the Arbail Ghats. Monkeys position themselves at every curve, toll collectors of this forest highway, watching vehicles with professional suspicion, awaiting for an occasional vehicle with some enthusiastic family to stop over and share their eateries. A mongoose family darts across with its tail high, and three kids in trail, followed with a brushstroke of confidence. As a river passes by Brahmani kites, apart from darting in and catching fish, hover on the head with military grace, as if they’re checking each cross-border entrant vigilantly. Peacocks strut across the fields, with the arrogance of minor royalty. The stage is set for transformation.
The transformation begins with a fragrance. Not from any single shop, not even from the stoves, but first from the soil, air and green leaves themselves thick, smoky, and second – Coffee, strong and steamy!! Both are thoroughly inescapable. It seeps into the air, into the nose, into the mind. It tells me as if chai has been an apprentice all along, a well-meaning first love, but not the real thing.
At the first shack I stop, I ask for tea out of habit. The stall keeper freezes, ladle in hand, staring as though I had uttered a blasphemy. “Tea?” he repeats. “Saar, you are in coffee land now. Only a fool will ask for chai here.” Chastened, I nod. He prepares coffee with theatrical precision. The decoction drips patiently, dark and fragrant. Then he raises two steel glasses sitting on a small steel cup, letting the liquid fall between them in a shining brown arc. Froth rises, soft and regal, like a crown. The first sip undoes me. It is strong, smoky, disciplined, alive. Less a drink, more of an inspiring lecture, a bit stern, perhaps, but meant for my good. Behind me, a red-faced tiny monkey lunges at the steel cup, and I clutch it like a soldier defending a flag. The stall owner laughs, “They prefer biscuits, saar. But if you are careless, they will drink too.”
From then on, every stop is a coffee stop. At one small house cum stall cum eatery, a woman serves it from her verandah. She places the glass before me, her child peeping from behind the doorway. “Where from?” she asks. “Maharashtra, Parbhani,” I reply. She nods, as if knowingly. “Then coffee will be new for you. Careful, it can spoil your tea forever.” Her warning is tender, almost maternal. She is right. Each sip loosens my hold on chai, until the memory itself begins to seem distant.
By the time I roll into Udupi, the transformation is complete. The salt-laden breeze of the coast mixes with the deep aroma of filter coffee. Temple bells echo faintly in the distance. Chai, my first companion, has been left behind on the plains, faithful but forgotten for the next fortnight or so. Coffee reigns here, not as the lazy instant spoonful but as true decoctio thick, strong, persuasive. At the final stall before town, the vendor asks, “Strong ?” “Yes,” I say, “as strong as you can make it and with the least sugar.” He pours with ceremony, the froth standing tall. I sip slowly. Around me, the stray dogs no longer beg, the monkeys are gone, and even the crows seem content. That bitterness seems to be an antidote to the bitterness life throws at you.
A journey that began with half-glasses of chai in Parbhani ends with steel glasses of filter coffee in Udupi. Between the two lies the theatre of India itself—sparrows and crows, parrots and monkeys, mongoose and peacocks and vendors proud or indifferent, landscapes shifting from dry plains to dripping forests. The road alters more than destinations. It alters habits, loyalties, and the self.
In Parbhani, I was a man of tea. By Udupi, I am a convert. But it is not conversion by force. It is persuasion, patient and inevitable, whispered by the land itself. That is what the road does. It carries you forward, yes, but more often, it changes you along the way.
shiva.aithal@rediffmail.com
27 Sept. 2025