Saucer drinking in Bhuj

Indians, are bludgers. It's not a very nice thing to say, but, based on my Western viewpoint and work ethic, its true. We could, once again delve into that vast realm of cultural differences and the like. But, why bother, in many instances, to make comparisons between Australia and India, well, you might as well be talking about life in Australia, as opposed to life on Mars.

Indians, are, as a rule, bludgers. A bludger, is someone, who purports to be in some vague sort of employ, but, never actually seems to get much done. They just meander through their day, achieving little, while, to the naked eye, they seem to be achieving nothing at all.

In Australia, this is generally frowned on, and you re tagged a bludger. It's a negative. However, in India, it's a way of life, and God bless them for it. Its one reason why I can bludge around India, for a day, and my total spendings are often less than one hour's wages, in Australia. One hours wages work, at a fairly menial task, too, ie, pouring beer in a bar, on casual rates is more than most daily wages in India.

And so why should they set any sort of cracking pace, you might ask. Well, you wouldn't have to, because they don't.

It's with this in mind that I tried to figure out a true cultural oddity I discovered in the Guagarat region. I called it "saucer drinking", and based on what I've just said, it makes no sense at all.

Its an innovative new way to drink chai. You may have thought, you would drink hot tea, out of a cup, and, that was pretty much the extent of your options. No, this is India, there are always more options.

When I first saw it, I thought nothing of it, assuming the bloke had inadvertently spilled his chai into his saucer, and simply couldn't be bothered tipping it back into his cup. Eventually, however, the strange truth became clear.

What I was witnessing was no accident. This was how you drank your tea in this region. Probably the main reason this cult was not more universal across India was, in most places they don't give you saucers. In Calcutta, for example, due to the extreme poverty, they don't give out saucers as people would either steal, or eat them.

One receives ones chai in a small cup and saucer configuration. Then, one dutifully pours ones chai, into the saucer. As a cup, holds far more than a saucer, this process of drinking the chai, may see you refill your saucer four of five times. Once you've filled your saucer, one places ones cup on the nearest table, bench etc, and drinks directly out of the saucer.

When I first saw this, I laughed my head off. It looked ludicrous. Eventually, I came to thinking that, no, maybe I was the weird one. Round these parts, it was just how things were done. And laughing uproariously every time I saw it, was making me few friends.

The principal reason for saucer drinking, is that the process rapidly cools ones chai to a drinkable temperature, due to increased surface area. No sitting about, waiting for it to cool.

But even after coming to terms with the wholesale nature of the practice, I couldn't get over its fundamentally Indian nature, as it is a practice loaded with irony.

The chai waller now has twice as much to clean, due to supply two drinking vessels, not one. He must also, supply more chai, per cup, which reduces his profit margin. In this respect, he wholeheartedly encourages saucer drinking. When you receive a cup, it's invariably full to the brim, if not overflowing. The slightest mismanagement of your cup and saucer sees tea, valuable tea, overflow into said saucer. Which is probably how the whole craze started…

But one of the primary ironies of this practice is that it totally negates the point of the cup and saucer in the first place. Originally British in origin, the saucer was supplied with the cup, to ensure not too many unsightly tea rings appeared on the starched Victorian tablecloths, I.e. any spilled tea, was confined to the saucer, and didn't end up wherever the cup was placed. In any chai den, café, or restaurant in this region, the tables all invariably looked like they had ringworm.

Usually after around half the cup has been consumed, via the saucer, the customer reverts to drinking out of the cup, as the chai has now cooled sufficiently to gulp. As a result, the cup now meanders about, where ever that Indian may go, leaving a trail of little brown chai rings. For once the saucer is discarded as a drinking vessel, it is rarely re employed in its original British contrivance.

While the above ironies are numerous, and fairly jarringly blatant to the Western eye, they do not represent the primary source of confusion for me. No, that is reserved for the most fundamental, and overwhelming irony. Which is; why all these good folks are in such a hurry to drink their chai in the first place.

Frankly, they're not. Chai, is the veneer of purpose many Indian men need, to bludge around chai dens, all day long. Doing nothing but shooting the breeze and knocking off the odd cup of chai. They can loiter in such establishments, from dawn, till well past dusk. And barely register on the till of the owner. They've only bought three chais.

And yet, they all seem to explode out of the gate, in an effort to make a rapid start on their cup of chai. Its all a bit bemusing, their tortoise and hare approach to drinking. While the first half a cup, may last mere minutes, the final tepid third or so, may be seen sitting in front of them, for hours, occasionally to be used as a vehicle of respite, in a friendly, but heated debate. As things appear to be getting a tad fiery, in the eyes of this, uninformed westerner, the debate will suddenly subside in passion and volume, as all protagonists revert to an unrushed and sagely sip of their chai.

Then conversation resumes, and the cups of chai remain, now, well cold, but steeped in social purpose. This is but a microcosmic slice of Indian life that in a way, belies much of the fundamental irony that India throws forth.

This country is a sociologists dream, you could spend years applying academic frameworks and theories to India, trying to rationalize the myriad of odd cultural practices. Which is quite convenient, since Kimb, my Jewish American girlfriend has just such a degree. But even for all her academic parameters, frameworks etc etc, by which to dissect this phenomena, she can't make head or tail of it either.