On some weekdays, when my husband works from home and most Saturdays and Sundays, I make chai for us in the late afternoons. Because it is typically that time of the day when the thinking pots in our heads tend to dry up, a dose of caffeine, cardamom and love is often what refills them with ounces of energy to face the remaining day at hand.

A few minutes a day of boiling the water, adding the tea leaves, stirring our thinking pots is all it takes to have control and give us an oomph of energy and optimism, the I Can Do Its will automatically fly in our heads and yes, we will be able to do it, this afternoon and for many more to come!

Chai and All That

It is kinda romantic when he says “Can I have chai” in the middle of a long work day.

So I get my apparatus ready–two measured cups of water in a pot, 5 pods of cardamom, two teaspoons of chai powder and some whole milk, enough to make the chai medium brown.

I crush the cardamom pods, brush the insides into the pot, stir with love.

I filter the tea into cups, and carry his down to the office like a pot over my head.

In the midst of chatting with a colleague virtually, he raises his hand, in a gesture of thank you.

I retreat with a smile, and fresh energy, to tackle my sestina.

Born in Mumbai, India, Aruna Gurumurthy is a creative thinker, author, and poet. She has published seven books of poetry since 2015, her recent collection, a penning of love and motherhood that she’s read to children and seniors. Her poems appear in Bellevue Literary Review, storySouth, The Penwood Review, Redheaded Stepchild Magazine and others. Aruna was the runner-up for the 2022 Randall Jarrel Poetry Prize and a semifinalist in the 2022 and 2023 James Applewhite Poetry Prize. Aruna lives with her loving family in Chapel Hill, North Carolina and brings change in the world, one poem at a time.

Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.

Related Stories
None