The brotherhodd of Anjj

It may not be not in the same league as the “Coffee House culture”, but its almost as colourful, stimulating and free-wheeling. And if course, there are the customary rounds of steaming beverages and wandering smoke rings. Life at IIT wouldn’t have been the same without the Anjj brotherhood!!

It all started with the search for a place that served good “North Indian style” chaai, which for dummies is tea with extra sugar and milk and served in thick walled glass tumblers. (No regionalism involved here, its just a lifestyle choice!) The vending machine fare at Gurunath, for all the eye-candy charm of the place, wasn’t good enough and Tifany’s was OK but too far-off from the hostel zone. (Proximity was an issue because chaai for the lot of us was like antivirus software updates – regular editions were required for smooth functioning of our systems.) It was then that these outlets outside Krishna gate were discovered. The tumblers were in place, and the tea was definitely acceptable. The fact that you could light up in these places was a big plus. (The “electricity-powered” lighters that these places sported were unlike any I had seen anywhere before.) This initiated the trips to these chaai stalls, which soon settled into a regular, rarely disturbed pattern – after breakfast, after lunch, in the evening, after dinner, near midnight and any time in between whenever deemed necessary. Sipping tea, coffee or “Boost” and sitting on circular stools of moulded plastic or on the cemented steps of the shops, the tea-lovers club would have lively, boisterous and unbridled discussions on truly “arbit” topics – sometimes sensible, sometimes utterly insane. Politicians were abused, World Cup soccer history was revisited, professors were cursed (and their daughters blessed!), the Tata-Corus deal was analyzed, the future of renewable energy was pondered upon, the origins of prevalent expletives were unearthed, Himesh Reshammiya was consigned to ashes, the mating-cycle of the monkey was discussed, menus of extrapolated marriages hotly contested … you basically get the idea. As more and more chaai stalls were identified and sampled, they were given unique code names by the brotherhood – the one with the best tea (and the most frequented) was chaai anna (its officially called the Balan tea stall), the one adjacent to the Krishna gate was gate anna, the one which served special ginger-cardamom tea was SPL anna, the one opposite to a doctor’s clinic was doctor anna, and the late night vendor who operated from 10pm – 6am to cater to the TCS nightstaff was TCS anna. In due course of time, the tea-zone acquired a personal sense of belonging for the regulars (who called themselves the Anjj gang), and occasional visitors were deemed as guests and treated to free tea as a mark of courtesy. Standing at the fag end of my end of my IITM days, I realize that the chaai phenomenon has almost become a physical part of me which cannot be separated from me without a certain amount of pain.

Of course, apart from the regular goings-on of the tea-zone there were always some quirky happenings that add spice to the story. There was the case when one of us accidentally broke a tumbler and prepared for a tirade from the tea-stall owner. To our surprise, the man calmly walked upto us, flashed an open palm at us, mouthed the words “anjj rupa” and started cleaning away the shards of glass. We had no idea what that meant, until a Tamil-speaking guy explained that “anjj rupa (meaning five rupees)” was the penalty we had to pay for destroying the tumbler. That was that. This incident was the genesis of the name the tea-regulars acquired later on – the Anjj gang. Then there was this dogess (“bitch” really has very negative connotations in our mind) which grew fond of us when we fed her with biscuits every time we came for chaai. She would wriggle with joy whenever she spotted us coming, and would accompany us till the hostel gates every single night. Then there was the day one of us narrowly missed being drenched by a dash of water, splashed by a resident who was traumatized by the ruckus we created while we had tea. And of course, there was the regular haggling with the guards at the Krishna gate when we went to have our midnight tea at about 11:45pm. Eventually the guards realized we were harmless desperados and ceased accosting us. These, and many other moments, are endearing tea-moments of a lifetime.