GetLit is a semimonthly series featuring works of fiction and creative nonfiction submitted by New School students. Each month has two opportunities to submit: an open call and a themed call. To submit your work or find more information, please visit GetLit’s submissions form.

This month’s open call nonfiction selection is “Chai” by Sobhia Kamal Jamro.

Sobhia (she/her) is a first-year creative writing MFA student concentrating in fiction, who, if she could, would write about everything in the world from the patterns the sunlight made on her wall this morning to the stubborn little hairs on her knuckles that she has to shave everyday (it keeps coming back). But since that’s not feasible, she is currently sticking to writing about the subtle loss of identity and culture one is forced to go through as they move continents.

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I remember always making two cups of chai, never one. There was always someone else to make chai for. Often this was my mother — you could never pass by her with a cup of chai in your hand without her asking, “chai? aur hai?” (Are you having chai? Is there more?) So it was an unwritten rule in our house that whenever you make chai, you make a cup for her too. And then when you bring it to her, she would sit and tell you about her day, and you would tell her about yours, and her cup of chai would go cold, unnoticed, until you remind her of it and she would say, “Oh! I forgot!” You would then heat up the chai  over the stove (microwaving chai is a sin), and bring it to her again, and one of us would continue the story we were telling. And again the chai would go cold. By the third or fourth time you’ve heated the chai, it’s become dark and bitter, undrinkable, to which my mother would say, “Oh, forget it. When you make it again, make me a new cup too.”

Sometimes I made an extra cup for my siblings. Oh we hated each other and never explicitly made each other chai. In the rare times we did, it was always a favor that we never let the other forget. So we played it off like this: when one of us made chai, we would just happen to make more than we need and would then call out to the others, “Chai hai, agar kisi ko chahiye tou!” (there’s chai, if anyone wants it!) Most times, several ‘Me!’s would come from different rooms, often in the morning (or, our mornings anyway — most days we all woke up at 4 pm and had “breakfast”). Other times, no one would respond but then I would go back to the kitchen two hours or so later and the tea pan would be empty.  

Since I moved to New York 2 weeks ago, I have never made more than one cup of chai. My roommate is also South Asian but she’s been in the States two years now so she doesn’t drink chai anymore and has instead embraced the coffee life. So now every morning, I heat up my water in a kettle — one cup, exactly — and put two Lipton tea bags into it and drink the disgusting mixture that my ancestors would die rather than call chai. Desperate for a real cup of chai, I finally bought an Indian brand of tea leaves from a South Asian store and made my chai over the stove. Forced by habit, I made two cups. Two hours later, I threw the extra cup away. The next day, I made coffee.