Offerings Of Chai

Jul 9, 2024 | permalink

Many months ago, I agreed to support a friend's book with foreward. I didn't anticipate it would be so timely. While in the hospital with my brother, I wrote this about my experiments in finding beauty amidst constraints.

In the midst of my brother's arduous 73-day hospital stay for a complex bone marrow transplant, my family stumbled upon a simple yet profound practice: bring homemade Indian tea, chai, for the nurses. Initially, we brought it to sustain ourselves through our 24x7 caregiving caravan, but one morning, we offered it to a nurse in gratitude for her work. Soon, this small act of kindness became the talk of the ward. It was a gesture of kinship, a bridge across the shared uncertainties of life. Our humble chai became a beacon, flask after flask, offered to anyone who entered our room. The nurses flocked to my brother’s side, drawn not only by his serenity and gentle joy but also, I like to think, by the warmth of the chai. :)

One morning, as I perfected my “gold medal chai” recipe, I realized something that was staring at me all along – the ingredients! The mint was from my cousin’s backyard that she generously delivered every week, the milk was from cartons that my Dad would pick up to save us grocery shopping time, the custom “masala” mix of spices was a gift from friends from India, lemon grass was lovingly plucked by Mom’s hands and frozen into a ziplock bag. So many hands were contributing to a single cup of chai, so many hands were receiving this cup of chai, and so many more would benefit from its ripples.

Beneath these practices lies a subtle yet revolutionary insight: resilience is a collective endeavor. As mindfulness centers us amidst overwhelm, we awaken an impulse to see the shared suffering of others. And as that compassionate instinct is sharpened, we drop into a profound connectedness with all life. Now, individual difficulties feel shared across many able shoulders of our affinities. An individual heroic journey for resilience gives way to a quiet surrender into a web of relationships – that organically regenerates with wider and wider arcs of existence.

Full foreward here.