Chandra, aka Moa, is one of Mokokchung town’s favourite Chaiwalla.
Longrangty Longchar
Mokokchung | November 8
He is just another ordinary daily wage earners walking among the sea of pedestrians and blocks of shops in Mokokchung town. A normal day starts at 9 in the morning and ends at around 4 PM. He is just one of the odd 21 or 22 ‘chaiwalla’ in Mokokchung town supplying a cup of tea and an easy snack to the shopkeepers and shoppers alike every day in the town. No one would give a second glance after he pours out the piping hot tea from the portable filter he carries. But the life of a ‘chaiwalla’, though many Naga would consider as cheap, is quite interesting, and it is more than ‘Chai’ or samosa or ‘fried loaf’, it is business.
Meet Chandra from Sibsagar district of Assam. His alias is Moa, and he is married to an Ao girl. They have a five year old boy. He has been in the ‘chaiwalla’ business for the past two years; earlier he worked as a laborer constructing the National Highway 61. He says he is Christian and married his wife while he was working as a laborer.
On a normal day, he makes six rounds through the town. A cup of tea costs five rupees and a ‘samosa, pakara, nimkee, aloo fry, or loaf fry’ cost five rupees each. All the other ‘Chaiwalla’ have to adhere to this price rate. The area is divided into zones, but a Chaiwalla can go to any area since different customers have their preferences of the tea served by different Chaiwallas. Now, the interesting part is that a normal Chaiwalla, on an average day, earns about Rs 1000-1300. After deducting the expenditure, their daily income comes to around Rs 250-300. A multiplication by twenty four days into 250 into twenty Chaiwallas would indicate that the humble Chaiwalla business is a huge and profitable business indeed.
Chandra alias Moa disclosed that he runs his family with whatever income he earns daily providing tea to his customers. His wife who stays at home prepares the tea, and fries the fast food to be sold in the market. The same goes for all the other Chaiwallas of the town; wives and children prepare the items to be sold by husbands.
However, life in the market is not easy, says Chandra. Most often, some people ask for free tea and refuse to not pay up. “Drinking one or two cups is ok, but every day is quite difficult. After all, we have to feed our family,” says Chandra in Nagamese and broken Ao dialect. Though their cup of tea is the cheapest in the town, as hotels usually charge Rs 10-15 per cup, Chandra said the prices of commodities like milk, sugar, flour and oil have increased so much that they now face problem sometimes. He added that though the Chaiwallas want to increase the price, the Mokokchung Municipal Council (MMC) does not allow it. “MMC said that the price will be reviewed only if we give the application in writing,” said Chandra, while lamenting that almost all the Chaiwallas cannot read and write.
Anyhow, he said that his greatest happiness is when his customers compliment the taste of his tea. In fact, when you compliment the taste in his cup of tea he shyly says, “Moilaka maiki para ponaishe.” And though it is unknown whether we might notice a local Chaiwalla providing tea in the markets shop to shop, all we can say about them is that they are doing an essential service to our society.
And if you ask the Vice-President of Mokokchung Chamber of Commerce and Industries (MCCI), Moasangba Jamir about the trade, he simply says, “We should learn from the non-local traders. When it comes to business, we should work with dignity and we should serve the public. After all, businessmen are here just to serve the public; there is no high or low job in business. It’s about how well we serve the public and get paid for it.” A lesson that needs to be learnt by all.
