The moment your fingers brush the charms, time slows. Crow's caw in reverse. Rain drop upwards. It is a dizzying sensation, like your brain is struggling to accept to accept this new reality and these abnormal laws of physics. It feels like those headaches you get when you haven't got enough sleep and skip a meal that make the ground seem as if it is moving and make it hurt to try to perceive reality clearly.
Then, just as suddenly as it went haywire the world rights itself. The rain brings itself down and the crowd that had slowed down in mid flight now speed up to normal speeds. No one else seems to have noticed. But, you see the customer in front of you staring at you strangely. You don't realize why until suddenly, the front of your torso starts burning. You glance down and see that the glass of tea you were pouring had slipped out of your hand noiselessly during all the commotion. You grab a handy cloth nearby and set to wiping everything. With one hand you pull your soggy, baggy shirt a bit ahead from you stomach and clench it to wring out as much tea as you can.
The spill doesn't bother you much as the tea stall tends to be a messy place. You have become used to the pain of burns by now, so that is not what is bothering you. And it is not your soggy, cold shirt which seems to anyways be perpetually damp in the rainy season which is the problem. Yet, your hands tremble as you go about cleaning.
The act of making tea, which you could accomplish perfectly even when half asleep has suddenly become as confusing as a math test. Stirring the tea seems tedious as if the tea has become a thick, sticky quagmire sucking in the ladle.
The customer standing in front of the stall makes an impatient noise and the ends of his mustache curl down in annoyance at my lethargy and sloth like service.
"It's just getting ready," I tell him apologetically while mentally making a note not to fiddle with the charms for a while.
******************************
You manage to resist the temptation to fiddle with the charms until you reach home that night. Then, when you finally put your hand in your pocket nothing happens. While you are a bit disappointed you are also relieved that that uncomfortable feeling did not assault you again when time slowed down the last time. You decide that what you saw was trivial and not real. While you want to lay in bed and run through the events of the day over and over again in your head, examining each magical moment as if under a magnifying glass, you have no time! Your Mausi and Mausaji (maternal aunt and her husband) will come to your house tomorrow afternoon. It is one set day every year where they visit you. You fight back sleep now so that you can tidy up the place. Tomorrow, early in the morning you will have to prepare some food to serve to your guests in the afternoon and then immediately rush to open the stall. To maximize your profits in the afternoon rush hour you will have to close the stall as late in the afternoon as possible and still manage to get in some crucial shopping before rushing back home. Just thinking about this nightmarishly hectic schedule is almost enough, not quite but almost, to drive out the thoughts of today's events.
******************************
The sun stretches its sleepy limbs across the Kurla skyline as you squint through the steam wafting from your tin kettle. Your stall, wedged between a fabric shop and a pharmacy, wears its usual faded charm.
You haven't slept well. The keychain your Nani had left behind lies quietly on the counter, its tiny charms occasionally twitching without wind—like they were dreaming.
"Chai for two, please," says the first customer, an auto driver with a scarf wrapped around his face.
You hand him the cup. That's when it happens.
He sniffs the brew, sipped, blinked, and then declared:
"A flavor so rich, it tickles my soul,
This tea fills a gap, makes me feel whole!"
You stare
Another customer wanders up. This time a college girl with headphones. You brew her usual mint-cardamom blend. The girl takes one sip and grins:
"No assignment dread, no thesis to write,
I feel like I've slept for twelve hours last night!"
"Is this... a prank?" You whisper, gripping the edge of your table.
You turn towards the keychain. Its crescent moon charm is glowing faintly, pulsing like a heartbeat.
The kettle whistles its usual tune, but your hands aren't steady. You stare at the glowing keychain—now humming gently like a lullaby trapped in brass. Each charm twinkles with a pulse. The moon. The hourglass. The tiny teapot.
You shake your head and turn to the next customer: an old man with cataract-clouded eyes and a pet parrot on his shoulder.
"Two masala chais," he croaks, "One for me, one for Mohan."
The parrot squawks: "Chai! Chai! Make it divine!"
You pour. The man sips. His lips curl into a smile.
"I remember this brew from forty years back,
Before I lost sight and my memory cracked.
It tastes like that monsoon, warm and bold—
With Nani's laughter, hand-rolled gold."
You stumble backward.
The parrot pecked at the rim and added, unprompted:
"Rain fell sideways, hearts turned blind,
Now time's a loop you are yet to find."
That makes you drop the spoon.
A teenager approaches next—hoodie up, half-asleep, earbuds in. "Plain chai," he mumbles.
She hands him the cup with shaking fingers.
He pauses, looked at the tea, then mutters softly:
"This isn't my life.
I skate in Delhi.
But I just saw this stall
In a dream so smelly."
He blinks, confused. "Whoa. That just rhymed."