Kaaki

Old but not too old, young but not too young, active but not too active; Kaaki; the sole provider of  traditional breakfast chai and sutta in the near proximity of our hostels (yes it means a lot to us). Everyone knows her and she knows everyone. Their is a permanent smile on her face as if she is doing some sort of social service, money or no money, you will be treated with equal hospitality.  

I Being an old victim of chai and sutta campaign kaaki knows me fairly well. This is how we usually conversate; she says something something in marathi to which i say something something in Hindi, we catch the keywords in sentence, then process the words and then reciprocate accordingly in our respective languages, sounds more technical than it actually is. But this is how Kaaki is, she conversates with every one.

I am a student of economics and we are taught several laws and theorems and jabber blabber about market and what not, Kaaki seems to negate each and every theory we are taught in books. Cutting chai and full chai are both equal in quantity, you can give either Rs.8 or Rs.10 depending on your own will, you can get things for free if Kaaki is in good mood, which most of the times she is, "jaa aish kar" is what you get to hear from her more often when you get free stuff. I have never seen such an entrepreneur in my entire life.

There are many questions that come in my mind when I see Kaaki. Firstly, does she gets enough profits to run the shop or is she some secret billionaire who runs small shop as a cover up business? Who's that young man in the photo that is hanging in her shop with garland around the frame, nearly the age of her son? How does she manage to stay happy all the time? but then I think some questions are better left unanswered.

One morning something strange happened, Kaaki was not there and she hadn't told me beforehand and it was also not a Sunday,(yes Sundays are off for Kaaki), damned by the habit I had to go to a bit far away shop for my traditional breakfast. Next day on meeting her again I asked her as to why a leave in mid week to which she replied "bhai marr gaya mera" and got sad for a moment, then smiled back and asked "tulaa chai paije kaa". 

A lesson well learnt today 'life goes on'.