Portrait of a tea stall.

[Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi]

Two things distinguish his chai stall, here in Old Delhi’s Chawri Bazar. The first is its extreme conciseness. Of course, most tea stalls are tiny, but this is tinier. While manning the stall, he is obliged to stand for hours squeezed in the small space between the market corridor’s pillars.

The second thing is Neta Chowdhury’s name. But Neta is simply the Hindi word for politician. Could it be a nickname? Many tea stall owners have fond names given to them by their loyal customers. There’s Mama, meaning uncle, in Gurugram’s Sector 14 Market, and there’s Aunty Ji on Golf Course Road. Neta Chowdhury shakes his head. Neta is really his “asli” legal name. “As a child, I was often in white kurta pajamas, and since most neta-log wear white kurta pajamas, my father started calling me neta… the name stuck.” Neta Chowdhury shrugs.

Besides the name, the gentleman received another legacy from his father—this tea stall. The late Shri Badri Prasad had founded the establishment at this spot 40 years ago. “My father was gullible, people would take undue advantage of his trusting nature… so when I was in saatvi kaksha (seventh grade), I quit the school to help him run the stall.”

To be sure, the stall looks more substantial from the bazar’s road-facing side. It consists of a counter top, a burner, a large milk pan, a plastic jar, some kettles, plus cups and glasses. A “bahi-khata” account pad hangs on a nail from one of the pillars (under a poster of Lakshmi ji), detailing which client owes how much to Neta Chowdhury. The stall is patronised by around 55 shops, apart from random passes-by.

Peeling a sprig of ginger, Neta Chowdhury says that when he was at school, boys in the classroom would tease him for his name. “I had started hating my name; I would think that why my father did not give me some normal name… something like Pankaj or Sanjeev.” Years later, when it was Neta Chowdhury’s turn to be a father, he gave less unconventional names to his sons. Little Ayush and younger Samarth live in Neta Chowdhury’s native village in UP’s Siddharthnagar, with his wife Sugandha Devi.

Pouring chai into a glass, Neta Chowdhury says: “Our stall was known by my father’s name… today it is known by my name.” Handing over the chai glass to a customer, he says: “Sach bolu, now I like my name.”