My friends say, ‘Maan gaye tereko’: Dolly Chaiwala on serving tea to Bill Gates
My dream is to serve tea to our Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Woh bhi ek baar chaiwale reh chuke hain. He’s an inspiration. DOLLY CHAIWALA, tea
One chai please — this is what the viral Dolly Chaiwala has been hearing since his video with Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist, Bill Gates, blew up on Instagram (111M views and counting). The tea vendor from Nagpur, Maharashtra, is still in disbelief at how his life has turned 180 degrees ever since! “Baap re!” he explains, adding, “I’m in shock. I can’t believe the whole world is talking about me and my tea stall. People come and order in a similar style (as Gates). Some take selfies, and others have questions.”
From sitting in an airplane to racking in millions of views online, he has witnessed many firsts lately. Telling us how one phone call changed his life, Dolly says, “I got a call from someone in Hyderabad to attend their event, and show Nagpur and Dolly Chaiwala ka style. On the shoot day, I saw one foreigner standing by my stall. I didn’t pay much attention to him and just made tea. I remember how he said, ‘What a chai’ afterwards.” To Dolly’s surprise, he woke up the next day to calls and texts from family and friends who told him he had made tea for Gates: “They keep telling me, ‘Dolly, tune chai kisko pila di’, ‘Dolly maan gaye tereko’, ‘Bahut badi baat hai’.”
With all the love and attention coming his way, Dolly is proud that he could shine a spotlight on his city with his tea-making skills: “Bahut achcha lagta hai jab log bolte hai Nagpur wale Dolly ki chai... Dukaan hai toh ghar hai aur hum hain.”