Three cheers for the tea seller

Everyone loves a cuppa – and Kenneth Miln has a yarn from South Asia that underscores that familiar old cliche.

Casting his mind back more than threequarters of a century to his boyhood in India, the much-travelled Angus resident recalls an episode that points to the crosscultural appeal of hot tea – or “gurram chai” to use his adopted homeland’s lingo.

Mr Miln declares: “In today’s uncertain world a little light-hearted humour may not go amiss.

“Some 80 years ago, while travelling by train with my mother from Bombay, now Mumbai, to Calcutta, now Kolkata, I remember hearing a chai wallah’s loud call, ‘gurram chai, gurram chai’, at every station the train stopped.

“The rail journey across the sub-continent took two full days, during which time it was usual for the train to stop at four or five stations before arriving at Calcutta’s bustling Howrah Station on the west bank of the River Hooghly.

“We were met by my Dundee-jute-wallahfather who, on hearing all about our long train journey, related his own experience of a very enterprising chai wallah.

“He told us, ‘While stopped at one particular station I took the opportunity to stretch my legs by walking along the platform; while so doing I spotted a chai wallah brewing gurram chai in a very large brass pot.

“‘Drawing close, I noticed there were three separate taps sticking out of the pot, and each was clearly marked – one for Hindus, one for Muslims and one for Christians’.”

The Monifieth resident concludes: “Now, that’s what I call a really business-like chai wallah – gurram chai for one and all!”

A reader wonders if this mystery photo from an unknown date in the distant past was taken at Broughty Ferry. He speculates that the hundreds of people shown might have turned up for the launch of a new lifeboat, but he doesn’t recognise the buildings in the picture.