Tea and art
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[flickr]http://www.flickr.com/photos/36904720@N03/3651066095/[/flickr]

I saw this is in a street art festival in Mumbai. Unfortunately someone had knocked the name of the artist of the piece off the piece. It’s an arrangement of the tools of the trade of the “Chaiwallahs” of India. In every Indian town/city they walk around in the hot sun serving chai on the go. The art arrangement was a bit neater than the stuff I normally see on the streets of India, but they got everything right (except maybe the cowdung/charcoal that the guys carry to “cook” the chai on the go). This piece reminds me of a book I read some time ago called the City of Chai by Mr. Toshikie Horikie, the owner of the Musica tea company in Osaka. It’s a wonderful book of his total immersion into the Calcutta’s (now Kolkota) tea culture. His enthusiasm and curiosity for life and for tea is infectious. It’s a book about a man’s love for tea and his thirst for new experiences. The simple but profound musings on life and tea along with the the effort he has put into searching for the source of the chai makes this book a must for any tea lover.

I couldn’t find any proper links describing chai as Horikie san describes it, will keep looking.
Also saw this sculpture called “Smoking man” in the same place. Thought it was a statement on pollution, turned out to be a piece on smoking.
[flickr]http://www.flickr.com/photos/36904720@N03/3651939346/[/flickr]

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