How a Single Cup of Chai Taught Me to Slow Down in a Hustle-Obsessed World

Finding pause in a world that never stops

Photo by on

I was 25, drowning in Bangalore’s tech grind, when a cup of chai pulled me back to life.

Not the ₹200 masala latte from a Koramangala café, but a chipped kulhad of kadak chai my mother brewed in her Dehradun kitchen. It was proper North Indian style — gingery, milky, boiled until the aroma filled the house.

I’d driven up from Bangalore for a quick weekend, my laptop still buzzing with Jira tickets, when she handed me that clay cup. “Ruk, beta,” she said. “Drink it slow.”

I didn’t. I sipped it like it was a protein shake, ready to dive back into code. But the chai’s spicy warmth, the faint elaichi kick, stopped me cold. For the first time in months, I saw the world: the Dehradun hills misty outside, my mother’s worn dupatta, the kulhad’s earthy weight in my hands.

That single cup wasn’t just tea. It was a wake-up call — one I desperately needed as a young software engineer lost in the hustle.

The Code That Consumed Me

Picture me at 25: a software engineer at a Bangalore unicorn, living the startup fantasy. Twelve-hour sprints, stand-up calls at 8 am, and a GitHub streak I wore like a…