The tea shop in lakeside

When the old businessman sat at the table overlooking the streets, Regmi ji, without glancing at the clock hung in the far corner, knew it was 6:05 am. His timing was so precise that Regmi ji could bet his life on it. By the time the old gentleman arrived, Regmi ji’s kitchen sink would be filled with tea cups—some with a mouthful of tea left, others untouched because of phone calls stating urgency. Once the sunlight dispersed on the dew-drenched grass and joggers started returning from the nearby park, all the tables would be occupied, and more stools were brought in from the rooms at the back of the hotel—the same rooms where Regmi ji’s family of three ate and slept every night.

While Regmi ji poured tea into cups each morning, his wife would be in the back room, peeling potatoes. She was rarely seen at the hotel in the mornings, and if she was called to serve tea, it meant there were too many customers for Regmi ji to handle alone. In the other room, their daughter, a bright student, would underline her law books with red and pink markers. An eloquent speaker of English, she walked with an air of confidence. She didn’t play a big part in the small business of her parents, but Regmi ji wasn’t bothered a bit by her indifference. Deep inside, he knew that his daughter wasn’t someone who could sit behind the gas stove, smiling or feigning a friendly demeanor just to sell some cups of tea. 

And then there was Kanchhi with her broad face betraying no emotions whatsoever. She wore an expression so blank that it was impossible to tell whether she was delighted or downcast. Thanks to her, Regmi ji wouldn’t have sold as much tea if she hadn’t shown up every morning to do the dishes. Kanchhi, who had come from the hills of Parbat, mostly kept to herself, communicating through gestures. She was just the kind of worker Regmi ji appreciated—no big talk, always focused on her task.

When the clock ticked past 10, as every tea-lover headed home for their meal, the business would slow down a bit. And just after noon, workers, students, and those who couldn’t afford the luxury of Lakeside would enter the hotel, ordering samosas, cigarettes, and other cheap snacks.

When the tables inside the hotel were crammed, it was on the wide pavement outside that people would gather in circles, sitting on stools, changing topics of discussion with every round of tea. A sip of tea and ideas rushed out in a flurry. Over the years, Regmi ji had served tea to countless people, from politicians to beggars, thieves to saints—and, in a way, to the entire neighborhood of Lakeside.

On a Sunday morning, just like every other day, the old businessman came and sat at the table overlooking the desolate streets. Presently, Regmi ji began to prepare the special tea for his loyal customer. For Regmi ji, this routine affair induced a sense of calmness within him. It reminded him of the normalcy of the life he was leading. After all, it only takes a little for a man to feel content: a family of his own, a roof over his head, and a society that respects him. Regmi ji took pride in knowing the amount of sugar his regular customers preferred in their tea. For the businessman, it was half a spoon of sugar along with two seeds of cardamom. Ashok Sharma, who showed up in the afternoon, liked his tea bitter, with a strong smell of clove.

This morning, just when Regmi ji was pouring tea into the cup for the businessman, he heard a loud choke coming from inside the room. Was it his wife? No, it was the sound of someone young, so it must be the daughter. Even without delivering tea to the businessman, Regmi ji advanced toward the back end of the hotel, to the room where his daughter locked herself studying for hours. The businessman glanced at the door in amazement, and when he cleared his throat, Kanchhi mechanically gave up the dishes and fetched tea for him. There were no other customers to deal with, so Kanchhi, curiously, walked into the back room to figure out what the matter was. It was unusual for Regmi ji to not let Kanchhi enter their family confines. Kanchhi had no idea when Regmi ji and his family had drawn a boundary for her, a line that she was prohibited to cross. Had it been a sharper woman in place of Kanchhi, she would have understood that there was a reason why Regmi ji didn’t allow her inside. Of course, there was something fishy. The businessman drank his tea and left. He would come back and pay the next day. A wounded Kanchhi returned to her chore, and with the passing of time, more customers streamed in for a warm cup of tea. Inside the dingy room of the daughter, the father and the mother kept looking at each other, the words seemingly stuck in their throats, while the daughter kept pressing her neck as if some sharp object would materialize by her action and then things would be the way they were before.

“Can you ask her who it is that she has been going out with?” Regmi ji didn’t even look at his wife as he posed the question.

The wife, a scowl on her lips, looked down at where the daughter was sitting, her hands still pressed to her neck. When the daughter had thrown up and the mother had seen the thin, watery liquid, she had suspected outright that it was not a cold or sickness, and that there was more to it. She could keep her father in the dark, but with her mother, it was impossible to keep things hidden, especially when the case was so sensitive and required urgent attention. Had she not choked so loudly, Regmi ji might never have known that his daughter was pregnant.

Now, when the wife seemed reluctant to answer Regmi ji’s concern, he nimbly raced toward his daughter, placed his palms on the contours of her face, and slapped her so loudly that she nearly lost her balance. He had never felt so humiliated, not even when he used to work as a dishwasher at someone’s hotel when he was young. The slapping continued until his fingers throbbed. The wife had never witnessed this infuriated side of Regmi ji in their 25 years of marriage. She could have interrupted between the father and the daughter, but given the situation, her efforts would have been futile. Though she was a strict mother, she had never laid her hands on her daughter—it was the same with Regmi ji. At this point, the mother wanted to slap her, torture her, and maybe throw her out of the house. The parents knew that their daughter had her bold ways, and they always thought her exposure to the outer world in the form of books had made her so. They were privy to so many secrets that Nistha, their daughter, had kept to herself. But then, one was not supposed to tell that she smoked cigarettes every morning outside her college in a hotel identical to her parents’. There was no way Nistha could tell her parents that when she went out making the excuse of her friends’ birthday parties, she would spend the night in a hotel room at Lakeside, some 500 meters away, before dancing her heart out with strangers. The irony was that Nistha didn’t even know who had caused her belly to swell.

Regmi ji, after an angry episode that involved both physical and verbal attacks, went outside his room to face the world. A few regulars were already seated in their usual places and, by the looks on their faces, Regmi ji could tell that they had been listening to the family matters all along. He cursed himself, regretting his angry reactions. Couldn’t he have dealt with the matter in a different way? After weighing the situation, all the customers decided not to stay for tea in his tea shop, leaving him and his family to sort out the issue. As soon as the customers left, Regmi ji pulled down the metal shutters. There would be no tea today in his hotel. Meanwhile, the other hotels nearby would see a surge in customers, and this time around, there would be no talks about the coalition, the corrupt leaders, and the misguided media. People would pass this morning talking about the pregnant daughter of Regmi ji. Thinking of his ruined dignity, Regmi ji went to his daughter’s room, where the daughter, wiping her tears, was contemplating—drafting a plan to escape to some city where no soul would know her and the other being growing inside her.