Essay: The Chai At 4.30 by Garvita Sharma

In this personal essay, Garvita Sharma takes a walk down memory lane as she revisits her childhood.

Do you know what a kerosene pressure stove smells like? Ever witnessed the constant keying-in friction to ignite it? Having lived in Mumbai’s tiny one-room kitchen home in a suburban town, I’m lucky to have experienced it. 

At a similar pocket-sized apartment where my sister and I would go to a creche in our parents’ absence, the smell of the kerosene often keeps coming back to us like a happy trip. We often discuss how even our dreams refer to this childhood home as our only home. Any other flashbacks take us back to these times, the (play)ground, and its people.