Chai and the Indian Bureaucracy

Parag Gupta
Founder, Waste Ventures

 As a prelude, Indian government bureaucracy is one of the most ridiculous things I have ever seen and unlike any other government offices I have been to in all my time working internationally.  One of the more annoying relics of British rule, the Indian government clerk system is archaic at best.  The amount of inane documentation is perhaps only matched by the egos afforded most officials as rulers of their fiefdoms and perhaps three to six layers of bureaucrats below them.  This arrogance is only fed by the myriad of toadys and white-uniformed men that do nothing besides wait outside the doors to air conditioned chambers literally at the beckon bell ring.  These white-uniformed men take great pride in jealously guarding the door and all who are allowed to enter like antiquated diminutive bouncers. 

Once inside, many bureaucrats barely take notice of your presence as they sign an unending number of documents of which they quickly glance through while also conducting four other meetings simultaneously by phone and interrupting guest (I always wonder how these visitors seem to get past the uniformed men). 

If you are important enough, you will receive chai – both a symbol of time investment and the government chai quota investment.  As I’ve been told, each bureaucrat receives a certain number of ‘tea orders’ he or she can order a month for the plethora of meetings a bureaucrat has – depending of course on rank.  Thus, if you are deemed worthy by a bureaucrat (almost always if you are coming from abroad apparently), he or she might spend part of the quota on you.  The doorbell buzzer is ringed, in flies the uniformed man, takes the order and runs out again.  Usually about 15 minutes later, the chai-wallah (remember Javed Mallik from Slumdog Millionaire?) comes in holding four miniature glass cups of chai cupped together with a finger in each.  Each cup itself contains an array of smudges, marks (on the outside or inside of the cup?), and fingerprints – yum.  Before you can think much about it, it is best to just drink it down hoping anything that was not supposed to be in it was killed by its scalding hot nature.

Of course, tea does not always denote importance.  If you are at the offices of a Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) in the State of Madhya Pradesh, it could just be because the assembly was allotted 24 Lakhs Rupees or approximately $50,000 for chai while they were in session for about four weeks.  As chai is only about 6.5 cents, to utilize this amount, each MLA member would have had to order 160 cups a day or about 26 cups an hour given their short schedules!  Those must have been some pretty wired members!

There are instances where ordering chai can actually be a drag.  Whether it is custom or an afterthought I don’t know – but it seems the chai is usually ordered only a few minutes before the meeting is almost concluded.  Thus, I’ve been in many an awkward position where the meeting concludes but the chai still has not come – leading to an uncomfortable silence while both parties wait.  As a guest, I can’t really suggest ‘Forget the chai’ and it will be a cold day in hell before the bureaucrat will allow his chai quota to be wasted.  So you wait hoping the bureaucrat’s simultaneous phone call runs long… and wait… until the chai comes and slurp down like no tomorrow – bearing the discomfort of hot liquid running down your throat. 

The good news is, the bureaucracy is slowly changing.  I see many bureaucrats who actually have computers in their offices, are down to earth, and manage to time the call to the chai-wallah with impeccable timing – after a major breakthrough in the meeting – almost as a reward for all parties to be savored while the finishing details are put into place.  Until the next cup…