On a rainy day, or a Friday afternoon, or a Sunday morning after a long Saturday night,
\nI make my way to my kitchen.
\nI take out the special saucepan and the special cups,
\nreserved for this very special drink. <\/p>\n
As the water begins to sizzle in the pan,
\nI take out the spices of my childhood.
\nGrind the cardamom, grate the ginger,
\nLosing myself in this rhythm, as if in a trance. <\/p>\n
The water bubbles, the ginger cracks.
\nAnd it\u2019s time for the most special ingredient of all.
\nChai, black ground tea leaves.
\nTheir strong smell overpowering my senses, their color turning the water a homely red. <\/p>\n
I add some milk, the pan is now tan.
\nAnd now, I wait, watching the transformation of this concoction,
\ntill it slowly darkens to that beautiful golden brown,
\nfrothing, beckoning to me to get it off the stove. <\/p>\n
I pour it out, with the same childlike fascination, each time.
\nChai – this marvel of water, acid, and heat.
\nAnd as I take my first sip, enjoying the chai of my labor,
\nThere is nothing else that matters in that moment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
On a rainy day, or a Friday afternoon, or a Sunday morning after a long Saturday night, I make my way to my kitchen. I take out the special saucepan and the special cups, reserved for this very special drink. As the water begins to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":830,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-141168","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-half-marathon-poem"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141168","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/830"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=141168"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141168\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":141171,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141168\/revisions\/141171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=141168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=141168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=141168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}