the ritual of sipping tea early in the morning at Dwarka, Gujarat

I was traveling from Somnath Jyotirlinga Temple to Nageshwar Jyotirlinga Temple and on to Dwarka Bet and Dwarka Shri Krishna Temple before returning to Mumbai via Jamnagar. A night halt at Dwarka was a must if one wanted to walk about within the Dwarka temple and adjacent streets at night. Its an entirely different world out there, from the morning prayers and darshan. The narrow lanes around the temple change completely. 

But, early dawn is something else, altogether. Its only about breakfast and before that, its about sipping tea at the various pavement stalls at the inner city and near the temple. Everyone you see, tourists, pilgrims, car drivers, local vendors, policemen, priests and anyone else that I may have left out, is walking about slowly, ambling actually, deliberately to these pushcart tea stalls. There is no dialogue and no talk. The tea maestro, if I may indulge thus, silently pours out the tea in good or grubby cups and saucers. Each person picks up a cup and saucer, stands aside and takes the first sip and says, 'aaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhh' with selfish delight and happiness.

Then comes the traditional Junagadh to Rajkot to Jamnagar to Dwarka to Porbandar trademark style of sipping tea. The hot steaming cup of tea is poured out on the saucer, and it is sipped, with a splendid slurping sound. It has to be thus, and no other way. My man friday for Jamnagar-Somnath-Nageshwar, my good friend, Virambhai, did just that. And he enjoyed it. After a couple of photographs, I picked up my cup of tea, poured it out on the saucer, and had my very splendid moment of zen like bliss, when I slurped and sipped and slurped and sipped with some bit of noise. Virambhai looked back at me, and smiled in delight, and I smiled back with schoolboy happiness. 

medicinal plant parts being sold at Bhimashankar Jyotirlinga temple, Western Ghats, near Junnar, Pune District, Maharashtra

The Bhimashankar temple on the Western Ghats is one of the twelve Jyotirlinga temples in India, on the pilgrimage path to Shiva. High up on the escarpment of the Western Ghats, one can reach it from the Pune-Nashik Highway, or from the west, via Murbad from Kalyan. My second visit to the temple was sometime in September 2009, with Dr. Neetin Desai and Dr. Amar Supate and others. We reached at night, nearer to Bhimashankar and stayed in a rest house on the plains, and later, on the morrow, early up, drove right to the temple area. Four of us managed to get in queue to offer the Laghurudrabhishekam. But, thats' another story.

As we came back, trekking up to the parking area, through the forests of the Bhimahshankar wildlife sanctuary, we passed through different stalls that sold medicinal plant parts. Most were labeled very neatly, and there was one that also said that the vendor was the Secretary or President of the ayurvedic vaids assocation of the area. I stood around nearby, and waited to see if people were stopping and enquiring about the medicines. None did. 

This must be a dying trade and medicinal form. Most ayurvedic medicines are now mass made in good manufacturing 'factories' and the niche for these traditional and hereditary ayurvedic collectors, processors and medicine manufacturers must be dying out very rapidly. I spoke to some of them but they said that they usually end up collecting some medicines in larger quantities and selling them to known persons only, for these would need to be consumed for 1-2 years to effect a cure. That trade was enough to take care of their survival.