It all started on one of those cold wet miserable Tuesday nights when Tashi Choling Committee members were driven by a sense of responsibility rather then enthusiasm. One such committee member would have loved to be home cuddled by the warmth of a winter’s fire with a ‘good red’ in hand for company.
Pamela attended the meeting to tell Committee members a little about the Gyuto Monks Karma Tour scheduled to take place at the Long Gallery at Salamanca in August.
When Pam suggested that ‘Tashi Choling’ could use the forum for a ‘little fund raising’ some of us immediately sat up all bright eyed and bushy tailed like eager possums around the camp fire who had been enticed with a barrel load of carrots. We went into a ‘free fall’ of ideas and visions. We would make chocolate chip biscuits beautifully packaged, maybe some cakes, and perhaps some bottled spring water with Dorje Ling labels and the possibility of Anzac biscuits. The list went on. Oh! the enthusiasm. When Mr Guy suggested that we make it easy on ourselves by buying some cakes at the CWA shop and just do tea and coffee we looked him up and down in disdain. We would organise a biscuit bake and get some artistic labels made to put on the packaging, obtain the best chai recipes to make the best ever chai and so on. Away we went into the coldness of that night armed with a plethora of ideas. It was worth giving up the warmth of the home hearth after all. Maybe, just maybe, we could get enough funds for a possum proof fence for the ‘garden to be’ at Dorje Ling. I thought about $1000 would do the trick.
Then the bustle of our daily lives and never-ending responsibility dissipated our enthusiasm and bit-by-bit these ideas slipped away into the ethos of forgetfulness. A number of weeks later I found myself in the downstairs back bedroom at Ngaire’s welcoming and warm house in Mary Street after settling nine people including seven Gyuto monks into my modest home in West Hobart. We were all looking forward to the start of their teaching in a day’s time. I awoke in fright about 3 am in the morning with the chant of ‘chai, chai, chai’ in my head and the vision of a fenceless garden at Dorje Ling. How would I face my co-worker John at Dorje Ling if I didn’t at least try to raise some money for this much needed fence?
I awoke next morning in a moment of madness. Despite the call to look after ‘sick grandchildren’ and organising last minute things at West Hobart for the monks’ comfort, to say nothing of legal work that I was entangled in, I did go down to the CWA shop frequented by our friend Guy. I left with a variety of cakes and biscuits and the niggling feeling that the unchartered water we were just about to embark upon would lead us a ‘merry dance’. My culinary skills in baking biscuits or cakes were zero as evident by what could best be described as the aftermath of a nuclear holocaust in my kitchen whenever I attempted to do so. Ambitiously, I then went and ordered a whole box of chocolate chip biscuits from the local Bakery.
Now for the chai. Someone mentioned that Bunji would be able to help. I could not find his number but as luck would have it I ran into him down at North Hobart within minutes of thinking about him. I think he could spot a damsel in distress a million miles a way and I was clearly one of them. He offered an urn (air tight) a variety of other equipment as well an offer to provide the ingredients for the chai. He suggested that we use soy-based chai. This did not stir me into any great passion but I went with the recommendation of the maestro chai maker.
That night Unya (Ngaire’s daughter) and myself took over Ngaire’s kitchen playfully packing biscuits and cutting cake in various sizes. We had fun with out little stickers and cellophane bags and artistic arrangement of our ware in boxes and trays. Amongst our ‘girl talk’ I could sense Ngaire’s mind clicking over. Too many biscuits, too many cakes - what will we do if we don’t sell them. Oh well! Unya and I continued with our packaging and the occasional ‘tasting’ particularly of the biscuits ‘melting moments’. We had to sample these a number of times to ensure they were as yummy as the first one. During this process, in walks Bunji with all the necessary ingredients. He says he is meeting a friend down at the local pub and he seems already happy and ‘away’. He goes over the drill on how to make the chai. Some of his words stay in our brain synapses and the rest filters off into the unknown. Everyone knows making chai is dead easy so I nod knowingly with a look of real intelligence on my face. Bunji is satisfied that I ‘get it’ and leaves it all in my capable hands.
Late that night Ngaire and myself tackle the first packet of chai mixture pounding it in the mortal and pestle. It was tough going and after at least twenty minutes despite our gusto it didn’t even looked as if we had touched it. The huge balls of nutmeg were not responding to the mortal and pestle treatment so I took a hammer to them with a vengeance. They kept on escaping onto the floor and under the table. Eventually after many aims we had nutmeg power. Hard going, and we were already exhausted. So we all decided to go to bed and do the rest next morning provided we were ready by 9 am. This was the time we had arranged for Viraj to take the first urn full of chai down to the Long Gallery.
Next morning I realised that the new ‘state of the arts’ stove with plenty of hot plates that Ngaire has in her kitchen was not connected. I looked in horror at the one plate gas camp oven and I had this awful sinking feeling. Fifteen litres of chai to be made on one little flame in an hour before Viraj arrives. The ancient old four-litre kettle which was lingering on with one element took on the persona of a tortoise and would not deliver boiling water for at least 25 minutes. Not to be beaten, we rolled up our sleeves and performed the most amazing multi skilled juggling act. We were a hard act to follow. Nevertheless we were thrown when Viraj arrived and we still could not get the milk to boil. After seeing what we were trying to cope with, off he went to get his camp oven. He brings it back and looking all the world like a chai wallah from India he is down on his hands and knees in Ngaire’s kitchen trying to get the thing to work. No luck, the gas does not come out of it. The holes to the gas outlet have rusted while he was away in India. We final get ‘things’ to boil and Viraj throws a few more handfuls of tea into the concoction. Far more tea than what has suggested by Bunji. We get a phone call from Andy and Beth. Where’s the chai - what’s happening. Viraj looks good after his sojourn to Vietnam. Funky jacket, baseball cap on back the front, he weight lifts the chai urn full on fifteen litres of chai and backs out the door down the steps into the car at a million miles per hour. The chai is on the way and Andy and Beth are relieved and so is Ngaire and myself as we settle down for a cup of tea wondering what the next step would be.
Doesn’t take us long to find out. I arrive at the Long Gallery to find perplexed looks on Andy’s and Bess‘s faces and no chai stall in the gallery. I look around the corner into a small room off the side just in front of the gallery toilets. There is our elusive chai urn and biscuits on a small table. Nothing has been sold in the first hour and there is anxiety in the air. The co-ordinator of the Gyuto Monks Tour has specifically said that no chai stall can be set up in the gallery because of the possibility that if there is a spillage the liquid may leak through the floorboards to the shops below. Panic. I could see not only the money I had already spent but our $1000 for our possum fence also leak through the floorboards like quicksand.
The co-ordinator Maureen Fallon is known for her wrathfulness and directness. But the thought of losing the chance of getting that fence and having to face John was a little more daunting for me. Bracing myself I took the table, the urn and the biscuits right to the front of the gallery. This would put us in a strategic place to catch people as they came in the door but of course was the worst possible position if the chai should spill. Andy and Bess were a little aghast with my boldness but I left them with instructions that if Maureen was to say anything tell her to ring me. The face of Yamataka (The Lord of Death) came into my vision with teeth dripping blood, demented eyes bulging and blue red face snarling. I tried to sustain the vision when I reiterated to them ‘Ýeah, tell Maureen to speak to me if there is any problem’. Secretly I was shaking at the knees.
I saw Maureen come in and glare towards us for one brief moment. A sight of relief and we assumed if nothing was said we had the ‘all clear’. I could hear her telepathic message of course. One drop of chai on the floor and you are gone. My retort would have been that we are all very experienced and did she think we were slops.
Beth and Andy had a successful day and night and managed to sell the full urn. I think on the first evening Andy and Beth managed to bubble some chai over through the use of the ‘Tashi Choling tea warmer’ but they were not really saying. But they seem to know quite a bit about the regulation of the tea warming and tried to explain it to me for the next day. As usual I assume that a tea warmer was dead easy to operate and did not listen. Ho!
Their success spurred us on to make more chai and once again we are back in Ngaire’s kitchen that night. This time we get wise and take the packet of herbs and spices out the back and hammer it to a pulp on the concrete. Very clever, as I am forced to look for half the missing mixture which has escaped through the battered and torn packaging. Not to worry, there is plenty still there. Back we go to the kitchen; poor Ngaire and I do a Mexican hat dance in the kitchen trying to coordinate the whole thing. We had the chai already to go for next morning but I just could not believe that only a handful of tea had to go into a fifteen-litre urn. So in true Western Queensland style I put the rest of the packet in (maybe 10 handfuls) and stewed in on the hot plate for a while for good measure. Lovely Stuart fronts up next morning just in time to pour some chai into the urn and the first litre goes on the floor. On top of this for some reason when we get it down to the Long Gallery it has gone cold. I forget the warning that Beth and Andy had given about the tea warmer the previous day, and warm up the chai. While I wait for it to warm I close my eyes and take in the beautiful chanting coming from the top of the gallery and the beautiful words spoken by the Gen Phende the Mediation Master. I am in bliss until I see white froth coming from the tea warmer which is on low. Too late the boiled milk takes on its own momentum and flows nice and steady onto the floor and out the front door. Adrenalin kicks in and I make a mad dash for the laundry coming back with mops and paper towels. Frantic. I manage to get it under control although some of the chai splashes against the wall. No one sees. All are meditating at the far end of the hall and are oblivious to the catastrophe. All except Maureen, who shoots daggers from across the room where her stall of Tibetan artefacts is situated. I pretend not to see. But I hold my breath waiting for eviction.
Thankfully, I have three quarters of an urn left of chai. Tony Dix takes over. He is on the roster and with an immense relief I leave it in his capable hands. Back that afternoon. Yes, people are buying the chai but Tony tells me in a quiet sort of way that he thinks that the urn has not been washed out properly as the chai taste a little like detergent. Several people taste it and offer all sorts of solutions. Some say it tastes like that because it is made out of soy, or too much cardamom or too many cloves. Detergent! Indeed! Since when did too many tea leaves stewed to oblivion taste like detergent. Anna remains silent. This is not a time for confession as I am anxious to know how many people I have poisoned.
The third lot of chai is made under the same circumstances in Ngaire’s kitchen. Away we go. This time it is Viraj’s turn on the chai stall. We tell him about the tea warmer and I should have heard alarm bells when I saw the glazed look in his eye. I leave things in his capable hands only to return 30 minutes later to find Viraj on his hands and knees in a sweat wiping up our precious chai from the floor. I am mortified and when he scrubs the chai off the wall that I have caused to be put there the day before I leave him thinking that he is entirely to blame for the entire chaos. I once again refuse to go to confession. Absolutely horrified, I see Maureen coming out of the side door approaching the chai stand. I make one mad dash to open the door for her, hiding Viraj and the spilt chai, from her with my back. She is somewhat amused at my traffic police antics near the door as I wave her on to the top of the room to listen to the Monks. She tries to peer over my head but I make myself taller and then she shrugs her shoulders and walks on. Viraj gets to his knees with the dripping wet rag full of chai and in doing so kicks over the tray of biscuits. I see the beautifully packaged melting moments crash to the ground and crumble. Over the beautiful serene chanting and soft prayers of the monks I hear Viraj’s ‘F……H…..’. Panic stricken and beaten, I don’t wait for a response from Maureen or anyone else. I make one mad bolt for the toilets and lock myself in. I sit in one of the cubicles for at least twenty minutes and use that time to make some calls on my mobile. I am looking for new friends. I finally gather the courage to venture out only to find to my surprise all is under control except for the pained look on Viraj’s face. Nonetheless we finally get ourselves together and the presence and the chanting of the monks permeate the whole room and butter would not melt in anyone’s mouth.
That afternoon Kira my granddaughter buzzes around the stall like a busy bee. She rearranges the biscuits and cakes beautifully but takes the prices off some and lets them all go for 50 cents for the rest of the day. This goes on until we wake up to why we are selling more then usual. Bang, there goes the profit margin.
Back again in Ngaire’s kitchen, which by this time is looking as if a tsunami has hit it. The ancient kettle has differently gone on strike and refuses to heat the water any faster. I cannot contact anyone to help me with the weight of the urn. Ngaire lives in a two-story house on a steep block with steps leading from the house to the road frontage. Of course, the kitchen is on the top level. All in all about twenty something steps to manoeuvre. No, I cannot give up. I finish making the 15 litres and saucepan by saucepan I carry the chai down the flight of steps to my car below in Mary Street. I sit the urn firmly on the back seat and painstakingly pour the chai into it. The neighbours look on in curiosity.
After I fill the urn I cruise slowly down to Salamanca Place only to be stopped at a road block near the Court at Salamanca. There is a drill on for the whole of the emergency services in the case of a terrorist attack. I take one look at these men dressed as if they have just come out of the Desert Storm operation in Iran with machine guns strapped around their shoulders. The Fire and Ambulance Service are there too and I am wishing I was far away. Unbelievable, that this should be occurring in the cross fire (so to speak) of the Gyuto Monks presences and their intense peace mediation. Thankfully, these boys from the Desert Storm overburden with their warlike accessories are not interested in a grey-headed lady driving a 1986 Volvo and it is just as well. My airtight stainless steel urn sits complacency in the back seat looking all the world like a nuclear arsenal.
Maria works her magic and gets bums on seats for the selling of the chai. Some old faithfuls turn up to help and also some new faces. For some unknown reason there was a keenest to get behind this modest little chai stall and sell chai for ‘Tashi Choling’. Maria presented the stall nicely placing a picture of the Dorje Ling sign that Annie Willock had created for us a number of summers ago with Guy towering over the sign and John and myself at each side. Rosie put pamphlets about Dorje Ling out and people congregate around the stall chatting, connecting and reconnecting the past with the future and the now.
Saturday morning and that Irish lass with the botanical name is eager to get under way. She is there before Maureen even gets a chance to open up the gallery. She takes the old chai with the 10 handfuls of tea leaves in it and waters it down and ‘warms’ it in our notorious Tashi Choling tea warmer. Of course it does not warm but boils onto the floor. The agony was overwhelming. Like lightning I took off my very new Snowgum Fleece that I had paid the earth for and threw it down on the bubbling chai. On my hands and knees I am using the fleece in fury soaking up the chai before the people coming through the front door slip on it. I was reminded of a time years ago in India when I shared a water buffalo milking shed with an old (very old) Tibetan grandmother. She gave up her bed of sugar bags and straw for me to sleep on and apart from the mice nibbling the straw occasionally through the night I had the best sleep. I awoke to this whoosh whoosh beside my bed and here was this grandmother of at least 85 doing full prostrations beside my bed. I thought she was never going to stop. This was her daily recital. My practice has never taken me into such intensity and it is usually only when the chips are down that I get serious with any thought of the here after. Or when a catastrophe of the proportion I was facing now occurs. My fleece is soaked in chai. I look up and there is the Gen Phende the Chant Master standing to the left with a look of astonishment on his face. It looks like I am doing prostrations on the floor before the Chai stall shrine.
In sheer exasperation we get hold of the Tashi Choling tea warmer and I have this uncontrolled urge to fling it into the street. But there must be some explanation and we examine it closely. Like our own internal wiring pounded by the antics of our monkey mind this little tea urn was trying to tell us something. We discovered its wiring isn’t right. The dial that said ‘hot’ really meant ‘cold’ and the dial that said ‘low’ really meant ‘boil’. Something like when we say ‘yes’ when we really mean ‘no’ and the havoc we cause when we do so. The words of my teacher float through into my consciousness.
Rest in natural great peace
This exhausted mind
Beaten helpless by karma and neurotic thoughts
Like the relentless fury of the pounding waves
In the infinite ocean of samara.
Right now I have an ocean of chai to deal with.
Having solved the problem of the urn and finally learning to speak its language over I left the Irish lass with the botanical name to shoulder the show and away I go to make another batch. This one tastes nice, as I have now worked out how to regulate the amount of spices and herbs and the idiosyncrasies of Ngaire’s kitchen. Also I take Noelene’s advice and put a tin of condensed milk it in. Still the sale keeps coming and the biscuits and cakes are disappearing under Kira’s watchful eye. Fern keeps watering the chai down, Kira keeps selling the cakes and I go out to the Saturday markets and buy some more cakes. We are on a roll. Maureen comes over for a chai. I don’t charge her but she stated that it tastes like dishwater and I comment that even dishwater sells under certain circumstances. The morning rocks on and as the money comes in I look over at Maureen with the dreadful urge to blow raspberries. I remember my bodhisattva vows and refrain from doing so. Besides, her Tibetan artefacts store is doing very nicely and all is well with the world. I catch her looking over at us motley lot from time to time with look of disbelief and astonishment on her face. The floor has been baptised four times already with chai and now there is a line up for dishwater. I think I hear her mumble something about local Buddhist groups who could not organise themselves out of a paper bag. But I am sure I must have been hearing things.
Come Sunday morning and I have the nicest batch of chai ready. Perhaps that extra tin of condensed milk suggested by Miss Robertson does the trick. I arrived to find Fern upset. She has placed some old chai into the new batch and reheated everything. The trouble was that the old chai was the one I had laced with tea leaves and the other batch was the one I had laced with condensed milk. Upon reheating it curdled and the whole lot of chai was now curdled. Sonam the Gyuto Monks interpreter states that it is worse then worse and ‘fouler then a fowl’. When she breaks the news to me I am frozen in my tracks. I say nothing - glare into space and give up the ghost. I am lost for words. I turn on my heels and like Cinderella I fly down the steps leaving a lot more then my glass slipper behind. I go into my cave and stay out of sight for a while at Ngaire’s place.
Some hours later I relent and go back down to the Long Gallery. All is under control and as always happens with dharma friends the banner is usually picked up by others. On the stall I see tea bags and take away cups. Sue is there with Fern and they contently sell on regardless. I hear the occasional voice - anymore of that chai left - it was so yummy. No accounting for taste and I am baffled. Ngaire buys a chocolate cake from Woolworths and they cut it up and it goes in next to no time. Kira is there counting the pennies and Fern’s dog eyes off some of the biscuits which are thankfully covered. Maureen is aghast and we take the dog out.
Ngaire quickly and effectively goes back to Mary Street to make another batch of chai. I have closed down. She boils the milk with some condensed milk in it and burns the whole thing. The smell waffles in the air and lingers around the kitchen for a while. Never give up, never give up, never give up, said the Dali Lama never gives up. Finally, Ngaire saved the day with the ultimate chai that disappears like lightning. People are crying for more chai but we have none left.
I am told the closing ceremony was spectacular. Maureen makes a lovely speech and thanks Pamela, Ngaire and I and makes a presentation of a while scarf. I am not there to accept mine. The chant master sits beaming and in ecstasy. The teachings conclude and our time is over.
This little chai stall, a long way from the board rooms and Court rooms of my past life, proved to be more of a challenge than any of that was or could be. Around the Tashi Choling Chai stall old friends made up and reconnected with each other, forgiveness took place amongst old enemies, old friends congregated to chat, new friendships were made, a child received her initiation into the world of commerce, souls who felt isolated and disconnected from their own being were chuffed and delighted to be included in service to others, anger controlled, laughter amongst such chaos and ineptness, sensitivities bruises and egos hassled. Nerves were tested and tenacity reigned and our sangha was strengthened.
Maria presents Maureen with some of our hard earned cash as a token of our appreciation and Maureen gracefully hands it back for a donation to Tashi Choling.
We did not reach the $1000 mark but came close with something in the vicinity of $963.55 clear for our possum fence. Upon reflection I am left with the thought that we might have made our target if it had not been for those tins of condensed milk and the chai that escaped out the front door. My personal karma for thinking outrageous thoughts towards Maureen was that my new Snowgum Fleece went missing from the toilets. So if anyone sees someone wearing a dusty pink fleece that looks as if it has been soaked in soy chai its mine. And if I ever come visiting at your place one word of warning: never, ever, ever offer me a soy chai: I have been and always will be a cappuccino girl.
By Anna Crotty