I must have been about 15 years old when I took my first train ride. I traveled from Delhi to Trivandrum. I was traveling by Jayanti Janata Express. It was a three-day train journey. That was a great learning experience.

For the first time, I saw the fleeting images of beautiful India passing through the windows of my compartment. I was perpetually peeping out of the window and enjoying the scenery and the people of India to the accompaniment of the music produced by the moving train on rails. That was not only my first train journey but also the beginning of my journey of observation.

I cannot remember which railway station it was, but going by the landscape, it was a station in Madhya Pradesh where the train was scheduled for a long halt—some 20 to 30 minutes. Scores of wheeler dealers rushed to the train as it pulled up at the platform. All of there calling out the description of the items they were selling along with their prices. With them, two boys came running. They were trying to sell tea and coffee.

“Chai-Coffee (chai is the Hindi word for tea)…Chai-Coffee…Chai-Coffee…,” the two boys were calling and they had a tray in which they had about 24 cups of tea and coffee.

I asked for a cup of tea. I had a gulp. It didn’t taste like tea. It was awful. I dumped it. After some time, the duo returned with a fresh refill in their tray. I thought I would try coffee for a change. I had a gulp. Again, it didn’t taste like coffee. I dumped that as well.

I decided to take a stroll in the platform which was lined with stalls after stalls selling different items. I found a tea stall there and I decided to have a piping hot cup of tea. It was nice. As I sipped tea from my cup, my eyes fell on the two boys who had returned for a refill of their tray.

I found them filling all the cups from the same dispenser. And, off they went calling Chai-Coffee…Chai-Coffee…Chai-Coffee… I was shocked. Some of the passengers were asking for tea and the others were buying coffee. And, all of them were getting the same thing!

No wonder the tea and the coffee tasted so awful. It was neither tea nor coffee. It was probably a mix of both! When you sip tea, you have a certain flavour in your mind and when you sip coffee you have different flavour in your mind. When the tea or the coffee does not match that you feel bad.

If they hand out the same thing to all the passengers, how do they keep the account? After all, coffee was more expensive than tea. As if in answer, I found the older boy handing out what was purportedly coffee and tea as the younger boy scribbled with a chalk piece under each window 2C+3T or 1C+4T and so on and so forth!

So, when they returned to collect their cups, they knew how many cups and how much money to collect from each window. Smart guys, these!

My only regret was what they were selling as tea and coffee was neither tea nor coffee. As I said earlier, it was probably a mixture of both. I would have liked them to be more honest and share the truth with the passengers.

May be they could have made “Double taste in a single cup” their USP! They could have told the passengers that what they were selling was a blend of coffee and tea. I wish they had renamed their new concoction and sold it as ‘COFF-TEA!”