November | 2016

I was rather excited by the prospect of being invited for High Tea at Faletti’s Hotel in Lahore. Admittedly it was a work-related event followed by High Tea. For all these years, I wondered how I managed to avoid having High Tea in the sub-continent, considering this old colonial legacy still lingers on in a reformatted and repackaged form of eating in between lunch and dinner. Moreover, it is often associated with ladies of leisure spending a lazy afternoon socialising and chatting away. What was more enticing for me was the concept of High Tea itself rather than the food because I suspected that being in Pakistan, the delicacies presented were not going to be light finger food. Indeed it was a buffet-style meal consisting of chicken drumsticks, chicken kebabs, channa (chickpeas), chicken sandwiches, cream cakes and of course tea. Although Pakistan produces some tea, it is in fact the third largest importer of tea in the world. Hugely popular in cities like Lahore, it is difficult to imagine a day with a cup of tea.

The English High Tea usually had some form of bread (sandwiches), vegetables, cheese, sometimes meat but always tea. It was considered an essential part of eighteenth and nineteenth century meal times, providing another opportunity for social gatherings amongst the upper classes. It was also easy to prepare in case their servants were not around. Thus, a practical solution for those late afternoon moments, when the evening meal was served around 8 pm. Today, High Tea is more popularly referred to as Afternoon Tea and is often marketed at the tourists (foreign or local) looking for that quintessential tea and scone moments in small “English” tea shops.

During the expansive years of British colonial rule, tea drinking became a must have beverage for the upper classes, a beverage which was too expensive for the working classes because of the heavy import taxes. By the nineteenth century, these taxes declined and of course, tea drinking starts to spread to become an essential part of our daily routine. Today the UK stands as fifth largest consumers of tea per capita. The demand for the commodity is what motivated the British to start tea production in India, where it was initially only consumed largely by Anglicised Indians. It was later during the 1920s, through extensive marketing by the Tea Board that the Indians start to consume tea. Today of course India is the largest producer of tea in the world, yet it only ranks 44^th in terms of consumption per capita.

For many us, a morning or afternoon is not complete without that cup of tea, a cheap simple drink which hides so many stories. It is amazing that tea, due to being so expensive, was often locked up and key was kept by the lady of the house. Now it is one of the most common beverages around the world and only recently has it been challenged by the pervasiveness of coffee in some parts of the world.

A fascinating history of the Early Victorian Tea Set

‘In Britain between 1840 and 1900 the consumption of tea and sugar quadrupled. Mass consumption required mass production on an industrial scale and huge tea plantations were developed by the British in India and Sri Lanka. New sources of sugar were also developed, reducing the role of the former slave plantations in the Caribbean. Tea drinking was regarded as patriotic as it supported British trade and empire, unlike wine and coffee, beverages of imperial rivals.’

Read more about this history of the world through objects: http://www.bbc.co.uk/ahistoryoftheworld/objects/FWYgWOCSSpKKuF3pctC6tA

A brief history of ‘taking tea,’ http://www.highteasociety.com/history/

View from the inside at Kaiseri gate.

One of the many stores in Faisalabad owned by migrants from Ludhiana.

The famous Ganta Ghar of Lyllpur, the clock tower built by 1905 to commemorate the diamond jubilee of Queen Victoria.

Getting into a taxi can often lead to interesting conversations with the drivers. So when one evening I request a Careem (much like Uber around the world), I get into the car and as it happens quite often, the driver is usually baffled by the name (not an obvious Pakistani name) and the person who is sitting in the car (could be Asian but looks “foreign”). I explain that I am indeed Punjabi and use my best Punjabi accent to prove the point! However, the response from the driver is quite often in Urdu, even though I carry on speaking in Punjabi. This will continue or then sometimes the driver will feel comfortable enough to speak in Punjabi.

So then on this one evening, a young driver who turns out to be from Faisalabad (previously known as Lyallpur); he lives not far from Samundri, which is a tehsil of Faisalabad district. Lyallpur district began life in 1904 following the development of the canal colonies in West Punjab in the late nineteenth century. From being a small market town, Lyallpur has been transformed into Pakistan’s main agro-industrial centre following the partition of Punjab. One which has fundamentally changed Lyallpur in modern times is migration. Firstly following the development of these canal colonies and secondly, the migration following Partition in 1947.

Having discovered the driver was from Faisalabad, I choose to converse with him in Punjabi. He was both astonished and ecstatic at the same time. The joy of sharing the same language and accent as you, can sometimes do this to people. He had been in Lahore for some months now and was making a living driving for Careem. The familiar tones of someone, and in this case someone who he thought was a foreigner, speaking the same language that he had perhaps not heard so frequently since he arrived in Lahore immediately allowed us to bond during the short ride. The ride is in fact less than ten minutes, but it is amazing what can be gleaned in these short conversations.

As we discussed our mutual language I suggested to him that the elders in his family might have migrated over from Jullundar or Ludhiana, and he immediately said that yes, his paternal grand-father was from Jullundar. The distance that divide these two places is approximately 250 km. He came over after partition and settled in Lyallpur. I went on the make the connections between the two places, the place where I grew up on the other side of the border, and the place on this side of the border but both conversing in the same language in a neutral city. Perhaps it had never occurred to him that he also had some connection to the Indian side of Punjab via the language that he speaks.

At the end of the ride, his joy at making these small connections translated into him refusing to take any money from me. He said he could not do this. Sometimes life brings about things which cannot be measured in monetary terms, they are passing moments, glimpses of human kindness that leave you feeling richer.