Steam & Stories

I was built with two planks, a kettle, and a dream. That was forty years ago. Since then, I’ve fed warmth to a thousand winters, and quiet to a million mouths. People think I’m just wood, rust, and steam. But if I had a rupee for every heartbreak, argument, or political debate I’ve overheard, I’d be a franchise by now. Honestly, the soap opera never ends around here—and the chai’s always better than the gossip.

I’ve seen people age through the street. Children accompanying their parents during road trips– stealing a glance at the biscuits in the jar. College students discussing life with a glass in their hands and twenty rupees in their pockets. I’ve watched couples meeting for the first time over a cup of chai. I’ve seen them cry after their breakups, with chai in their hands. And of all the things I’ve observed, I can assure you—nothing beats the feeling of seeing people grow up. Countless faces have passed me by, but there was one that remained. Engraved on my seats, and in the traces of my steams, Kanan still stays everywhere. 

It was the summer of ‘06, the central university engineering exam results were out, which meant one thing: new students, more business. Mithoon, the tea seller– and my creator, was elated. A slender figure with a red plaid shirt, skinny fitted jeans, square glasses and a small broken smile walked in with a bag twice his size. 

“New to the college, kiddo?” Mithoon smiled and poured tea skillfully into six small glasses,

“Oh? Yes!” His brown eyes shined with joy as he took one glass,

“Let’s hope you survive. I’d like to see you more often,” Mithoon put more milk in the pot and began stirring with a rhythm only time could teach.

Kanan chuckled, the kind of laugh that didn’t know how to be loud. He took a seat on the old wooden bench—my bench. That was the first time.

He came every morning after that. Sometimes alone, sometimes with new friends, always with that same bag behind him, like he never really unpacked. He had a habit of talking with his hands, like the words weren’t enough unless his fingers danced with them.

One day, he sat quietly. No friends, no suitcase. Just him and the glass of chai, turning cold between his palms. He didn’t speak that day. But I remember the way he looked at the steam—as if trying to read the future in it.

“What happened, kiddo? You good?” Mithoon served him a tiny packet of Parle-G, and scrunched his eyes together,

“I don’t know what I’m doing with my life…” Kanan murmured, his breathing heavy– as if taking in oxygen would cost him.

Mithoon didn’t reply immediately. He just nodded, as if he’d heard the same sentence from a hundred mouths but still treated it like it was new.

“You don’t have to.” He set the kettle down. “Not all answers come at once. Some pour slowly—like the first batch of chai in winter.”

Kanan didn’t respond. Just stared into the cup, eyes rimmed red, like sleep had been rationed.

That day, he left the biscuit packet untouched.

And the next day, he didn’t come at all.

I waited. Every morning. The bench remembered his weight. The glass missed the press of his thumb. Even the breeze felt quieter without his rambling stories and nervous laughter.

Two weeks later, he returned. Same plaid shirt. But no backpack, no smile.

“One chai,” he said.

Mithoon raised an eyebrow but didn’t ask. He never did when someone looked like that. He just poured the chai and handed it over.

He drank it slowly that day. Let the glass warm his hands before he let it warm anything else. Mithoon didn’t speak, just hummed an old tune as he cleaned up behind the counter. The kind of tune that made even silence feel like company. Kanan stayed longer than usual. Not talking, not thinking too hard—just being. Like he needed to sit somewhere familiar while life caught up to him. The next day, he came back with a sketchpad. No dramatic announcement, no newfound purpose—just a pad and a pencil, the way some people carry keys. He sat at the edge of the bench and began to draw. Not people, not scenes. Just shapes. Lines that made no sense unless you stared at them long enough. 

He didn’t talk much that week. But he always finished his chai.

Sometimes, he’d laugh under his breath when a squirrel tried to steal a biscuit. Sometimes, he’d hand over doodled napkins to little kids waiting with their parents. One had a stick figure with glasses and a red plaid shirt. The kid laughed like it was the best cartoon he’d ever seen.  By the end of the month, he’d scribbled his name on the underside of the bench. Not big, not bold. Just a tiny Kanan was here etched where only the wood and I could read it.

It started with sketches on tissue paper. Doodles on the edges of Mithoon’s newspaper. Abstract lines that turned into faces, chai glasses, the faded yellow of the stall’s walls. A squirrel wearing spectacles. A kettle with eyes and arms, mid-conversation with a biscuit packet.

One evening, Mithoon leaned over and said, “You ever thought of doing this for real?”

Kanan blinked. “Doing what?”

“This.” Mithoon held up a crumpled napkin with a smiling tea glass drawn on it. “Bringing things to life.”

Kanan chuckled. “You sound like you think this napkin’s going to talk.”

“Maybe it already has.”

Something about that stuck. And the next time Kanan came, he was looking up animation courses on his phone, between sips of chai.

Weeks passed. His sketchpad filled up faster. He started bringing his laptop, staying late into the evening, editing short clips of drawings that moved. The kettle blinked. The bench yawned. Even Mithoon made a cameo—his moustache twitching every time he poured chai.

By the end of that year, Kanan had built a tiny animation page online. He called it “Steam & Stories.” His first video went viral: a short about a lonely tea stall that listened to everyone but never spoke—until one day, it did.

It wasn’t instant success. But it was his. And he chased it the way you chase the last biscuit in a packet.

Years passed, and the stall stayed the same—same wooden bench, same jar of Parle-Gs, same kettle whistling like clockwork.

And then, one winter morning, he returned.

Kanan—older now, stubble on his jaw, eyes still holding the same soft fire. He wore a navy hoodie, his animation studio’s logo embroidered on the back. And when Mithoon saw him, he didn’t say a word. He just opened his arms.

Kanan stepped forward and hugged him—tight, warm, familiar.

“You still make the best chai,” he whispered.

“And you,” Mithoon said, smiling into his shoulder, “still talk with your hands.”

They sat on the same bench after that. No need to fill the silence. The steam between them carried enough stories to last another forty years.