My first memory of chai is drinking the warm spiced tea from my mother's saucer. She would pour it into her saucer so it would cool and I would relish having this grown up drink, curled up next to my mother and her warm loving body.
39 years later, the offering of chai is a tradition that continues in my life. I am the child, I am also now the mother, pouring chai not into a saucer, but into a bone china teacup. This delicate cup is a gift from my children’s British great-grandfather, made from buffalo bones.
The buffalo was a great provider: giving up its entire body for food, clothing and shelter to the people of the Plains. This teacup becomes a stand-in for the personal body and the collective body. The sacrificed, the sacrificial. The tea becomes the drum, calling out the stories of pain and abundance. My heart beating, my ears ready, I call forth the buffalo…
And in the sound of the buffalos hooves I have visions: my father moving from India to Pakistan after a violent partition, my children’s feet pitter pattering on the floor safely here on Vancouver Island, the great loss of the indigenous peoples here, the trauma of my own family violence, my complicity in colonization and my own ancestors colonized. Without this complexity I could not find compassion.
Gratitude is part of any offering. My art practice, where I mine personal history and trauma, offers me the possibility of transformation, from suffering and pain to healing and wholeness.
My deep gratitude to France Trepanier for inviting me to make an offering and for the ensuing conversation and friendship. Many thanks to Kirk Schwarz for his creative and technical support.