Personal Inspirations for the Project:

 

Chai Stories in India 

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Chai places served as an antidote for loneliness in my life, and so does in many others' life. In my experience, chai exceeds its materiality, it becomes a site for memory, entangled with different individual histories.  After my first year in my MFA degree in the US, I visited India in 2022, after COVID travel relaxation came into action. I organized a few Chai Stories performances at Kaka’s Chai place in Vadodara, India, during my visit to reunite with my community. Since then, I have conducted Chai Stories at various informal chai places in Vadodara city, India, every year to celebrate moments together as a community. More than ten Chai Stories have been conducted in India since 2022 at informal chai places to bring together diverse communities and to support tea sellers. 

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​Chai Stories in USA

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The world was grappling with COVID-19, and I flew more than 8000 miles to chase my dream of doing an MFA at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the USA. After landing in the US for the first time, I was directly in self-quarantine for ten days, which was required by the university. I felt double isolated and alienated in this new cultural place. This loneliness reminded me of the absence of my chai which I associated with the socialization at informal chai places in India. In my experience, chai exceeds its material, physicality, it becomes a site for memory, entangled with different individual histories. During the mask mandate in Dane County, public performances were abandoned to stop spreading the virus. In this new place under COVID restrictions, as an International Student, I needed social interactions with others to feel a sense of community. When Dane County lifted the ban on masks in public spaces, my professors Laurie Beth Clark and Michael Peterson curated the Home Stretch project, inviting the local community to socialize through art-based projects by different artists. I took this opportunity to initiate Chai Stories on the campus outside of the Art Lofts building to engage with invited guests.