Where Tea outlasts time

The Sunday ritual at Y Junction Al Saba 

For years now, Sunday evenings in Hyderabad have belonged to a small, faithful ritual. It began at the Erragadda junction, where Prof. Nutalapati Chandra Shekhar Rao, Paritala Vishnu, and Vemulapalli Vegeswara Rao would gather for their weekly "tea over talk", a free-flowing adda where friends drifted in and out as the mood, and the boredom of the evening, dictated.

Over the years, as the junction changed and the café changed, the venue shifted to Y Junction Al Saba, but the spirit never did. What started as local chatter grew into something larger: opinions now travel in from other states and countries too, relayed over WhatsApp by well-wishers who tune in from afar, while curious passers-by occasionally wander in, sit a while, buy or accept a cup of tea out of courtesy, and leave, not always sure what the fuss was about.

On the evening of September 20, 2026, the group's state committee convened, as it periodically does, to deliberate on a matter it considered rather important: a proposed one-day auto-rickshaw yatra. The plan departing Srisailam Road at 6 a.m. from the decades-old idli cart near Old Malakpet famous for its peanut chutney, and winding through the day until 6 p.m. is envisioned as an exercise in nostalgia and social observation.

The idea is to revisit the old cafés, mess halls and cinema halls where the group once spent hours, and to document, quite seriously, how social life has become mechanised in pursuit of currency. A report on the findings, they resolved, would be sent to the central committee. Unlike the voyages of Vasco da Gama, Columbus or Captain Cook undertaken with royal financing and armies, this journey, the group notes wryly, is funded entirely by their own pockets and, perhaps, their own declining health. 

Just as the discussion peaked, a call came in from Millet Babu aka Dr. Srinivasa Babu, a scientist at IIMR, whose work has indirectly benefited lakhs of farmers, asking if he and his old friend S. Ramprasad could drop by. They arrived promptly, and conversation ranged widely from Trump to natural farming, from Madanapalle's tomatoes to their Italian origins, from corporate boardroom politics to the fraying of family life and early marital breakdowns. 

Ramprasad, a former Rotary Governor known for his service work and once ITC's International Business Division Vice President, who, old-timers say, narrowly missed the chairmanship, declared, with a laugh, that the tea beat any five-star hotel. Over three rounds of chai and five Osmania biscuits, old classmates, forgotten hostel meals from Bapatla Agricultural College, and quiet tales of integrity and duty were recalled, before everyone finally went home, richer, if only in conversation.

(Valeti Gopichand, retired program officer, All India Radio, Hyderabad.)