My Story
It began by the Ganges.
I grew up in Barh, a small town in Bihar, North India, on the banks of the river Ganga, one of four siblings in a middle-class family where everyone had a chore. Mine was to fetch fresh cow’s milk from the neighbor’s house every morning. And the first thing made with that milk, always, was chai.
I can still taste it.
Friends, families, communities built over chai, where they’d meet and share their stories, struggles, and successes, all over chai. It didn’t matter who you were. The cup was the same.
Chai followed me everywhere.
Through college, my friends and I had chai twice a day, dissecting exams, cricket matches, and our big dreams for life. Then life took me to Texas for my MBA. If I had to summarize those two years in one line: drinking chai, listening to “Kun Faya Kun”, a Bollywood song that means “it is”, and looking for jobs to start a life in America.
Then I lost it.
Corporate America happened. I got busy, my diet got poor, and chai got replaced by drinks. One day, I had a heart attack and nearly died. I like to think it was the lack of chai in my life.
But I kept chasing the Great American Dream anyway, until a heartbreak with the woman I thought I’d marry left me completely devastated, searching for answers.
So I went back to my roots.
I turned to the scriptures. I studied the practices of the masters. And somewhere in that process, I realized what I had truly lost in the ruthless pursuit of the American Dream: my friends, my family, my home, my culture, and myself.
So I left it all to find myself. For four years, I lived in small towns across Mexico, India, and Guatemala, cooking, learning, healing. And when I finally returned to Los Angeles, I came back with chai.
What I learned:
“The Great American Dream isn’t about chasing someone else’s dream. It’s about building your own.”
I’m grateful for the chance to find my love again, and this time, to share it. ChaiGuy is now on a mission to build a global community of friends committed to living their true self, starting from Los Angeles, one cup at a time.