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The real meaning of life is sometimes swirling in your cup as you sit in a dark alley way in the unknown streets of Mumbai, you realize how wrong you are about what you know as you take another sip from the cup of life. Sometimes we forget what it means to be human, to offer ourselves and what we have to others yet through different points in our life we are given reminders to be kind, to come together, to share, to communicate, and to be present. The real meaning of life was sitting before me, both on the couch in the dark alleyway of Mumbai and also in my cup of chai offered to me by a family who showed more kindness to strangers then what we do. Chai translated from Hebrew to English means ‘life’. Chai is complex yet simple while life is simple and we make it complex. Chai is life. It was like milk boiling walking through the dark alleys, past the colourful tapestries, used as doors to cover rooms that are the homes to families, blowing through the wind and carrying messages from one room to the next. The farther Shekhar Pandey, the driver I booked so my family felt safer while I traveled, and I walked into what I perceived as ‘the unknown’. The farther the street lights dimmed from my eye’s view, the traffic sounds, the smells of people and samosas frying, become fainter and fainter and you are left winding through a different world with dark puddles, the wind whispering by, and only your feet to carry you. The anticipation of not knowing where you’ll end up is both frightening and exhilarating like biting into a cardamom pod and tasting the earthy sweet spice between your teeth. It’s time to add this to the boiling pot and see what happens. Life is about the unknown. There is so much we do not know and so much we have yet to experience. We are taught in the Western world that life is one way. But when you add tea leaves to the boiling milk you realize it changes, the liquid changes and so does your perception. After walking down the narrow, gravel alleys we saw children in the distance sitting on a couch in the alley. The mother came to join us from one of the rooms with the tapestry door. She asked if I would like a cup of chai, and Shekhar tells me it is customary in their culture to give any guest, whether a stranger or a friend, a drink when they enter their home. So I say ‘Yes please’ and receive my cup of chai swirling in the unknown of this present moment. The most generosity I was shown, when these families have so little, is the kindness they show strangers that we ourselves do not do this our own country. Experiencing the hospitality of strangers in India is the greatest gift I could receive. I was warned about India, being a lone female traveler, and although I experienced the stares and glances and sometimes feeling uncomfortable, I also felt the warmth and kindness that made India so beautiful and made me feel alive. The final touch to make the perfect chai is adding sugar, to balance the spice, to make life simply sweeter. What if the whole meaning of life is to be present, let go of what we cannot control, take a sip of the unknown, and enjoy all the simplicities and complexities life and chai have to offer. To enjoy life in the now and take the ideologies of what we are told what life is and flip it upside down to give it a new meaning. Simple yet complicated. Like a cup of chai, a spicy warm and sweet surprise that is waiting to be absorbed so much like the people, the hospitality, the generosity and culture of India. Life is about perception, let’s embrace the differences, come together, take all the good from each other and absorb it and share it. Like the drink of life, a cup of chai, so simple yet complicated in taste, take a drink and keep sipping.