The start of the pilgrimage within the pilgrimage was the afternoon of February 22. SMC, his wife, my wife, and I got on the sloooow train from Calcutta to the hill country. We could have taken the faster Darjeeling Mail, but that would have meant traveling at night both there and back, and I'd asked for some daylight travel so as to see the countryside from the train window.
The train chugged off around 1:30, and would leave us at our destination around first light the next morning. That afternoon was a nice, relaxing way for all of us to hang out and get to know each other better. The flat countryside of rural low-country West Bengal rolled by, with frequent stops. Usually, when the train stopped, there would be more activity from vendors than from passengers getting on or off. And among the vendors there would always be a tea guy.
The end product would be sweet, strong Assam CTC tea. There would always be a big kettle. Sometimes the kettle would contain the finished product, and sometimes it would hold hot, milky sugar water, with tea made in the cup using a tea bag. Sometimes the cup would be the classic unglazed clay, soon to return to the earth, and sometimes it would be plastic, but always it would be about 3 ounces. (We heard that the Railway Ministry has decreed that vendors will have to return to the old-style clay cups soon.) The price: 4 rupees, or less than a dime.
As I type this, there's a clay cup before me that I took home as a souvenir.
/Lew