Some kitchen objects are purchased. Others seem to have always been there.
The steel dabba belongs to the second category. It may hold tea today, cumin tomorrow, biscuits after that. Its job changes but its presence does not.
Built to be used
Stainless steel is wonderfully unsentimental. It survives hot kitchens, hurried washing and years of lids being dropped. Scratches accumulate without making the object feel ruined. If anything, they make it more itself.
A container for more than ingredients
Open an old dabba and the smell can locate you instantly. Tea, cardamom or roasted spice turns an ordinary container into a piece of sensory memory.
That is the charm of the best Objects of Chai. They were never designed to become heirlooms. They simply stayed useful for long enough that one day we realised they had become part of home.
