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There are things that hold a film set together that never make it into the end credits. The lighting crew, the AD’s clipboard, the background score playing in someone’s earphones at 4 AM, and chai. Always chai.
On International Tea Day, actress Isha Koppikar is putting into words what anyone who has spent time on a shoot already knows. “On shoot sets, chai is honestly an emotion,” she says. “One ‘chai break?’ and suddenly the whole set feels happier.
Sleepy faces wake up, conversations begin, stress disappears for five minutes, and everybody gathers around like it’s a mini celebration.” It’s a scene so universal it barely needs describing. But Isha does it anyway and gets the visualisation exactly right.
For her personally, there’s no room for variation. “For me, tea has always been more than just an energy refresher during shoots. “That too Masala chai and khari biscuit. Those are non-negotiable for me. Early morning call times feel incomplete without chai. Night shoots somehow survive because of chai,” she adds. In an industry where everything ranging from schedules, scripts, release dates, is subject to change without notice, the chai break is the one thing that is the forever constant.
“It is comfort, it is routine, it is that little pause in the middle of madness.” And the best parts, she adds, happen right during those breaks. “Random conversations, script discussions, laughter, gossip, and those ‘just one more cup’ moments.”
Then there’s Rianna, Isha’s daughter, who has apparently inherited her mother’s love for chai and the ritual in full. “Whenever she comes back home from her school or her athletics class, Rianna has to have her chai and biscuits. Just like me, they are non-negotiable for her. And just like at my house, on the sets too, if there’s tea, there have to be biscuits next to it.”
There’s something quietly lovely about that image, like a habit passed down not through instruction but through presence, through watching, through enough set visits that the rhythm became her own.
“That combination somehow makes every hectic day feel a little more normal, warm, and happy.” On International Tea Day, Isha Koppikar isn’t selling anything. She’s just telling the truth about what gets everyone through.
