From Garba to Puja Pandals: Why Chai Belongs in India's Festive Season
Opening Summary
India doesn't celebrate the festive season in one way.
In Ahmedabad, Navratri can mean hours of Garba, music and movement. In Kolkata, Durga Puja transforms neighbourhoods into elaborate pandals filled with art, crowds and food. In Delhi, Ramlila brings families together for evening performances. Across the country, people travel, visit relatives, meet friends and make time for traditions that return every year.
The celebrations may look completely different.
But somewhere between the ritual, the music and the crowds, there is often a quieter moment.
Someone sits down.
Someone asks, “Chai loge?”
And the conversation begins.
That is where chai belongs in India's festive season; not as a religious ritual, but as part of the countless pauses that happen around celebration.
What does a cup of chai have to do with a festival?
Quite a lot, if you look beyond the formal rituals.
Festivals are built around coming together. People arrive early, wait for performances, visit homes, walk through pandals, meet people they haven't seen for months and stay out later than usual.
Tea naturally fits into these moments because it is already deeply embedded in everyday Indian life.
According to the Tea Board of India, India accounted for around 18% of global tea consumption in 2024, while approximately 84% of India's tea production was consumed domestically.
Those numbers don't mean that chai is part of every festival.
They tell us something simpler: tea is already part of the everyday rhythm of the country.
So when everyday life becomes festive, the cup doesn't need an invitation.
In Gujarat, the festival moves. Where does the cup fit?
Think of a Navratri evening in Gujarat.
The music starts.
The Garba circle gets bigger.
People in colourful clothes move with the rhythm, sometimes for hours.
Garba itself is now recognised by UNESCO as an element of India's intangible cultural heritage, reflecting its importance as a living cultural tradition of Gujarat.
But no celebration can remain at full energy forever.
There are breaks.
People step away from the dance floor. Friends catch up. Families sit together. Someone needs something warm before heading back into the crowd.
The chai isn't competing with Garba.
It is part of the space between the dances.
And that distinction is what makes the relationship believable.
Chai doesn't need to be a tradition of Navratri to belong to the evening.
It simply needs to be part of the people experiencing it.
In Kolkata, tea has actually walked into the Puja pandal
The connection becomes even more interesting in Bengal.
Durga Puja is not simply a religious event in Kolkata. UNESCO describes it as a major public expression of religion and art, characterised by large installations and pavilions and drawing crowds across the city. Durga Puja in Kolkata was inscribed on UNESCO's Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2021.
Every year, people move from one pandal to another.
They walk.
They stop.
They talk.
They eat.
They meet friends.
And in 2025, one Kolkata Puja took the relationship with tea much further.
Alipore Sarbojanin's Durga Puja used tea as its central theme. Its “Cha-Pan Utor” installation explored tea's history, culture and place in everyday life. Reports from the Puja also noted that Darjeeling tea was being brewed at the pandal.
That is a remarkable image.
A drink that is usually sitting quietly in a cup became the subject of an entire Puja installation.
Why?
Because tea has accumulated far more meaning in India than its size would suggest.
It has travelled through history, workplaces, homes, railway stations, roadside stalls and countless conversations.
And in Kolkata, during Durga Puja, it found its way into the pandal too.
Then there is the chai after the celebration
Travel to Delhi during Navratri and Dussehra and the visual language changes again.
Here, Ramlila performances and public gatherings become part of the festive experience.
The stage gets the attention.
The performances get the attention.
The crowd gets the attention.
But think about what happens around them.
Families arrive together.
Friends wait for the next scene.
People talk while standing in queues.
Children get restless.
Someone looks for something to eat or drink.
And eventually, the evening winds down.
That is when chai becomes interesting.
It isn't the headline.
It is the pause after the headline.
Why does chai work so well in these moments?
Perhaps because chai is less about the drink than the interaction around it.
“Have some tea” can mean:
-
Sit down.
-
Stay a little longer.
-
Tell me what happened.
-
Let's talk.
-
You've travelled a long way - have something.
-
It's cold - have something warm.
-
You're leaving already? One more cup.
That makes chai particularly suited to festivals, because festivals create exactly these situations.
People who haven't met in months suddenly have an evening together.
Families have guests.
Friends run into each other.
Neighbours open their homes.
Old conversations resume.
The cup simply gives those conversations somewhere to begin.
And what happens when the festival travels outside India?
This is where the story becomes even more meaningful.
Indian festivals don't stay within India.
Garba and Navratri celebrations now bring communities together across countries, while Durga Puja is celebrated by Bengali communities around the world. UNESCO itself notes that Durga Puja is celebrated not only in Kolkata and elsewhere in India but also among the Bengali diaspora.
The surroundings may change.
The community hall may replace the neighbourhood ground.
A city abroad may replace Ahmedabad or Kolkata.
But people still recreate familiar sounds, food, rituals and conversations.
And sometimes, something as ordinary as a cup of Indian tea becomes part of that feeling of familiarity.
Not because tea is required for the festival.
Because familiar things matter more when you're far from home.
From Garba to Puja pandals, what remains the same?
The most interesting thing about India's festive season isn't that every celebration has chai.
It doesn't.
The interesting thing is that every celebration creates moments for people to be together.
Garba has the break between dances.
Pandal-hopping has the stop between destinations.
Ramlila has the interval between performances.
A family celebration has the conversation after dinner.
A diaspora celebration has the moment when everyone finally sits together.
The setting changes.
The language changes.
The food changes.
But the human rhythm is remarkably similar:
Come together. Pause. Talk. Share. Continue.
And chai fits naturally into that rhythm.
Where does Golden Tips fit into this story?
For Golden Tips, there is an additional layer.
The brand's connection to Darjeeling means tea itself is part of its heritage. That makes the festive season an opportunity to talk about Indian tea not simply as a product, but as something that travels through different regions, occasions and generations.
A Darjeeling cup can sit beside a festive conversation in Kolkata.
A strong CTC can become someone's morning chai before a long day of celebrations.
A Masala Chai can become part of an evening gathering.
The point isn't to assign a particular tea to a particular festival as though it were a traditional rule.
It is to recognise something much simpler:
Tea adapts to the moment because people do.
The cup between the celebrations
Imagine India during the festive season.
Music from a Garba ground.
Lights around a Puja pandal.
A Ramlila stage in the distance.
Families arriving at someone's home.
A community celebration thousands of kilometres from India.
Each scene looks different.
But somewhere in each one, there is likely to be a moment when the noise becomes quieter.
People sit down.
Someone pours a cup.
And for a few minutes, nobody is rushing anywhere.
That is where chai belongs.
Not at the centre of the festival.
But in the moments that make the festival feel human.
Different traditions. Different celebrations. Different cities.
One familiar cup.
