Chhota haazri or Chota hazri (Hindi: छोटा हाज़िरी, from the Hindustani words for "small" and "presence") was a meal served in households and barracks, particularly in northern British India, shortly after dawn.
In subsequent years, the tradition of such a meal has disappeared, but the phrase lives on in Anglo-Indian households, certain regiments of the Indian Army, and in public schools —such as The Doon School, Dehradun, Colonel Brown Cambridge School, Dehradun, Mayo College, Ajmer, Lawrence School, Sanawar, Lawrence School, Lovedale and St. Paul's School, Darjeeling, where it has come to refer to a cup of tea or hot milk with biscuits served early in the morning at around 6:00 a.m.[1] The Russian traveller and writer Princess Olga Alexandrovna Shcherbatova (1857-1944) mentions partaking of "Chota Hazri" while visiting Mumbai in January 1891.
[2] In 1912 explorer Aurel Stein wrote the following during an expedition across the mountains of Pashtunistan: ... 11.30 p.m.
I was up again to start the next days work, and after a hasty Chota Hazri which my cook was determined to treat as a supper, I was ready to set my detachments in motion.
... First, a small headline, 'Mr V. P. Menon Visits State of Chhota Hazri'; Then, in the Governor-General's daily Court Circular, a brief notice, 'H.