by Shipra Castledine
Author's Foreword: 'The days gone by... to me had a better quality of life.There was so much strength of character in our previous generations. And a simpler, more meaningful lifestyle. Anyway, we live with what we have and make the best of it :)...As long as saying something like that does not offend young people if they are reading the blog!'
Whilst my family was in tea India and China fought a short war. This was for a month between October and November 1962. The Dooars and all neighbouring areas are close to the Tibet-China border and are heavily populated with the defence forces of army and air force. This war naturally directly impacted the tea plantations. I remember that we were in boarding school in Loreto Convent, Darjeeling, and one of the days after the war broke out all of us children who were from the Dooars tea estates were pulled out of school and evacuated to Kolkata.
I was little, only seven years old at the time. Only mothers and children were evacuated and the men held the fort. We were taken to Bagdogra Airport which is an airforce airport in the Jalpaiguri* District of North Bengal also used by commercial airlines. There was this monstrous defence cargo plane sitting on the runway. We were directed into it to find that it was a double decker accommodation inside. It quickly filled up with all the evacuees. The seats were like single hammocks slung along the sides of the plane. It was all an adventure as we children did not understand the seriousness of why we were doing this. The plane flew to Dumdum Airport in Kolkata in a fairly slow, noisy flight. You could hear the drone of the engine and the propellers.
When we arrived at Dumdum we were taken to the jute plantations on the outskirts of Kolkata. The accommodation there was very comfortable and it was all very similar to the tea estates. I think we stayed there for the month that the war was on and then went back to our homes in tea as our school was closed for the three month long winter holidays.
We heard stories from our fathers about their experiences of the war as the fighting was very close.
My Dad related this incident of either himself or of someone we know ( I can’t remember who it was) who had driven to Siliguri about an hour and a half away from some of the Dooars tea estates and whoever it was had to drive further towards Bagdogra. After finishing up with whatever he had to do, he was driving back to go home to the gardens and his location was still in Bagdogra town. A Chinese fighter jet screamed over Bagdogra Airport and bombed the Indian air force fighter jets on the runway. Thankfully there were no deaths from that bombing, but it was drama and excitement for everyone around! That was a story that we remembered! Right through the month of the war all the Dooars and Terai tea areas watched air skirmishes between the Chinese air force and the Indian. But this time it was a bit closer for comfort than just watching them in the sky.
What Dad did tell me of firsthand experiences was him doing his normal rounds and living his normal life and hearing the fighter jets in the sky and he would look up to see either the Chinese chasing the Indian jets or vice versa!
There was the Indo-Pakistan war in 1965 that affected us again. Though the Pakistan border was not as close as the Chinese border, we felt the tensions in defence with our areas having such a strong presence of the army and air force. Generals and Colonels in the army were good friends with the tea planters as were senior air force officers and they would discuss as much as they were permitted to with their tea planter friends. This brought the machinations of war into our drawing rooms. And it also brought in the politics of both countries’ governments.
Radios would be on a lot to listen to the latest news. There was no TV for many years yet. I remember the sometimes volatile discussions held between my parents and came to appreciate much later on in life what good friends they were and how that quality impacts a relationship. Their marriage was built on a good friendship that had started when they worked together in All India Radio.
Mum was lucky in how she was able to settle down and enjoy tea life almost from the get go. It is a lifestyle so different from any other in India. Her father had been a senior tax officer for the British government and he was provided a house and had to maintain a lifestyle that kept him hobnobbing with the top echelons of the Brits and Indians. My grandmother was well educated, she was one of the first Indian girls to study in Loreto Convent, Darjeeling. Her English and also the English spoken by my Dad’s father was the Queen’s English. They had perfect diction and sounded very polished. I never heard a swear word growing up!! My parents too spoke that aristocratic English!
Well, my grandmother had two kitchens in her days as the tax officer’s wife. There was the lunch time Indian kitchen where she would be in her sari worn ‘desi’ style, sitting on the floor and cutting vegetables on a ‘bonti’ and helping cook mostly a Bengali lunch. She was a renowned cook in her day.
In the evening she would have changed into a stylish sari, wrapped in the modern style, her hair done up, crimped on both sides of the hair part and a neat bun at the back. Two jewelled hair slides would be in her hair neatly holding the crimps in place. I have one of those jewels on a locket today. It is a delicately made gold swallow embedded with rubies and pearls. This second kitchen would have ‘mugh’ cooks who were renowned for their cooking and they would be cooking up the most delicious bakes and roasts and puddings and cakes and all things European. The dinner table would be laid formally and it was the setting was the stuff of stories. And when my Didima entertained sometimes it would be garden parties with several small tables set in their garden and all of high society fluttering about and enjoying her excellent hostessing.
So to come down to why I digressed. This lifestyle in my mother’s younger days lent itself to merging into tea life as it was in those days, quite easily.
A bonti is a long curved blade that cuts on a platform held down by foot. Both hands are used to hold whatever is being cut and move it against the blade. The sharper side faces the user. The method gives excellent control over the cutting process and can be used to cut anything from tiny shrimp to large pumpkins. The bonti’s uniqueness comes from the posture required to use it: one must either squat on one’s haunches or sit on the floor with one knee raised while the corresponding foot presses down on the base. As in other “floor-oriented” cultures, such as Japan, the people of Bengal were accustomed to squatting or sitting on the floor for indefinite periods of time.
Like our forest department friends who gave us the opportunity to visit and enjoy every forest bungalow in the extended area of where we lived our army and air force friends likewise took us to restricted areas that only the defence personnel were permitted to enter. One of these border areas was at the India China border - the Nathu La pass, 16000ft above sea level. I am pretty sure I was not taken on the trip when my parents and Mr and Mrs Palit went to Nathu La. Kakoli, their daughter, was not taken either.
I can remember photographs of all of them looking quite cold and standing right on the border. My mum was wearing one of my Dad’s warm trousers and Mrs Palit was wearing one of Mr Palit’s trousers!! It was so cold up there! The army would be hovering constantly as they kept a vigilant eye on civilians coping with the altitude. The minute anyone showed symptoms of altitude sickness, they would feed the person pistachios and raisins and very sweet hot tea and if the person did not feel better they would immediately transport them down to a safe altitude which was Gangtok, the capital town of Sikkim.
Much later when I returned to live in Siliguri as a married lady with children we all made a trip up to Nathu La. I suffered some bits of altitude sickness but I did not need to be transported back down to Gangtok. All those who were feeling fine drove up to the border and watched the Chinese soldiers going about their business guarding their post. In fact they watched a mail exchange between the Chinese and Indian soldiers whilst they were there. The most beautiful sight we experienced up there was the Changu** Lake/. The Crown Prince of Sikkim and his wife had drowned in this lake. They were driving across it when it was frozen, but the ice broke and they crashed through. We saw the lake completely frozen over, and yet a month before that, my then husband the late KK Roy had made a trip up and we had photos of the lake, the deepest blue in colour in the midst of snow covered mountains. I will have to keep these photos pending as I cannot access them easily.
Some of my father’s closest friends in his tea days were army officers. I particularly remember Col Nathu Singh who was posted to Mal Bazaar for some years and then he moved to the cantonment at Sevoke outside Siliguri. When he was at Mal we saw him very frequently as he would come over to our bungalow for meals or visit Dad whilst he was on his rounds. He and his officers would join us on club days at the Western Dooars Club and if I remember correctly there was a separate bar for defence personnel.
In turn we were invited to their army club. It was a wonderful association. This association allowed civilians to get membership later in the city army clubs. Like Dad got his membership at Fort William army club in Calcutta when he moved there. I also remember General Prem Singh though not as clearly as Col Nathu Singh. General Prem Singh was the one who brought in his division to patrol through the tea estate when Dad was having labour trouble. So ends this chapter with some of the many facets of tea life. To be continued...
* Bagdogra is (and has been for some years ) now in Darjeeling District
** Changu Lake is also called Tshongo or Tsomgo Lake
Photographs sourced by the author from the internet
'My name is Shipra Castledine nee Shipra Bose (Bunty). My parents were Sudhin and Gouri Bose. I am a tea 'baba' of the 1950-s era. I spent a part of my life growing up in the Dooars and another large part of my life married to a tea planter's son the Late KK Roy son of PK and Geeta Roy of Rungamuttee TE in the Dooars. I continued to be in the tea industry for many years as KK was a tea broker till he passed away in 1998.'
Author's Foreword: 'The days gone by... to me had a better quality of life.There was so much strength of character in our previous generations. And a simpler, more meaningful lifestyle. Anyway, we live with what we have and make the best of it :)...As long as saying something like that does not offend young people if they are reading the blog!'
Whilst my family was in tea India and China fought a short war. This was for a month between October and November 1962. The Dooars and all neighbouring areas are close to the Tibet-China border and are heavily populated with the defence forces of army and air force. This war naturally directly impacted the tea plantations. I remember that we were in boarding school in Loreto Convent, Darjeeling, and one of the days after the war broke out all of us children who were from the Dooars tea estates were pulled out of school and evacuated to Kolkata.
I was little, only seven years old at the time. Only mothers and children were evacuated and the men held the fort. We were taken to Bagdogra Airport which is an airforce airport in the Jalpaiguri* District of North Bengal also used by commercial airlines. There was this monstrous defence cargo plane sitting on the runway. We were directed into it to find that it was a double decker accommodation inside. It quickly filled up with all the evacuees. The seats were like single hammocks slung along the sides of the plane. It was all an adventure as we children did not understand the seriousness of why we were doing this. The plane flew to Dumdum Airport in Kolkata in a fairly slow, noisy flight. You could hear the drone of the engine and the propellers.
When we arrived at Dumdum we were taken to the jute plantations on the outskirts of Kolkata. The accommodation there was very comfortable and it was all very similar to the tea estates. I think we stayed there for the month that the war was on and then went back to our homes in tea as our school was closed for the three month long winter holidays.
 |
| The transport plane we travelled in in 1962 was very much like this one |
My Dad related this incident of either himself or of someone we know ( I can’t remember who it was) who had driven to Siliguri about an hour and a half away from some of the Dooars tea estates and whoever it was had to drive further towards Bagdogra. After finishing up with whatever he had to do, he was driving back to go home to the gardens and his location was still in Bagdogra town. A Chinese fighter jet screamed over Bagdogra Airport and bombed the Indian air force fighter jets on the runway. Thankfully there were no deaths from that bombing, but it was drama and excitement for everyone around! That was a story that we remembered! Right through the month of the war all the Dooars and Terai tea areas watched air skirmishes between the Chinese air force and the Indian. But this time it was a bit closer for comfort than just watching them in the sky.
What Dad did tell me of firsthand experiences was him doing his normal rounds and living his normal life and hearing the fighter jets in the sky and he would look up to see either the Chinese chasing the Indian jets or vice versa!
 |
| Bagdogra Airport in later years - the building was much smaller and basic in 1962 |
Radios would be on a lot to listen to the latest news. There was no TV for many years yet. I remember the sometimes volatile discussions held between my parents and came to appreciate much later on in life what good friends they were and how that quality impacts a relationship. Their marriage was built on a good friendship that had started when they worked together in All India Radio.
Mum was lucky in how she was able to settle down and enjoy tea life almost from the get go. It is a lifestyle so different from any other in India. Her father had been a senior tax officer for the British government and he was provided a house and had to maintain a lifestyle that kept him hobnobbing with the top echelons of the Brits and Indians. My grandmother was well educated, she was one of the first Indian girls to study in Loreto Convent, Darjeeling. Her English and also the English spoken by my Dad’s father was the Queen’s English. They had perfect diction and sounded very polished. I never heard a swear word growing up!! My parents too spoke that aristocratic English!
Well, my grandmother had two kitchens in her days as the tax officer’s wife. There was the lunch time Indian kitchen where she would be in her sari worn ‘desi’ style, sitting on the floor and cutting vegetables on a ‘bonti’ and helping cook mostly a Bengali lunch. She was a renowned cook in her day.
In the evening she would have changed into a stylish sari, wrapped in the modern style, her hair done up, crimped on both sides of the hair part and a neat bun at the back. Two jewelled hair slides would be in her hair neatly holding the crimps in place. I have one of those jewels on a locket today. It is a delicately made gold swallow embedded with rubies and pearls. This second kitchen would have ‘mugh’ cooks who were renowned for their cooking and they would be cooking up the most delicious bakes and roasts and puddings and cakes and all things European. The dinner table would be laid formally and it was the setting was the stuff of stories. And when my Didima entertained sometimes it would be garden parties with several small tables set in their garden and all of high society fluttering about and enjoying her excellent hostessing.
So to come down to why I digressed. This lifestyle in my mother’s younger days lent itself to merging into tea life as it was in those days, quite easily.
 |
| Bengali Bonti |
A bonti is a long curved blade that cuts on a platform held down by foot. Both hands are used to hold whatever is being cut and move it against the blade. The sharper side faces the user. The method gives excellent control over the cutting process and can be used to cut anything from tiny shrimp to large pumpkins. The bonti’s uniqueness comes from the posture required to use it: one must either squat on one’s haunches or sit on the floor with one knee raised while the corresponding foot presses down on the base. As in other “floor-oriented” cultures, such as Japan, the people of Bengal were accustomed to squatting or sitting on the floor for indefinite periods of time.
 |
| This is very much what my Didima would have looked like in her evening formal sari-wear. The addition would have been the two jewelled hair slides in the crimps in the hair. |
Like our forest department friends who gave us the opportunity to visit and enjoy every forest bungalow in the extended area of where we lived our army and air force friends likewise took us to restricted areas that only the defence personnel were permitted to enter. One of these border areas was at the India China border - the Nathu La pass, 16000ft above sea level. I am pretty sure I was not taken on the trip when my parents and Mr and Mrs Palit went to Nathu La. Kakoli, their daughter, was not taken either.
I can remember photographs of all of them looking quite cold and standing right on the border. My mum was wearing one of my Dad’s warm trousers and Mrs Palit was wearing one of Mr Palit’s trousers!! It was so cold up there! The army would be hovering constantly as they kept a vigilant eye on civilians coping with the altitude. The minute anyone showed symptoms of altitude sickness, they would feed the person pistachios and raisins and very sweet hot tea and if the person did not feel better they would immediately transport them down to a safe altitude which was Gangtok, the capital town of Sikkim.
Much later when I returned to live in Siliguri as a married lady with children we all made a trip up to Nathu La. I suffered some bits of altitude sickness but I did not need to be transported back down to Gangtok. All those who were feeling fine drove up to the border and watched the Chinese soldiers going about their business guarding their post. In fact they watched a mail exchange between the Chinese and Indian soldiers whilst they were there. The most beautiful sight we experienced up there was the Changu** Lake/. The Crown Prince of Sikkim and his wife had drowned in this lake. They were driving across it when it was frozen, but the ice broke and they crashed through. We saw the lake completely frozen over, and yet a month before that, my then husband the late KK Roy had made a trip up and we had photos of the lake, the deepest blue in colour in the midst of snow covered mountains. I will have to keep these photos pending as I cannot access them easily.
 |
| Changu Lake |
Some of my father’s closest friends in his tea days were army officers. I particularly remember Col Nathu Singh who was posted to Mal Bazaar for some years and then he moved to the cantonment at Sevoke outside Siliguri. When he was at Mal we saw him very frequently as he would come over to our bungalow for meals or visit Dad whilst he was on his rounds. He and his officers would join us on club days at the Western Dooars Club and if I remember correctly there was a separate bar for defence personnel.
In turn we were invited to their army club. It was a wonderful association. This association allowed civilians to get membership later in the city army clubs. Like Dad got his membership at Fort William army club in Calcutta when he moved there. I also remember General Prem Singh though not as clearly as Col Nathu Singh. General Prem Singh was the one who brought in his division to patrol through the tea estate when Dad was having labour trouble. So ends this chapter with some of the many facets of tea life. To be continued...
* Bagdogra is (and has been for some years ) now in Darjeeling District
** Changu Lake is also called Tshongo or Tsomgo Lake
Photographs sourced by the author from the internet
MEET THE WRITER:
'My name is Shipra Castledine nee Shipra Bose (Bunty). My parents were Sudhin and Gouri Bose. I am a tea 'baba' of the 1950-s era. I spent a part of my life growing up in the Dooars and another large part of my life married to a tea planter's son the Late KK Roy son of PK and Geeta Roy of Rungamuttee TE in the Dooars. I continued to be in the tea industry for many years as KK was a tea broker till he passed away in 1998.'
Read all Shipra's stories here: https://teastorytellers.blogspot.com/search/label/Shipra%20Castledine
Is this your first visit here? Welcome to Indian Chai Stories!
Do you have a chai story of your own to share? Send it to me here, please : indianchaistories@gmail.com. My name is Gowri Mohanakrishnan and I'm a tea planter's wife. I started this blog because one of the things that I wouldn't want us to lose in a fast changing world is the tea story - a story always told with great seriousness, no matter how funny - always true (always), maybe a tall tale, long, or short, impossible, scary, funny or exciting but never dull. You will find yourself transported to another world!
Happy reading! Cheers to the spirit of Indian Tea!
ADD THIS LINK TO YOUR FAVOURITES : https://teastorytellers.blogspot.com/Indian Chai Stories
Is this your first visit here? Welcome to Indian Chai Stories!
Do you have a chai story of your own to share? Send it to me here, please : indianchaistories@gmail.com. My name is Gowri Mohanakrishnan and I'm a tea planter's wife. I started this blog because one of the things that I wouldn't want us to lose in a fast changing world is the tea story - a story always told with great seriousness, no matter how funny - always true (always), maybe a tall tale, long, or short, impossible, scary, funny or exciting but never dull. You will find yourself transported to another world!
Happy reading! Cheers to the spirit of Indian Tea!
ADD THIS LINK TO YOUR FAVOURITES : https://teastorytellers.blogspot.com/Indian Chai Stories
This was lovely. You even made a war sound serendipitous!
ReplyDeleteLife in tea in the days of yore was certainly more expansive than during our era, or so it appears.
Brings back memories of my time in the Corner,Jainti-Sankos district.Women and children evacuated and others disappeared for a few days.Being so isolated news was hard to come by Lots of planes flying East so we knew all was not well
ReplyDeleteGoodness..what an eventful life! Narrated in such an interesting way by you! Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteAs usual a superb piece. As I was initially an Army wife and later a tea “mem,” your memories became mine. Thank you Bunty.
ReplyDeleteI’m prepping for the next chapter! Thank you for all the inspiration to keep going!
ReplyDeleteVery well related recollections and being a 'bong', can relate to the family traditions described. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteI remember being evacuated to Kolkata in 1962. We went from one of the tea gardens (which one?) in a Hercules. Once in Kolkata our parents made the decision that we would go to Scotland. Arriving in the UK in the coldest winter in memory.
ReplyDeleteI only realised fairly recently that there had been a war through reading posts about it on the Koh hai website.