A ‘slight’ Mishap

Happy New Year to all of you, dear readers! Many thanks to Indi Khanna for sending us another entertaining story from the High Ranges. Happy reading! Oh, and if you've been waiting to tell us a story of your own, don't lose any time - do write to me.  Cheers! 

Prefaced with an advance apology to Johnny. 

Have taken some literary licence.

Absolutely no offence meant!

This was probably in 1978 while I was the SD (Sena Dorai = Assistant Superintendent) on Panniar. Abid had been transferred to Wallardie Estate in Vandiperiyar and had handed over the estate to John Mathew, who had been moved to the High Ranges from Mooply, a low country rubber property. 

 Ahead of my job with Malayalam’s having been formalised and as a preamble to that, having been sent for my extension interview (Diving headfirst into my calling – a yarn which I have already spun) to Mooply where Johnny was the Superintendent, I had already ‘experienced’ the new PD first hand, albeit in a rather perfunctory way. 

Which experience, bearing in mind that at that point of time my interaction with Johnny was with me being an interviewee, is all it could have been. Post my appointment as an Assistant in Malayalam Plantations, whenever a couple of SDs got together, more often than not the conversation would veer towards the fault lines of each other’s PDs (not that this is in any way different from any other industry, it being a well established and universally accepted fact that regardless of who he/she may be, the boss simply can NEVER be right).

And so, over many a drink, each of those 26 gentlemen who lorded over the tea and rubber properties of Malayalam Plantations as well as all of us underlings, would naturally end up under a microscope with their peculiarities magnified many times over and their personalities being rather gleefully shredded to bits. For whatever be the reasons, at every such session, my new PD always got very special treatment. The upshot being that long before he had moved to Panniar, Johnny’s reputation had preceded him.

Not just amongst the SDs, but across all sections of executive of Malayalam Plantations, it was a known and established fact that Mr Mathew was an extremely fastidious gentleman, his demeanour accepted as being an extreme and acute case of incurable OCD. On which one point, after Johnny had taken over the property, I was constantly being ribbed by my colleagues on the other Malalyam Estates in the High Ranges (Surianalle & Lockhart). Despite all the leg pulling I was subjected to, with me being the lone assistant on Panniar, regardless of his idiosyncrasies, the fact was that my PD and I shared a good relationship and got along rather well with each other.

While that has obviously and most unfortunately, as is happening all over in our country, changed on account of what is nowadays touted as being ‘development’, back in the day the High Range district had only two venerated institutions.

 One being the High Range Club which was the focal point of the social activity of every planter in the district, while the other was the Masonic Lodge (Lodge Heather) which was the preserve of the upper crust planting society and from which we hoi polloi were excluded. Freemasons being a VERY secretive lot and since Lodge Heather was totally bereft of any windows which one could peep in thorough, all that us lowly lot knew about that establishment was that this airtight, box-like building was the meeting place of the gentlemen who would gather in the Lodge at regular intervals all decked up in their bow ties, frills and dinner jackets – for a session of serious binge drinking. Need it be added that John Mathew Esq. was very much a member of that select and secretive society.

One day mid week at morning muster my Conductor, the formidable Mr. Balia who always had his ear to the ground and knew EVERYTHING that ever happened on Panniar, after looking this way and that to make sure no one else was within earshot, bends down and in a very conspiratorial manner whispers in my ear “Sir, last night PD came back very late, almost at five o’clock”. Not getting what he had expected to be the desired reaction he repeated the statement, this time stressing on the VERY. Waits a minute to let that headline news sink in and then tops it up with the icing on the cake, “He came back in a taxi”. Seeing that this last statement had made me prick up my ears he drops in the best one yet – “Sir, the taxi has not gone back to Munnar, it’s still standing at PD's bungalow.” That had me wondering.

While I was still analysing Mr Balia’s rather interesting breaking news, our tapal (mail) boy, breathless with not just the sprint down from the main office but also evidently in a state of extreme excitement, comes rushing down to the muster to tell me that the PD wants to see me. URGENTLY.

Walking into his office I was greeted with a rather jolly ‘Good morning’ and then am asked to have a seat. This came as a bit of a surprise because Johnny had never, till that day, asked me to pull up a chair in his office. With me seated across from him, there was some inconsequential chit-chat about some innocuous stuff following which I am told, “Last evening there was a meeting at the Masonic Lodge”. There being no reaction from the assistant, this was followed up with “I’d gone for the Lodge meeting”.  My “You had mentioned this to me yesterday” was responded to with words which sounded almost as though he was rather reluctantly letting the cat out of the bag.

“I came back in a taxi”. Which interesting statement, since I was not supposed to be aware of this, obviously had to be reacted to. My curiosity was dismissed in a cursory manner, leading to me being advised that the taxi was parked at his bungalow and had been held back because Johnny wanted me to go to Munnar to bring back his car which he said he had to leave behind since he’d had a “slight mishap”.

This pronouncement was followed by a string of instructions that:

~I should immediately head off to Munnar in the cab.

~I should take along 4 workers as they would be required to push start his car.

~The I’d find the car somewhere along the road to the High Range Club.

~And that I should now go up to his bungalow where Ramani (Mrs. Mathew) would give me a couple of   old towels to take along. “Towels – what for?”

In response, the cherry on top of the icing on the cake, “when the workers push the car, please have them keep a towel between their hands and the car so that the cars paintwork doesn’t get scratched!”

With me swallowing hard, keeping a straight face, having the most difficult time trying to control my emotions and holding back on blurting out what I would have really wanted to say, the final request (instruction) followed – That this entire episode was a highly confidential matter to be kept strictly between the two of us and that I obviously should not be discussing or sharing this with anyone else, especially not with any other Malayalam’s executive.

Arranged four workers, duly collected the towels from Ramani, hopped into the cab which had been kept back to transport me and the retrieval party and headed off to Munnar.

Since I had no idea where exactly the car had been abandoned, after crossing the bridge into Munnar and heading towards the High Range Club, all the members of the retrieval platoon kept looking left and right but none of us could see any sign of the abandoned vehicle. In the process having reached the club I asked the staff there whether anyone knew where the Panniar PD's car was. The only information I could glean from them was what had been passed on to the day staff by the night watchman which was that, late at night the car was driven out of the club premises at great speed and screeching of tyres. Nothing beyond that. So back we headed towards the exit towards Panniar from Munnar.

For those who know the lay of the land in Munnar you’d be aware that the road between the High Range Club and Lodge Heather has a very sharp bend, almost like a U-turn, with the lower side of the road dropping off sharply to end in a swamp. And there she was! 

Happily wallowing in the bog like a wild boar, with the slush having crept almost halfway up to the height of the doors of the car. It was beyond not just mine but anyone’s imagination or comprehension as to how one was supposed to have the vehicle pushed out from that muck with the joint effort of those four workers who had accompanied me, each one well armed with towels loaned to us to ensure ‘no scratch on the paintwork’ by Ramani. Having honed in one the target and having let go off the cab, I walked up to one of the staff houses on the non-swamp side of the road to seek help.

Having knocked on the door of the first house, I explained to the lady who answered the knock who I was and what it was that I needed to do, to which the response was for the lady wanting to know who was the owner of the car which had found its way into the swamp. Told that it was the Panniar PDs Ambassador, the lady in a most concerned voice says “first tell me please how badly injured is the gentleman?” 

On being told that the gentleman in question was alive and kicking and sans so much as even a scratch, rather disbelievingly and becoming goggle-eyed the lady informs me that late at night they had heard this car come hurtling down the road, had heard the tyres screeching and then had seen the vehicle literally fly off the road to plonk itself in the swamp! The flight of the Ambassador having taken place in the wee hours of the morning, it was obvious that neither she nor anyone could have actually witnessed the take-off and that what she was sharing with me had to be conjecture and had to be assumed as being the only possibility.

Borrowing a cycle from the lady I pedalled up to the Chokhonad Estate office (the High Range Club and the Lodge are both located on that KDHP property) where I requested the manager (Mr Asad Mohsin) for assistance. 

After he had absorbed what I must have simply blurted out, and taking the crazy situation in his stride (planters had this uncanny knack and ability of ALWAYS being able to take any and everything in their stride) Asad explained to me, as he would to an idiot child, that the assistance I was seeking of a few more helping hands would simply not work. Following which advice I was sent back, seated on a tractor, equipped with a towing cable. Accompanying me on the trailer behind the tractor was a whole gang of workers who were all, obviously, having a good laugh at my expense. I leave it to the readers' imagination to try and figure out how we got that poor half submerged Ambassador back on to the road. And horror of horrors, not one of the gang of workers used those towels! In the process, with all of us having descended into the bog to lend a helping hand while the tractor did its job, each one of us was generously spattered with stinking and cloying mud from from head to toe - but that was another matter altogether.

The Ambassador having been hauled back on to terra firma (those vehicles, while stodgy in looks were accepted and known to be very hardy and robust) and having been checked to make sure no bits or pieces of the vehicle had been left behind in the swamp to keep the resident boars company, the engine actually kicked into life with one turn of the self starter. Took the messed up vehicle across to the High Range Club where we hosed it down, after which I got the mud-spattered retrieval party squad of four to pile into the back seat for the drive drive back to Panniar. 

Arriving at the estate, I drove straight up to the PDs bungalow where, since it was by now lunch time, I had expected to find the PD. Having heard the car coming up the bungalow driveway, Johnny who had likely been waiting on edge, came rushing out, threw a rather perfunctory, ‘Thank you’ my way and then got busy with a through 360 degree inspection of the vehicle, looking for damage and any scratches on the paintwork! I still vividly remember him as being rather upset (a literal and the colloquial translation of that would read as – he was pissed off as hell) by the fact that the white seat covers of his beloved Ambassador were caked with a thick layer of muck and mud and that the inside of the car was smelling about as pleasant as a well used pig-pen!

The bottom line being that back in the day while planting was always loads of hard work, the balancing factor and compensation was provided by bucketloads of comic relief.

Loved every minute of it! 

-Indi Khanna

Meet the writer:

Indi Khanna with Xerox

With an industry experience and a tea knowledge base of four and a half decades and counting, I literally live and breathe tea. 

Starting my career in 1975 as an Assistant Superintendent with Malayalam Plantations Ltd, rolling up my sleeves by 'dirtying' my hands at the grassroots level and having literally 'grown' in the business, my experiences have matured me into a ‘one of a kind’ unique entity in the industry.

My journey which literally starts from the tea nursery and stretches all the way up to the consumer shelf, is in many ways unique. Regularly roaming the tea world, delving into the most remote areas wherever tea is grown or consumed, constantly interacting with Tea folk, I have always been learning and innovating. The invaluable experiences along this very interesting route have culminated into a unique new venture, a one-of-a-kind specialty tea manufacturing facility unit in the Nilgiris - www.teastudio.info.

My life has been and continues to be blessed.

Thankfully this very interesting Tea journey continues as an ongoing learning experience.

Read more by Indi Khanna here: https://teastorytellers.blogspot.com/search/label/Indi%20Khanna 

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, maybe long, short, impossible, scary, funny or exciting but never dull. You will find yourself transported to another world! 

This is the link to all the stories on this blog: https://teastorytellers.blogspot.com/
Be sure to add it to your list of favourites! Happy reading!! Cheers to the spirit of Indian tea!

Diving Headfirst into my Calling

by Indi Khanna 

Good afternoon, dear readers. Am back at my desk after a longish break, and what better way to start off another chain of stories than this little gem from Indi Khanna. It was just wonderful to go back to 1974 and to visit all the places Indi has mentioned. Get yourself a cup of tea, and be careful you don't laugh when you're sipping it!!😊 - Gowri

In 1974 while still studying for my post-grads in English in the Punjab University in Chandigarh, over the Diwali holiday break I had headed off to Delhi to spend a couple of days with my elder sister. On an evening at a party in her house I got into a long free-wheeling general conversation with one of the guests who, before he had moved on to someone else, casually asked what were my plans after university. Being told that I hadn’t a clue, as a parting shot the gentleman says, “Why don’t you come and meet me in my office tomorrow”.

Party over, guests all gone I asked my BIL who it was that I had been gassing with. Told that the gentleman was the Director of Manpower Development with the Oberoi Hotels Group, next morning all spruced and dolled up in my blazer and tie and armed with a copy of my Bio-Data I landed up in his office. The upshot being that by the end of the day, having been interviewed by three different people, I was offered a job as a Management Trainee and told that I could join as soon as I walked out of the university with my degree in hand. A job offer before I had even completed my Masters, what more could one possibly ask for? And so, three months later I found myself in what was then the Oberoi Intercontinental in Delhi. 

The bubble of happiness didn’t last very long! Within a couple of months into the job I simply hated it. In an enclosed, artificial environment where I had to keep smiling at folk I would have loved to smack across their smug faces, resulted in me becoming a grouch who spent every waking hour complaining about almost everything to anyone who would care to listen. And then, providence! Once again in my sister's place, once again a conversation with one of their friends, which went along the lines of him telling me in no uncertain terms that everyone in my sisters circle was fed up of my constant bitching and my hang-dog look and wanted to know why I was like that. “Hate my job, hate the hotel, hate being indoors” in short, hating everything. The answer I got was that since I hated being indoors, why didn’t I look for a job that would entail me being outdoors. “Outdoors – what would I do?” The response is what gave me my calling. “Have you ever considered planting?”

Planting! The VERY limited knowledge I had about planting was that it was all about Tea and that while Tea emanated from Assam, all the tea companies operated out of Calcutta. The world before Google! There being no other way I could think of to dig out any information, next morning I went across to the Delhi telephone exchange, where my request that I be allowed to borrow a Calcutta telephone directory led to me being handed over three VERY large volumes with an instruction that while I was welcome to go through those tomes in the premises, I was not allowed to remove them from there.

It took all of four full working days for me to thumb my way through those volumes, page by page, noting down addresses which appeared to be promising. Shooting in the dark, my search criteria were:

Entries had to be in bold. Since tea was reputed to be the preserve of the BIG boys, Companies that were “Limited”, and companies which sounded “British”.

Four days later I emerged from the exchange with a list of 120 companies which conformed to my yardstick.

Had a typist in a professional typing centre pound the keypad on his Remington type writer to produce 120 covering letters and a similar number of original two page bio-data’s. The insistence on originals because back then photo-copying was in its infancy and the apparatus (one could not really call it a machine) would produce very badly smudged and dirty looking copies. 

Within a fortnight of my having posted the letters after duly licking 120 postage stamps, I received a letter from Malayalam Plantations inviting me for an interview to Cochin and offering me first class train fare and hotel stay there. I was totally flummoxed. Couldn’t figure out how, since all my letters had been posted to only Calcutta based companies, I had received a letter from a company in Cochin (figured out later that a letter to Harrison & Crossfield, who were the managing agents for Malayalams in India, had been forwarded to Cochin). My southernmost travel having been one solitary trip as a kid to Bombay, who was I to look a gift horse in the mouth. The three day journey from Delhi to Cochin being an experience in itself, it’s a yarn I’ll be spinning on another day. For the present ramble, a fortnight later dishevelled and groggy I find myself alighting from the JJ Express at the Cochin Harbour Terminus.

Next day found me in the H&C office, seated in the company of about 45 hopeful young men. Two days later we were down to five who were ushered into the office of Peter Weavers, the CEO to be told that while we five may well be suitable for the job, it was also fair that we get a feel of what we were getting into and that each of us would be sent to one of the company estates for an extension interview. By noon the next day, I was driven into Mooply, a rubber estate near Trichur. The moment the car started winding its way up to the Superintendents bungalow, I just knew that this was IT!

The PD there was Johnny Mathew who, after we had introduced ourselves, had me seen up to the guest bedroom, a seriously spacious room with a rather grand four poster bed in the middle of the gleaming polished wooden floor. Having settled in, I accompanied the boss to his office where I was given the programme for the extension interview. The modus operandi being that I spend one day with the PD, the next day with G K Mohan (one of the three Assistant Superintendents on Mooply) and then back to Cochin on day four (a Friday) where I was to cool my heels in the hotel to meet with the Agents post weekend. On an aside the PD also told me that on the morrow he had invited all the executives from the three estates which made up the Malayalams Mooply Valley Group for dinner and that, since I was his guest (for want of a better word) that I too was invited.

The next day with the PD went off rather well with me getting more and more excited at the door providence had opened up for me. At the end of that very interesting day a well scrubbed and spruced up Mr Extension Interviewee along with the interviewer awaited the arrival of his dinner guests who trickled in to make up a party of 12 (me included). Most of the chit-chat was work related with the PDs holding forth with the SDs hovering around the bar. As the evening progressed, the eight young gentlemen gravitated towards a corner with me as a sort of appendage. Having steered me away from the company of the seniors, the gang of nasty buggers tell me that all first time visitors to the Mooply valley undergo an initiation and then the very casual question thrown my way, “Do you drink?”

The somewhat recent experience of a bottle of gin shared between three friends in celebration of us passing out of university having ended with me getting violently sick, as is the standard reaction to episodes of such nature, I had sworn off drink for the rest of my life. At that point of time however, faced with what was obviously a dare, I believe I may have puffed out my chest with a ‘but of course’ response. What followed was a rather large beer tankard being handed over to me. 

Despite having seen what was poured into the glass (a shot of EVERYTHING in Johnny’s bar, topped up with beer and garnished with liberal dashes of Tabasco and some mustard from the dining room) I could not obviously back off. Bringing the glass up to my mouth I got this horrible pong wafting up to my nostrils and so did what was the norm when being given a dose of medicine when growing up, I pinched my nose and gulped that foul concoction down my gullet. 

Appreciative oohs & aahs followed by “would you like another one?” Having got my foot into what I took to be acceptance, another one was definitely going to raise my stature. And so, this time louder and with a lot more gusto “Sure!”

Swaying a bit, by the time I had finished the second tankard of venom, dinner was served and announced. 12 gentlemen sitting around a formal dinner layout and the first course which I clearly remember as being pea soup having been served, yours truly was working hard to eat the damn thing with a fork! Oh yes, despite my totally inebriated state I remember that as clear as day. And then did what I am still proud about and consider to be gentlemanly behaviour, I excused myself from the dinner table. I remember myself tottering out of the dining room to the staircase leading up to my bedroom. Put both my hands flat on the wall and inched my way up to flop down on the grand four poster bed in the middle of that room.

That night was spent either with me clutching on to the violently rocking bed to keep from falling off or of dragging myself to the loo to throw up in the WC. All night action!

Don’t ask me how because I, till today, I don’t have any answer to that question. All I know is that I not only survived the night but that at 5 O’clock when the watchman knocked on the bedroom door, I was up in a flash and by 0530 when Mohan who had had tried to poison me the previous night rode up the driveway to the bungalow 100% certain that I would be dead to the world, found me on my own two feet waiting for him in the porch. How I wish I had a camera then because the look on the horrible gentleman’s face was well worth capturing for posterity.

Loved every minute of that day! So much so that when reminded that evening by Johnny that the car would be picking me up post breakfast on Friday, I made what I am certain would have been considered a bizarre request by any interviewee, that since I knew no one in Cochin and would get bored there wasting my time in the Casino Hotel, could I not stay on at Mooply over the weekend and be transported to Cochin early morning on Monday. Taking this strange request in his stride, Johnny told me that it would be fine. Bottom line being that I spent that weekend in utter bliss. The result of the extension interview, the dinner episode and the aftermath having obviously been reported back to the bosses in Cochin and I presume, having been viewed favourably and likely having given those gentlemen something to guffaw over, the postscript to the extension interview was that when I reported to the Agents on Monday morning, I walked out of their office with an appointment letter in my hand.

Oh yes! I had found my calling!! 

Editor's note: *P.D. - Peria Durai, a Tamil term meaning 'Big Boss', like 'Burra Saab' in North India. Both  terms stand for the Big Boss of the tea garden - the Manager.

Meet the writer:

Indi Khanna with Xerox

With an industry experience and a tea knowledge base of four and a half decades and counting, I literally live and breathe tea. 

Starting my career in 1975 as an Assistant Superintendent with Malayalam Plantations Ltd, rolling up my sleeves by 'dirtying' my hands at the grassroots level and having literally 'grown' in the business, my experiences have matured me into a ‘one of a kind’ unique entity in the industry.

My journey which literally starts from the tea nursery and stretches all the way up to the consumer shelf, is in many ways unique. Regularly roaming the tea world, delving into the most remote areas wherever tea is grown or consumed, constantly interacting with Tea folk, I have always been learning and innovating. The invaluable experiences along this very interesting route have culminated into a unique new venture, a one-of-a-kind specialty tea manufacturing facility unit in the Nilgiris - www.teastudio.info.

My life has been and continues to be blessed.

Thankfully this very interesting Tea journey continues as an ongoing learning experience.

Read more by Indi Khanna here: https://teastorytellers.blogspot.com/search/label/Indi%20Khanna 

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, maybe long, short, impossible, scary, funny or exciting but never dull. You will find yourself transported to another world! 

This is the link to all the stories on this blog: https://teastorytellers.blogspot.com/
Be sure to add it to your list of favourites! Happy reading!! Cheers to the spirit of Indian tea!

 

The Hump on the Road

Hello again, dear readers! I'm most happy to bring you another lovely story from Indi Khanna. Get ready to travel through time to the High Ranges in Kerala, 1978. I'm going to get myself a good cup of tea before I settle down to read this; why don't you? Cheers! Gowri

by Indi Khanna

I’m terrible with dates. While I need to shovel loads of fish down my gullet to simply remember even my own date of birth date, the one date which is firmly etched in my memory is the 1st of January 1978. I was a young pudian (green horn) SD (Sina Dorai = Assistant Superintendent) on Panniar Estate in the High Ranges in Kerala. The estate was teeming with with elephants so much so that Panniar had one Division going by the name of Anairankal (literally translating into ‘the road by which the elephant goes down’).

The upshot was that not a day went by when one, while going around the estate, didn’t bump into at least a couple of the pachyderms. The SOP was straightforward, you see a fellow, you simply swivel your bike 180 deg and head post-haste in the opposite direction. Workers, since they were always on foot, whenever they saw an elephant (which was a regular feature) either turned on their heels or should the fellow be too close and have been encountered while coming around a corner on the road, would simply duck under the nearest tea bush and stay put till the gentle giant(s) had ambled across. Perfect harmony and cohabitation. The man/animal conflict tale was, in those days, unknown and waiting in the wings to be played out many decades later.

Back in the day the High Range Club was always buzzing and VERY active. With the district encompassing 26 estates, 23 Tata Finlay (now KDHP) properties and 3 belonging to Malayalam Plantations (of which company, I as an Assistant Superintendent, was a teeny-weeny cog in the machinery) the strength of covenanted staff in the district was enough to ensure that the club was always alive and kicking. Never more so than on New Year’s eve. Which ‘evening’ traditionally ended the next morning with an early 0500 Hrs breakfast of dosas, leaving one just about enough time to hop on to one’s bake and make the one hour plus ride back to the estate in time for muster. 

The High Range Club on new year’s eve (besides other big bashes and inter-district meets through the year) was very pucca. Ladies resplendent in their best saris and all the men in formal attire – dinner jackets or ‘bandh gala coats’. The accepted form back in the day was that, following the New Years dance and somewhat extended dinner, on the 1st of January one attended muster (always sacrosanct and de rigueur) allocated the day’s work and could then take it somewhat easy through the day. I digress, so back to 1978 and the first day of the new year.

Leaving the club post a hearty dosa breakfast, still in my formal dinner attire, I rode into Panniar just in time for my morning muster at 7 a.m. As the workers trickled in, they were assigned their work for the day and headed off to the allocated fields. Around 0800 Hrs, by which time normally all the workers should have reported for work, my conductor Mr Balia (Incidentally NEVER Balia – always Mr Balia) remarked that he found it rather strange that not a single worker from the No.5 line had come in for work. Odd indeed. So I got on to my bike and heading off towards the lines. Nearing the line houses I saw that a whole lot of workers and kids were sitting on the roofs of their houses. Seeing me they started shouting that I shouldn’t come any further since there was an elephant sitting in the middle of road.

Did a quick about turn and drove up instead to the main office which was on the hillock opposite the No.5 lines, from where I could also sight the road leading up to the lines. Sure enough, there it was – this huge pachyderm sprawled across the road with his massive head slightly raised off the ground, resting on his tusks. On the question being shouted out, the workers hollered back that the fellow had been there since midnight in exactly the same position. As to why everyone was perched on their rooftops, was told that they were scared to come down. By which time Mr Balia having also arrived on the scene, explained to me that the elephant on the road was the same one which had been visiting the lines regularly to raid their kitchen garden plots for banana and sugar cane which the workers had planted. To fend the fellow off, whenever the workers would hear or see him heading their way they would scramble up on to the roof and would start banging on the CI sheets to drive the fellow away from their homes.

This particular time, probably fed up of being chased off all the time and being robbed off the juicy cane, it appeared that the tusker after trumpeting and raising his trunk to its full height, had charged towards the lines and had probably tripped and fallen over and was most likely injured. Which would explain him sitting on the road in the position he was in. In all the continuing pandemonium and egged on by Mr Balia, one of the workers finally picked up courage, clambered down from his rooftop perch and approached the elephant with a large rock in his hand, got close enough and threw the rock which simply bounced off the elephants back with not so much as a twitch from the mastodon. That gave all the others, including me, the courage to approach the fellow. Which is when we saw the high tension cable firmly lodged, running across through his mouth above his lower lip. And him obviously dead!

By this time Rajah Pooviah (red arrow) who, since Abid was away on a longish leave, was the acting Superintendent had also arrived on the scene. After much discussion the only conclusion we could arrive at was that when the big fellow charged the lines, his trunk being very high up in the air, had probably hit the electric cable dragging it into his mouth. And there it stayed with the electric poles on either side of the sagging cable bent inwards and leaning at an acute angle towards our poor dead pachyderm.

The matter being reported to the Divisional Forest Officer resulted in almost all the government functionaries in the district descending upon Panniar. Which lead to two days of a merry-go-round with Rajah being threatened with arrest for having willfully electrocuted the elephant. Two days of tension and with all sorts of pressure being applied before the DFO finally arrived at the obvious conclusion that the death was the result of an accident. Which then culminated in a formal permission from the district authorities to the estate management to dispose of the carcass.

Ever tried to dispose off a 4 ton carcass? Easier said than done I assure you. The first option being cremation, 600 litres of diesel was brought in from the factory and poured over that massive body and from a very safe distance, a burning rag was tossed on. Whoosh! A cloud of dense black smoke and a massive flame which died away as quickly as it had erupted. The smoke having cleared we saw that, barring only the hair on the elephants hide which had disappeared and some singing of the hide, the carcass itself was totally unaffected. After much deliberation and logistical planning a massive pit was dug across the road just behind the carcass. The estate tractor fitted with a winch cable and our two lorries were pressed into service to pull the elephant, dragging it into the pit. Following which the workers paid their respects to the tusker by conducting a Swami Kumbra (a prayer ritual) before the grave was covered over, leaving a massive hump in the middle of the road. 

Fast forward to 2018. I had to visit Munnar for some work with KDHP and decided to pay a visit to my first estate. Walked up to the office and looked down into the valley. Yup! Not high or as prominent when we’d buried the hapless soul, but there it was immediately discernable – the hump in the middle of the road!

Meet the writer:

Indi Khanna with Xerox

With an industry experience and a tea knowledge base of four and a half decades and counting, I literally live and breathe tea. 

Starting my career in 1975 as an Assistant Superintendent with Malayalam Plantations Ltd, rolling up my sleeves by 'dirtying' my hands at the grassroots level and having literally 'grown' in the business, my experiences have matured me into a ‘one of a kind’ unique entity in the industry.

My journey which literally starts from the tea nursery and stretches all the way up to the consumer shelf, is in many ways unique. Regularly roaming the tea world, delving into the most remote areas wherever tea is grown or consumed, constantly interacting with Tea folk, I have always been learning and innovating. The invaluable experiences along this very interesting route have culminated into a unique new venture, a one-of-a-kind specialty tea manufacturing facility unit in the Nilgiris - www.teastudio.info.

My life has been and continues to be blessed.

Thankfully this very interesting Tea journey continues as an ongoing learning experience.

Read more by Indi Khanna here: https://teastorytellers.blogspot.com/search/label/Indi%20Khanna 

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, maybe long, short, impossible, scary, funny or exciting but never dull. You will find yourself transported to another world! 

This is the link to all the stories on this blog: https://teastorytellers.blogspot.com/
Be sure to add it to your list of favourites! Happy reading!! Cheers to the spirit of Indian tea!

Fire Fighting in Limbuguri

Hello friends! I'm happy to bring you another story by Indi Khanna -  a story for the season, as it concerns a tea factory, and one that's packed with action, as you'll see. Enjoy your read! Cheers!

by Indi Khanna

In 1986, while managing the Dhoedaam factory, another one of the many and regular altercations with the boss Bahadur Singh, this one about the outlet temperature on one of the eight dryers laid out in a series in that massive factory, ended up with me blowing my top. The upshot was that I ended up literally tossing the factory keys at the boss with a "Since you can manage the temperatures better than I'm able to, have fun. I quit." Storming up to the factory office I had my startled excise babu type out a terse one line resignation letter which was handed over to the office boy to find Bahadur wherever he was and to hand that over to him.

Walking back to my bungalow I was hit by the stark reality that I had a wife and two small kids to support and that, having literally burnt my boat, I was going to find myself up the creek without a paddle. Shoving that fear to the back of my young and impetuous mind, I addressed my immediate need, which was to jump into bed and get a full days sleep. Those who are aware of how a factory assistant in Assam has to slave during peak season, would empathise with me. 8/9 hours of a blissful and undisturbed sleep without having to get up and rush to the factory every couple of hours! Next morning, I was summoned to Bahadur's office. He expressed surprise that I had actually written the letter, accepted that it was written in a fit of temper and wanted to know if he could destroy it. My response was that I needed a day to think about it and that I was not going to go to the factory that day.

Instead of moping around in the bungalow, aware that a couple of propriety tea companies were headquartered there, I made a bee line to Dibrugarh, ending up at the office of the Jalan Tea Company. Walked up to the person furiously hammering away at a typewriter that I wanted to meet the boss and found myself seated in front of Mrigendra Jalan, the M.D. A short discussion with Mrigen ended up with him offering me not just a job but also a remuneration package which blew me away. Having shaken hands on the offer, I was asked whether I would be willing to take on the job of managing the Limbuguri factory. An offer prefaced with me also being told that Limbuguri had probably the most undisciplined and militant labour in the whole of Upper Assam. Which youngster doesn’t like a challenge.

Next morning, much to the surprise and chagrin of Bahadur, I requested him not to tear up my resignation letter please, but to send it ahead to the Central Office. A fortnight later my family and I moved lock, stock and barrel for me to take up my new appointment.

Having relocated from the very well oiled and organised set-up of Dhoedaam, as is the custom in Assam, at midnight I toddled off to the factory where I spent the next five hours literally twiddling my thumbs with the factory workers casually straggling in one by one. It was well past 0600 Hrs before we got the leaf moving from the troughs to the rolling room. The next three days were a repeat of the first with me having to swallow my pride and cool my heels in the factory office from midnight to day break. By day four having had enough, at 2300 Hrs I got hold of the line chowkidar, had him accompany me and drove across to the labour lines. Walking into their houses I physically dragged the factory workers out of their beds and into the jeep so as to get the factory running, as it should have been, at midnight. A fortnight of these nightly kidnapping escapades in the labour lines had the desired effect so that the trickle into the factory gate starting earlier with each passing day. I was, obviously, rather chuffed with myself for getting the factory back on track.

A couple of days after I had set the house in order, on a Tuesday when workers would almost ritualistically arrive either drunk or at best suffering from a hangover, I had managed to get things going with the leaf into the rolling tables a little past midnight. At 0230 hours the fermenting room supervisor walks into my office to tell me while they'd moved the first batch of leaf to the firing room, they were unable to feed the dryers because the dryers had not been fired up. Rushing across to the firing room I found the stoker curled up besides the gas stove, dead to the world. A good shake-up by the collar got the guy up to his unsteady feet. Bleary eyed he gave me what to him was probably the smartest military salute he had ever executed and then turns the knob on for the gas flow. That done he starts patting his various pockets, doesn't find what he is looking for and asks me whether I have a match box. My glare reminding him that I was a non smoker, he scoots off, gets a match box from another worker, sets fire to the cotton wad at the end of the rod used for lighting the stove and sticks the rod into the gas furnace.

With him having turned on the flow before going off on his match-box hunt, gas having accumulated in the furnace, all it needed was a flame. Fortunately I was standing besides the dryer as otherwise the huge explosion that followed would have blown me away. The stoker, however, was in front of the furnace though behind a fire guard which protected him from the thigh up. The moment he stuck the rod into the furnace, there was a huge 'whoosh' sound as the back flow blow-out flame hit him. Parked where I was on the side of the dryer, I saw the skin of the stokers unprotected lower legs immediately charring and turning jet black while next to me the huge cast iron side plate of the dryer bulged out and then collapsed inwards with a very loud crack. The 'explosion' brought down massive amounts of tea dust which had probably accumulated over decades on the rafters and eaves. By the time I recovered my senses, all I could see through all the 'smoke' was workers running around like headless chicken screaming 'fire, fire'. While in actual fact the only fire was the burning wad of cotton wool at the end of the stokers iron rod, all the smoke and general pandemonium had me too convinced that Limbuguri factory was burning down. 

 

Grabbing hold of one of the headless chicken workers, I shouted to him to run and get the fire extinguisher from the bank on the factory main entrance. Back he comes with the extinguisher and then, to my utter astonishment, lifts the cylinder up above his head and taking aim with one eye closed, tosses this onto the only flame visible, the cotton wad! It was only then that it struck me that while we had the equipment, not one of the workers or staff had a clue on how that equipment was to be used when required.

Postscripts:

The stoker, despite the very severe burns on his lower legs, recovered fully and was back at work within a fortnight.

Unable to get a replacement for the cast iron side panel of the ancient Britannia dryer, we ended up patching it up with rivets and metal caulking. The dryer was very much in operation when I left Limbuguri four years later.

After a shutdown of 10 days to put the house back in order, Limbuguri factory restarted; immediately after which I instituted a fire and safety drill for all the workers.

The one positive fallout of the accident was that the workers and I bonded with their belligerent attitude towards me evaporating.

Within a couple of months of that crazy night, I was promoted and handed over the reins of Limbuguri Estate. Managed that property for four very successful years till I finally relocated from Assam in 1990.

Meet the writer:

Indi Khanna with Xerox

With an industry experience and a tea knowledge base of four and a half decades and counting, I literally live and breathe tea. 

Starting my career in 1975 as an Assistant Superintendent with Malayalam Plantations Ltd, rolling up my sleeves by 'dirtying' my hands at the grassroots level and having literally 'grown' in the business, my experiences have matured me into a ‘one of a kind’ unique entity in the industry.

My journey which literally starts from the tea nursery and stretches all the way up to the consumer shelf, is in many ways unique. Regularly roaming the tea world, delving into the most remote areas wherever tea is grown or consumed, constantly interacting with Tea folk, I have always been learning and innovating. The invaluable experiences along this very interesting route have culminated into a unique new venture, a one-of-a-kind specialty tea manufacturing facility unit in the Nilgiris - www.teastudio.info.

My life has been and continues to be blessed.

Thankfully this very interesting Tea journey continues as an ongoing learning experience.

Read more by Indi Khanna here: https://teastorytellers.blogspot.com/search/label/Indi%20Khanna

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 - maybe long, 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/

 

The Saga of Kartoo

by Indi Khanna 

I of course had to pay for the victims of his hunting expeditions, not just for the bird but also for the many eggs she would have laid.... a chicken which was supposedly the ultimate egg-layer in the lines.

Hello, dear readers! Join Indi Khanna as he takes us on another of his enjoyable 'rambles'.  

In 1987 when I was the manager of Limbuguri Estate in Upper Assam our docile and beautiful Labrador Lady (thats her in the picture above ) probably got out of the bungalow compound one day and managed to get knocked up by one of the many dogs from the labour lines who would be hanging around the fencing hopefully whenever Lady was in heat.

Two months later with Kitty and the kids away on holiday to Simla, preparations had been made in the kids' room for the day when I was to become a grandfather. The day arrived and our bearer Japan and I watched in wonder while Lady worked her way around delivering eight beautiful Lab pups, five of them a lovely golden colour like Lady's and three black ones. And then with a final push, out came a rather strange looking animal. My immediate reaction was that this one was a runt which we would probably have to put down. However, barring the fact that he was very different from his siblings, the fellow seemed to be perfectly healthy. A couple of days later after the pups had opened their eyes and had started moving around, I had a good look at the last arrival and decided that this was the one which the children would love and the one we'd keep.

He was just about the strangest looking dog one would ever see. His coat was reddish brown. Four legs which ended in white, dappled with black spotted socked paws. A tail which was thinner than a Lab's but ended in a white speckled tuft much like a lion's tail. One ear which stood erect while the other was lazily bent over double. A muzzle which, like his tail and paws, ended in black speckled with white and eyes which had a strange and beautiful golden hue. There simply was no way that I could have named him anything other than CARTOON (this fellow with Muskan in the picture below is not Cartoon, though of the same size as him).

And to the workers he became Kartoo.

Much like Jack's beanstalk, Cartoon grew by the day. He ended up a very tall and large handsome specimen, living up to his name. He loved to wander and would disappear from the bungalow compound for hours on end, most likely fathering cartoons all over Limbuguri, but would always magically appear in the dining room in time for our dinner. He loved to ride in my Gypsy and would accompany me on my garden rounds sitting proud and erect on the front seat. Driving through any of the labour lines, should he spot a chicken anywhere, he'd be off the seat in a flash and then would dart off with the bird in his mouth only to be seen in the bungalow after hours.

I of course had to pay for the victims of Cartoon's hunting expeditions, not just for the bird but also for the many eggs she would have laid. In addition to the hunting on wheels, fairly regularly I'd have workers coming to my office complaining about Kartoo having visited one of the six labour lines on the estate and having made off with a chicken. Always a chicken which was supposedly the ultimate egg-layer in the lines.

Went on for ages with the hole in my pocket becoming ever deeper , but try as I might I was unable to control Cartoon's hunting adventures. In Limbuguri labour lines Cartoon became something of a legend, being famously known as 'burra sahib ka murghi chor' (the Manager's chicken thief).

And then that day while walking out of my bungalow gate next to which were the bungalow staff houses, I spotted Cartoon sitting erect and very alert in front of Gokulchand, our rather lovable and regularly drunk house boy. I was taken aback to see the gentleman busy plucking the feathers off a chicken. It being almost the fag end of the month, by which time most workers would normally have exhausted their salaries and would be scrounging, that scene stopped me in my tracks. The penny having dropped, I called Gokulchand and in my most stern voice I asked him how on earth at the end of the month he had money for buying a chicken. After much humming and hawing and shuffling of feet, it was explained to me that on a regular basis Kartoo would bring a chicken for Gokulchand and that the bird would be cooked and shared between the two.

Other than glaring at the duo, both looking at me most innocently, there really was not much else that I could do. The bottom line was that Gokulchand kept getting his regular supply of protein and hapless me had no option but to keep paying for it.

When we finally left Limbuguri in 1990, since there was no way that we could take Cartoon with us, we very reluctantly had to leave him behind to be adopted by his hunting buddy. With Gokulchand being of a ripe age, he and Kartoo must have carried on with their expeditions long after we had left Assam and would, I am sure be still at it in their happy hunting ground - wherever that may be.

Meet the writer:

Indi Khanna with Xerox

With an industry experience and a tea knowledge base of four and a half decades and counting, I literally live and breathe tea. 

Starting my career in 1975 as an Assistant Superintendent with Malayalam Plantations Ltd, rolling up my sleeves by 'dirtying' my hands at the grassroots level and having literally 'grown' in the business, my experiences have matured me into a ‘one of a kind’ unique entity in the industry.

My journey which literally starts from the tea nursery and stretches all the way up to the consumer shelf, is in many ways unique. Regularly roaming the tea world, delving into the most remote areas wherever tea is grown or consumed, constantly interacting with Tea folk, I have always been learning and innovating. The invaluable experiences along this very interesting route have culminated into a unique new venture, a one-of-a-kind specialty tea manufacturing facility unit in the Nilgiris - www.teastudio.info.

My life has been and continues to be blessed.

Thankfully this very interesting Tea journey continues as an ongoing learning experience.

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.
 Happy reading! Cheers to the spirit of Indian Tea!

 

The Missing Sibling

 by Indi Khanna

While he was born in Simla, our son Madhav's formative years were spent on an estate in Upper Assam before he went off to a boarding school. The upshot was that Madhav naturally grew up with and adopted the 'garden Hindi' as his mother tongue. A language which I describe as the 'estate lingua franca'. 

A beautiful amalgamation of Hindi, Assamese, Bhojpuri, Bengali and a bit of 'huh?' to end up with the lilt and cadence of a 'musical composition' almost akin to the sweet sound of Swahili. 

There being no access to either a nursery or a kindergarten, as was the case on all tea estates in the North East and in South India, home schooling was the norm. Practically 24x7 my wife Kitty would, while not educating me on what the idiot Dr Spock had to say about bringing up kids, spend her time reading fairy tales and singing nursery rhymes to Madhav: nursery rhymes which were Madhav's only window to the world outside the estate. 

The first time we did our five day odyssey from Delhi to Upper Assam was when Madhav was all of two years old, which is when we purchased our first second hand Ambassador car in Delhi. Those were the days when roads, after one had emerged out of the 'big' city, used to be almost like a figment of one's imagination. 

In Eastern UP and extending into Bihar the 'highway' used to be liberally peppered with what were, for lack of a better word, called 'potholes', but were in fact craters from the surface of the moon magically transplanted on the highway. Potholes so generously expansive that when one drove one's car into one (there was no way one could circumnavigate the monstrosities) the roof of the car was well below the rim of the crater. But I digress, so let me get back to the main plot. 

While I was busy removing the wheel, we noticed Madhav going around the car in circles every now and then bending down to peer underneath the car

On the third day out of Delhi as we were getting close to Siliguri, the car had a flat. Just the fact that the tyres had brought us all this way having actually survived the UP/Bihar experience was in itself a miracle. Got the car to the side of the road, emptied out the boot and pulled out the jack. Once the car was jacked up, this being a part of his ongoing education, his mother informed Madhav that what 'Dada' had brought out from the boot and had put under the chassis was a 'jack'. 

While I was busy removing the wheel, we noticed Madhav going around the car in circles every now and then bending down to peer underneath the car. His search having yielded no results, he finally came up to his mother and in his most educated good garden lingo and with a very serious look on his face asked, 'Agar Jack waha hai, to Jill kaha hai?' (If Jack is here under the car, where is Jill?) 

Took us quite some time to stop rolling around in laughter and for the tears to dry up so that I could get back to changing the wheel and put Jill's brother back in the boot to drive on to Siliguri. The pleasures of growing up on an estate!

Meet the writer:

Indi Khanna with Xerox

With an industry experience and a tea knowledge base of four and a half decades and counting, I literally live and breathe tea. 

Starting my career in 1975 as an Assistant Superintendent with Malayalam Plantations Ltd, rolling up my sleeves by 'dirtying' my hands at the grassroots level and having literally 'grown' in the business, my experiences have matured me into a ‘one of a kind’ unique entity in the industry.

My journey which literally starts from the tea nursery and stretches all the way up to the consumer shelf, is in many ways unique. Regularly roaming the tea world, delving into the most remote areas wherever tea is grown or consumed, constantly interacting with Tea folk, I have always been learning and innovating. The invaluable experiences along this very interesting route have culminated into a unique new venture, a one-of-a-kind specialty tea manufacturing facility unit in the Nilgiris - www.teastudio.info.

My life has been and continues to be blessed.

Thankfully this very interesting Tea journey continues as an ongoing learning experience.

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.
 Happy reading! Cheers to the spirit of Indian Tea!