Shreya Chanda
Being born to a planter father, my affair with tea started in the ‘90s. Life then was blissful, being raised in typical old style British bungalows (Holy us!! thanks to the Gora Saabs) and seeing my father in his ‘Kamjaari’ uniform, I had an intense liking for my habitat - -the ‘Chai Bagaans.’ Friends in cities and towns thought we stayed in jungles.
Staying at gardens with barely any proper communication network then, I had my share of fun. The dish/antenna had to be turned manually to get signals, oh our bad luck we had to entertain ourselves with shows like Ek Tha Rusty, Chitrahaar, Ramayana and the news.
Not to forget that one telephone, the one in the Barra Sahib’s office was a treasure for the entire garden. There were no Dominos or KFCs or any multi-cuisine restaurants, the only outing for the entire garden was during club nites, picnics, camps or dinner at some roadside dhabas.
And those ‘lavish’ birthday parties, where the star was the Bahadur and his Memsaahib -trust me they were our superheroes. Right from sandwiches to momos to tandoori chicken, soups to bread puddings to custard they knew it all. Birthday parties for the kids back then were high tea for the kids followed by dinner for the adults (Thanks to the ‘pucca pucca’ ethics and code of the plantations- NO KIDS ALLOWED).
Whenever anyone bought us a gift we had to reciprocate with a ‘Thank You’ note the very next day no matter what. The Daakwalas were everyone’s best friend in the garden, had to bring anything from town you gave him the bucks and he got it for you - or you waited till Sunday.
We literally mastered the art of letter writing right from invitations to thank you notes to birthday cards. Come the end of December, the mums would end up being busy writing and sending greeting cards to the other memsaahibs. Talking about cards, I miss them terribly. Those beautiful drawings on the cards and at times the misspelled names! Somewhere these cards meant a lot to us.
Our pets, be it the hens, ducks, cows, dogs or cats we had fun spending our time with them. The flower shows, the club meets or the garden supper sure kept our mothers busy. We had no access to computers or internet then, and our books, encyclopedia and novels were our Wikipedia and Google. Letters to our friends, cousins, relatives or grandparents were Facebook and Orkut. Our photo albums were our Instagram.
Not to forget how young the bachelors were -- we had to address them as Uncle and we secretly waited for them to get us chocolates, which would continue being inside the fridge like some precious treasure for a long time, until the bearer or mum would remind us.
The Manager’s wife-the Burra Memsaahib - would be the acting mother for all those Aunties who were expecting and they would equally treat everyone with much love and care. I recall one incident when Krishna Aunty brought me a bottle of homemade orange marmalade. I was a girl on Cloud Nine then because these small gesture always made each of us feel like a family.
Most of us had gone to boarding schools but when we got home for our vacations we always made the most of it without Facebook, Whatsapp, social media sites or smart phones. While most of us ‘the then chai baby-baba log’ have moved out and are doing well for ourselves we still continue to feel nostalgic about tea gardens and thanks to our wonderful cooks and aunties who taught us so much about food.
Life then was fun for us - even without any modernization.
Being born to a planter father, my affair with tea started in the ‘90s. Life then was blissful, being raised in typical old style British bungalows (Holy us!! thanks to the Gora Saabs) and seeing my father in his ‘Kamjaari’ uniform, I had an intense liking for my habitat - -the ‘Chai Bagaans.’ Friends in cities and towns thought we stayed in jungles.
Staying at gardens with barely any proper communication network then, I had my share of fun. The dish/antenna had to be turned manually to get signals, oh our bad luck we had to entertain ourselves with shows like Ek Tha Rusty, Chitrahaar, Ramayana and the news.
Not to forget that one telephone, the one in the Barra Sahib’s office was a treasure for the entire garden. There were no Dominos or KFCs or any multi-cuisine restaurants, the only outing for the entire garden was during club nites, picnics, camps or dinner at some roadside dhabas.
And those ‘lavish’ birthday parties, where the star was the Bahadur and his Memsaahib -trust me they were our superheroes. Right from sandwiches to momos to tandoori chicken, soups to bread puddings to custard they knew it all. Birthday parties for the kids back then were high tea for the kids followed by dinner for the adults (Thanks to the ‘pucca pucca’ ethics and code of the plantations- NO KIDS ALLOWED).
Whenever anyone bought us a gift we had to reciprocate with a ‘Thank You’ note the very next day no matter what. The Daakwalas were everyone’s best friend in the garden, had to bring anything from town you gave him the bucks and he got it for you - or you waited till Sunday.
We literally mastered the art of letter writing right from invitations to thank you notes to birthday cards. Come the end of December, the mums would end up being busy writing and sending greeting cards to the other memsaahibs. Talking about cards, I miss them terribly. Those beautiful drawings on the cards and at times the misspelled names! Somewhere these cards meant a lot to us.
Our pets, be it the hens, ducks, cows, dogs or cats we had fun spending our time with them. The flower shows, the club meets or the garden supper sure kept our mothers busy. We had no access to computers or internet then, and our books, encyclopedia and novels were our Wikipedia and Google. Letters to our friends, cousins, relatives or grandparents were Facebook and Orkut. Our photo albums were our Instagram.
Not to forget how young the bachelors were -- we had to address them as Uncle and we secretly waited for them to get us chocolates, which would continue being inside the fridge like some precious treasure for a long time, until the bearer or mum would remind us.
The Manager’s wife-the Burra Memsaahib - would be the acting mother for all those Aunties who were expecting and they would equally treat everyone with much love and care. I recall one incident when Krishna Aunty brought me a bottle of homemade orange marmalade. I was a girl on Cloud Nine then because these small gesture always made each of us feel like a family.
Most of us had gone to boarding schools but when we got home for our vacations we always made the most of it without Facebook, Whatsapp, social media sites or smart phones. While most of us ‘the then chai baby-baba log’ have moved out and are doing well for ourselves we still continue to feel nostalgic about tea gardens and thanks to our wonderful cooks and aunties who taught us so much about food.
Life then was fun for us - even without any modernization.
so well written speaks through the heart. yes Chai babas and chai babies have been very priviledged class. The planters and their respective spouses came to tea as mature adults , leaving their homes and cities and gradually learnt the ways to Tea life whereas tea kids grew up on these green pastures and inbibed tea culture from the time they started to crawl and speak. Tea life came to them naturally and these young tea prince and princes were the real Royalty. Am i right Shreya?
ReplyDeleteA delightful description of a wonderful lifestyle, sadly now in the past.
ReplyDeleteSo well written n nostalgic. I remember you as a small cute bubbly girl. You r now grown up as a beautiful lady. God bless Shreya.
ReplyDeleteGreat to see my former student using her writing skills...keep going, Shreya. God bless
ReplyDeleteRightly said, life was beautiful then.
ReplyDelete