Hawa Pani - from a tea bungalow

by Gowri Mohanakrishnan

 

Moraghat Tea Estate, early 2000's

After a long dry spell, we're waiting for rain. It’s a brilliant morning. The sunlight is blinding, even at 8.00 a.m., and the heat and glare are harsh upon the malis working on the lawn. The tea bushes shimmer in the heat haze outside.

Hydrangeas sizzling in the midday sun!

I finish off with my instructions to the 'head' mali very quickly.  Mithoo and I rarely see eye to eye, but today we've formed an alliance: our common enemy is the heat. I ask him why none of the other malis has carried an umbrella to work. The pluckers out in the tea area have. He doesn't have an answer. 

Time was when you couldn't part the tea garden worker from his umbrella. He wore it crooked into the back of his collar, rain or shine.

Mitkoo, another mali, posed for this photograph I took when I wrote a piece about umbrellas. With one Mithoo and one Mitkoo, there were a lot of people getting confused! That's Mitkoo in the first picture as well. He died some years ago.

When my husband comes back for lunch he tells me what a hot day it is. The heat has slowed the pluckers down.  It's rain he wants, and quickly too. I leave him to his 'afternoon lie-back', that great tradition established by planters of old. He's off again at about three thirty, when I come out - to find everything's changed.

The Bhutan hills had disappeared in the morning’s heat haze, but now there's a mass of black clouds in the direction where they lie. Overhead, there are clouds of different structures and shapes. It’s as if an artist had gone to work on the sky with an all gray pallette. Surely we're in for what is called 'hawa-pani' by the garden folk: literally, wind and water, a mild name for what is to follow!

In some places, the clouds are already swirling, forming a whirlpool in the sky. That's something we only see in this season. And soon, the wind starts off. I say wind, but it's practically a cyclone.The verandah is like the set of a disaster-on-board movie. Anyone who wants to stand straight in there has to cling to a pillar. No standing around, it's all hands on deck as chairs, tables and flowerpots have to be got out of the wind to safety.

We're all laughing, now that it’s so cool and beautiful. It isn't advisable to go outside any longer. The trees are thrashing about wildly and at any time one may fall. Suddenly a loud crack of thunder is heard and our dog howls in fear. The lights go out at once. Somehow, the electricity just dies with the appearance of a storm.

Then we hear it, a rushing sound, as if something huge is moving towards us. It’s rain - a moving wall of water - which we can see  before it's actually with us. The verandah is open in three directions and now it seems to be pouring in from everywhere. 

Strong gusts of wind lift and carry the huge water droplets. Soon it’s crashing down on the tin roof. We shout to make each other heard. Lightning rips the sky apart in blinding flashes and thunder applauds loudly, often after a stunned pause. I send up a heartfelt prayer of thanks that there's no hail, only rain (For all the drama, there wasn't much damage anywhere in the garden, and no one was hurt). 

Later in the evening, Mohan tells me there’s been an inch of rain. Is he happy, I ask, to which I get an inscrutable shrug. Planters! They're a superstitious lot. He doesn't want the weather gods to think he’s complacent!

Meet The Writer/Editor: Gowri Mohanakrishnan  

 I was teaching English at Indraprashta College in Delhi when I met and married my tea planter husband in 1986. He brought me to the tea gardens - a completely different world from the one I knew! Life in tea continues to be unique, and I began writing about ours many years ago.

Early in 2018, I started Indian Chai Stories to collect and preserve other people's stories from tea.

The first chai stories I ever wrote were for a magazine called 'Reach Out' which Joyshri Lobo started in the mid eighties for the Dooars planters. Some years later, Shalini Mehra started 'The Camellia' and I started writing there regularly. Shalini put me in touch with David Air, the editor of Koi-Hai, who gave me a page there.  My family has always believed that I can write, and that is what keeps me going, whether I agree with them or not.

Here is the link to all the stories I have written at Indian Chai Stories - https://teastorytellers.blogspot.com/search/label/Gowri%20Mohanakrishnan

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!
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