Comic Timing!

by Shalini Mehra 

 

"It is a fact that till air travel improved and the broad gauge was installed, no one - I repeat no one - from outside Assam reached us on a personal visit without a hitch", wrote Shalini Mehra in 'Train of Thought: A Comedy of Errors'. Read more:

Another incident that I recollect with amusement now was not amusing at all when it happened.

My brother Pradeep decided to visit us after his first year engineering exams. This time we had received the message in advance and the Supt. Manager Mr. Sanjoy Ray very kindly not only gave us three days leave to receive him, but also an excuse, literally on a platter, to visit Shillong; to collect an exclusive cold cut platter for his VIP guests who were to visit the garden the following week.

Since the arrival time of the train was five a.m., we decided to reach Guwahati (Gauhati then) the night before and book ourselves into a hotel. All our efforts to reconfirm the arrival time before leaving Salonah were rendered futile. Those days one needed to book trunk calls that rarely came through. There was a telephone exchange in Salonah but the operator informed us that the lines were down.

Once in Guwahati we checked into the hotel, freshened up and were about to go out, when,on a hunch, Rajan rang up the railway inquiry to be told that the train starting from Delhi on the 12^th had already arrived at five a.m. that morning. What followed was utter confusion. We never got to know who had erred – us, or the railway inquiry; whether it was a miscalculation on our part or wrong information from the inquiry. There was no time to waste on such speculations. It was seven p.m. We reached the station to find it deserted. I was close to tears. My brother was on his own in a city that he knew nothing about, and by then 14 hours had elapsed since the train’s arrival. Where was he? Just the thought filled me with apprehension.

We desperately tried to book a call to the garden to inform our friend K.R Bhagat, popularly and universally called Kaka by his friends and colleagues in the plantations, about the situation; but the telephone lines were still down. The next exercise, though futile from its onset, was to inquire around from the porters and the taxi drivers but to no avail. There was nothing we could do, except go to the bus stand and check the buses for Nowgong. After wasting an hour we tried to check up on all the hotels near the station but got no lead from anywhere. Instead of being any help, I was on the verge of hysteria: “How the hell would he reach Salonah?” Well, that was it. We realized that he might have waited at the platform and not finding us, left for the garden. That logical reasoning made up our mind to return to the garden, hoping for the best.

Well, this is only one side of the story. The other side is more thrilling and full of adventure!

After peering up and down Guwahati railway platform, Pradeep tried to contact us but could not get through. He waited for a long time, then, presuming that his telegram had not reached us, decided to reach Salonah on his own. The first leg of the journey till Nowgong was comfortable and without any hazard. Now was the difficult part, as he was clueless about the location and the distance of the garden from the town. With the postal address in hand he inquired at the bus station. Someone pointed to a bus parked nearby and said, ‘This will go to Salonah’. Excited to have got the right vehicle for the commute so soon, he walked up to the driver.

'The Village Bus' by Mario Miranda, 1964

‘Ye bus Salonah garden jata hai?' he asked, and in answer got a big nod of affirmation. One look at the rickety old bus filled him with doubt but beggars cannot be choosers. And thus started a journey he would never forget in his entire life.

Thus goes his story:

“There was this dilapidated bus; however, the driver spoke Hindi quite legibly and looked very confident about the whereabouts of Salonah. This facilitated my decision to board it. Very soon I discerned a curiosity among the crowd that had gathered and when the driver started to probe, I evaded the queries. Trying to hide my nervousness and ignorance I discreetly elected to remain silent.

No sooner had I made myself comfortable, as comfortable as one could on a tattered seat with poking nails, when the bus started swarming with people. The journey began. Weary and sleepy I soon dozed off but not for long as a loud screech abruptly jolted me out of my reverie. For a second I thought the bus had collided with another vehicle. But no! It was a big pothole that we had just sailed through and to my utter dismay the bus had digressed from the highway onto a country road with literally no surface. From then on after every ten minutes it stopped; the passengers mounted and dismounted at their will, some with livestock – chickens stuffed in cane baskets.

Thus we trundled on for an hour, making all manners of minor detours. After what seemed ages the bus came to a halt for cha paani. I too got up and without any effort on my part was propelled out of the bus. Once outside in fresher air I walked up to a small shop and inquired about ‘Salonah.’ The news was very heartening – ‘barely six kilometers from here’. Soon we were back in the bus but it would not start. The self-starter had packed up. The driver, cursing with the choicest of expletives, took out the crank handle. It seemed to have worked as the bus started, moved a little further, then stalled again.

By now the cacophony of sounds and the overpowering smell of dust and sweat were getting to me. I decided that if it did not start I would walk the rest of the distance. This time even the handle was rendered useless, so all of us got down to give the bus a push. Puffing and panting after innumerable stops and restarts it finally made it to Salonah by six p.m. The signboard brought a surge of relief. The place was teeming with people; the fortnightly pay day local bazaar was on, as I came to know later. I asked about the whereabouts of my brother-in-law from one of the estate workers, who promptly answered,

“Mistri sahib bungla factory ka peeche hai.”

 I repeated, “Mistri sahib nahi, Mehra Sahib”

“Jee …jeee.. Mehra Sahib - Mistri Sahib.”

I didn’t know that after acquiring an engineering degree the designation one got in the estates was ‘Mistry Sahib’! Very discouraging for a Mechanical Engineering student indeed!

As I walked further I found someone who introduced himself as Kirani Babu and very kindly arranged a young boy to carry my luggage and guide me to the factory.

‘Finally I am home’, I told myself and just the thought relaxed me. Sore all over with fatigue but excited to meet my sister and brother-in-law I struggled hard to keep pace with the quick strides of the young boy.

Well that was not the end of the story. There was more to come. At the factory gate I was told –

“Mistri Sahib toh Shillong gaya hai.”

“Shillong??” I was sure I had heard wrong.

 “Kab tak ayega?”

“Teen din baad”

Well, some welcome this was! After a three day train journey, three hours on a rickety bus and a further two hours of roughing up on a kuccha road, here I was - still on my own - alone .

Before the bad news could sink in, a voice boomed, “You … Pradeep, how come you’re here?”  That was the most welcoming voice I had heard since I started my journey and the familiar face of Kaka Bhagat appeared from somewhere. I had met him at my sister’s wedding.

The story unfolded. Kaka took me to his bungalow and from then on it was a red carpet welcome all through my stay in the manner that only tea planters can extend.  It was Saturday evening. Kaka took me to the club and in no time everyone made me feel at home as if they had known me for years. I got my first glimpse into the life of tea planters and found them warm, friendly and fun loving.  What I enjoyed the most were the wild life encounter stories, and I was warned that I might see some on the way back to the garden. Later, fast asleep in Kaka’s guest room I woke up to see the door rumbling. Fearing it to be an elephant attack I panicked and broke into a sweat. The rumbling turned out to be the most welcoming banging when I opened the door to find my sister beaming at me.”

As for us, with frustration and nervousness mounting we reached the garden and heaved a sigh of relief. Our visitor had made it to Salonah. When we reached Kaka’s bungalow Pradeep was fast asleep. A happy ending to a total fiasco! What further turns it into a comedy of errors is that on his next visit to Assam, this time with his family, he landed at Dibrugarh Airport and once again I almost missed him, as the telegram arrived just that morning.  

The last episode for now but not the least interesting one - the year was 1974.

It was midday and I was sitting on the verandah of our Chung bungalow at Borghat division of Salonah, which has a long driveway. From a distance I saw a bicycle turning onto the garden road leading to our bungalow. This could not be Rajan as he had taken his car that day. The main gate opened and someone walked in. From his pugri I knew the visitor was a Sikh. I was still wondering who it could be when he waved. Recognition dawned and I almost fell while running down the staircase.

‘Battu’ I shouted in disbelief.

Our little son just a year old started crying. He had never seen a Sardar before.

It was my younger brother’s friend Amarpal Singh Bindra, lovingly called Battu by all of us. Having just completed his NDA course, he had received a posting in the North East and decided to visit us without any prior information. From Nowgong he had boarded a bus and the driver dropped him at a junction on the highway where there was a signboard indicating ‘Salonah Tea Estate.’ It was only after the bus trundled away that he read the fine print on the signboard - “Six kilometres”!

He walked six kilometres to reach Salonah and thanks to the electrician in the factory he covered a further one kilometre inside the garden perched on the back seat of a cycle. Rigorous Army training had toughened up the young man and thank God he was not carrying any parcel of mangoes, just a small overnight bag.

Today I log on to the internet to find my family and friends just a mouse click away. I often wonder how we lived in those days, when life moved at a snail’s pace! Our dear ones remained literally light years away. It could be months before we heard their voices and got news of their well-being. Telegrams often reached after the arrival of the guest, trunk calls hardly ever came through – all of this often leading to the kind of muddled up situations mentioned above. Feelings of disappointment related to such incidents were short-lived, and all of us, discovering the funny side, learnt to take these in our stride. Now, looking back, I know it was the nonexistence of the basic amenities, especially of communication and commuting that made tea life then what it is best known for --- uniquely different, unpredictable and full of adventure.

Fiascos of the sort stated above very soon turned into comedies of errors that would be told umpteen times with laughter and amusement at every tea gathering.

Editor's note: 
Kirani Babu - Head clerk of the tea garden
Mistri Saab - the Assistant Manager in charge of the factory is called Mistri Saab in the Assam tea gardens. The word 'mistri' in the rest of country is used to mean artisan/craftsman, or workmen like carpenters and masons. 

Meet the writer: Shalini Mehra

I can neither boast of any career, nor of great feats; yes, a tag of gypsy is befitting, as all through my life I have been wandering from one interest to another, returning home to one, then moving to new pastures. To use the cliché, I have been ‘Jack of all and Master of none’. The best part is that I have enjoyed the freedom of expressing myself through different mediums, be it music, dance, cooking, gardening, flower arranging or making dry flower frames, reading and writing. The last was always a moody muse till The Camellia happened.

During my wanderings I stumbled upon an idea when the new age of internet dawned upon the backwoods of the tea plantations. Life in tea has been unusual, very often bordering to inconceivable, and those real-life stories, so often almost fictional, needed to be told. The idea took a shape and thus the first ever Tea Planters’ Interclub magazine ‘The Camellia’, ‘for the planters, by the planters, of the planters’ was born in the sanctum sanctorum of my study. Thus, began the journey with pangs and pleasures of the birth and rearing up of my brainchild. If that can be called a milestone, it was surely one for me.

It makes me so proud that during this journey I made a lot of friends who shared my passion and extended their help. And Gowri Mohanakrishnan, moving with the times, took a step further and created ‘Indian Chai Stories’ - the tea stories blog. I extend my wholehearted support and best wishes to her.

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!