By Mamlu Chatterjee
It was midweek and the entire garden was abuzz with the news about
the Dhillons moving into Beech Bungalow. I wondered what it would be like to
have a new family move in; apparently they were quite a couple, Roshni &
Surinder. He, a robust, larger than life
man, with hazel eyes, twirling moustache, and a penchant for ghazals (that he
quite irreverently often did the slow bhangra to) and she, chubby, charming,
outrageous and flirtatious in her Patiala salwars.
Their reputation preceded
them and as soon as their transfer had been finalised, hundreds of stories
about them flew about, causing many a spat between even the staidest of
couples! Quietly, unobtrusively, all the memsaabs began planning day long trips
to Jorhat, which boasted the one and only beauty parlour, not that their
husbands even noticed their newly colored hair or pearly nails! Suddenly, plans
were being made for a week long welcome fest ~ the Bawarchi were summoned and
coerced to outdo themselves with their puff pastry, trifles, moussaka, masala
dosas et al!
I was possibly the only
person who hadn't met them yet and my head positively swam with all the
information that was shared with me. I was intimidated, to say the least, and
grew uncharacteristically jittery about the welcome dinner at my place that was
still a fortnight away!
What a welcome fest it was!
As was customary, for the
first couple of weeks, the newcomers didn't have a single dinner at
home...despite the fact that the crowd was the same and the working hours still
ridiculous, it was party time like never before, continuously, till everyone
had had them over!
I was delighted to meet
Roshni, and even though she flirted unabashedly with my husband, I thoroughly
enjoyed her company. She was intelligent, attractive and had a wicked sense of
humor! We grew to be good friends and spent quite a lot of time together during
the day over coffee, or on club days after tennis. Club
teas after tennis were never enough and invariably led to poor old Joroo having
to rustle up ‘anda bhurji’ and ‘parathas’, while we stayed long past our deadlines, chatting and singing and
generally being boisterous.
Often R & S would
have one of their quicksilver quarrels that took us by surprise no matter how
many times they happened; she would then flirt even more outrageously with
anyone at all, hoping he would be jealous enough to pick a fight with the poor
beleaguered chap at the receiving end of her affections, while he, equally
contrary, would ignore it completely and turn his attention to the billiard cue
at the pool table!
The wariness continued
though, and most of the ladies got a little antsy when she hung around their
husbands for longer than normal, and called out to her to join them by the
window seats or their card game; she however, preferred being on the tennis
courts as long as she could, and then she’d prop up the Bar along with the men!
She could talk at length about the ‘mali bari’ or the new cows she had bought
recently with equal gusto and endeared herself to the women as well, with her
outrageous jokes and generous tips on fashion, beauty & cookery. Quite a
remarkable business head she had too, and turned those newly transported jersey
cows into a pretty lucrative business, supplying fresh milk to all the
bungalows and to the sweet shops in town.
Before long she had turned
into the general consultant for hairstyles and new clothes for all the younger
lot and no shopping expedition was complete without her. Invariably, five or
six of us would pile into the Gypsy, armed with sandwiches, coffee, aloo tikkis and nimbu paani and make an
amazing ‘day’ of it. I wondered if the other husbands were quite as pleased
about these trips as mine was! Smart man, he knew a day out of this kind for a
city bred girl like me would make sure I got home in a good mood. I wouldn’t
pick on him or mope around the house as I was wont to do otherwise.
One time, on one of these
trips, we had all ventured out to help Roopa buy her curtains since as the
newest ‘memsaab’; she was on a refurbishing spree. As always, we sang and
munched through the two hour drive into town and proceeded to pull out every
single roll of fabric at the solitary furnishings store in Tinsukia, and turned
up our combined noses at most of them.
Buying furnishings is
hungry work so we then proceeded to look for a restaurant good enough for
‘memsaabs’ to have a meal. I still cannot remember what we ate and where, but I
do remember we had a very, very, very long lunch! A few of us enjoyed our post
lunch ciggies and felt most urbane and languid, like we had just stepped out of
‘The Great Gatsby’, and as a result,
instead of heading back home by three o’clock, we were still in Tinsukia town
at five thirty.
Priti, being one of the
more responsible wives among us, had tried to keep us on track but had thrown
up her hands in despair when we behaved like schoolgirls out of boarding
school! By the time we headed back, it was dark already and the long two hour
drive didn’t seem nearly as exciting as it had in the morning. With no bright
city lights on the way, the road looked long and endless. Trucks loaded with
tea chests and other produce lumbered by and cyclists from nearby villages
whizzed by as it grew darker and darker. Driving past endless tea gardens with
fencing posts and shade trees gave us the feeling that we weren’t moving at all
and were stuck in one place, and our singing gave way to restlessness and
impatience with poor Tuni driver! Somehow, the five of us had put on weight during
the day and were now squashed against each other.
At a railway crossing we
had to stop to let the train go by and Saadia smelt fresh bread and made the
mistake of saying this aloud; before we knew what was happening, Roshni had
jumped out and marched towards the bakers shack behind the level crossing, and
returned armed with several loaves of warm freshly baked bread! At least we
wouldn’t go hungry! To this day, I have not had bread as good as that,
anywhere, here or abroad.
A little further along, as
we turned along the road, the car came to an abrupt standstill. Peering out in
the dark we saw the large shapes of elephants crossing the road to get to the
forest on the other side ~ there must have been about 20 of them, including the
little ones, with their trunks curled on to their mother’s tails. Quietly, and
in the most disciplined manner ever, these huge creatures moved across the road
– unhurried, unperturbed by the car. None of us had a camera and that was just
as well, since the flash could have startled them and caused a stampede!
Tuni Driver seemed nervous
and stayed still even after the pachyderms had disappeared till Priti barked at
him to move; one by one we fell silent after the initial attempts at levity; it
was pitch dark and getting nippy. We wanted to go home, shower and get into
bed. Even the dirty jokes seemed lame now and no one wanted to sing any longer.
Peering at the signboards on the fencing posts we tried to figure out where we
were and realised we were still at least a good two hours and fifteen minutes away
from home.
Roopa, the most recently
wed, started sniffling and tried to mask it by blowing her nose into her hanky;
Priti, the most practical, rattled off the names of the other gardens that we
would cross next, in a vain attempt to think where we could stop overnight and
perhaps call up the husband-men to say we were alive and well; I chanted
vigorously, asking for divine intervention; Saadia yawned and fidgeted and
drove us mad; and Roshni? Roshni hummed to herself and seemed completely
unperturbed. “He’ll come looking for me”, she said, “don’t worry girls; he
always comes looking for me”. None of us quite knew how to react to that.
Should we be sceptical, hopeful or just plain jealous?
“He is perpetually afraid
that I am going to run off with someone!” she continued, “And I like it that
way; keeps him on his toes; besides, the making up is fantastic!”
Saadia was ready to faint
out of shock at this declaration, while the rest of us giggled skittishly.
Priti belted out orders in Assamese and poor old Tuni Driver accelerated the
car in terror and in the process, ran bang smack into the speed breakers before
the bridge, tossing us wildly inside the car, leading to shrieks that could
have scared away any good hyenas within a five km distance!
Once we had righted
ourselves and crossed the little bridge, maybe just out of sheer relief, (I’m
being polite, it was plain hysterics) I started giggling and couldn’t stop,
despite many thumps on my back, and many sips of lukewarm, leftover coffee.
Remember, adventure stories make delicious reading, when you’re safely
ensconced on a divan at home, but it’s quite something else living it,
especially during those pre cell phone days, crossing leopard country in a
Gypsy, in pitch dark! I was essentially
a city girl after all!
Swearing never to stay out
so late ever again, but giggling
hysterically, chuckling, snorting and hiccupping, we were a fine lot of
‘memsaabs’ ~ unapologetic about our fun day and ready to retract any foolish
promises we may have made a few moments earlier! Some of the hysteria must have
rubbed off on Tuni Driver because he yelled out loud and suddenly threw his
hands in the air, causing the Gypsy to swerve like a drunk on skates! Us
screeching women must have unnerved him and he shot forward and braked to a
halt muttering “Shaab shaab!”
What? Now we had snakes to
contend with? Why had I ever come to this jungle!!!!!
Up ahead, we could see the
headlights of a long row of vehicles – probably trucks carrying Tea; they
didn’t seem to be in any hurry and we counted six vehicles; oddly enough, with their headlights all at
different levels; and as they drew close, we saw a tractor, a Jeep, a Gypsy, an
Ambassador and two Marutis. Wait, so they weren’t trucks carrying tea? Oh my
god, were they…? Could they be…?
Tuni Driver jumped out and
gabbled incoherently waving his arms about; the vehicles stopped and a large
flashlight shone into our Gypsy from the tractor. That was Surinder! In a
trice, Roshni was out of the car and flinging herself at him, yelling, “I knew
it, I knew you would come looking for me! I told the girls you would!”
Ashok’s loud guffawing
followed, much to my chagrin, but all was forgotten when he came up to ruffle
my hair. Anil & Priti had a quick discussion in Assamese and Roopa and
Saadia sniffled sheepishly and apologized to Raghu and Prem.
Would we ever live this one
down? I wondered. But it sure made a fun story to tell the kids!
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!
It is amazingly well written and kept one glued till the end. Hats off ..Memsaabs
ReplyDeleteThe motley convoy of vehicles, assembled at short notice by the men, to rescue their damsels who were by no means in distress, choked me over! In their own unfathomable way, they did demonstrate affection for their ladies!
ReplyDeleteEnjoyed this, Mamlu...but rest not on your laurels! Looking forward to many more tales.
How well narrated. The different moods of the ladies have been captured so well. Especially the feeling of fear and uncertainty on the drive back home. Lovely picture of the cars with their headlights on.
ReplyDeleteSo entertaining and brilliantly written.
ReplyDeleteThank you all so much!
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteLoved this giggle loaded story about The gaggle of gals in the Gypsy. Each moment of the journey was enchanting. Thank you Mamlu!
ReplyDeleteWonderfully written, the way the mood of the memsaab-s vacillated is expressed so well I could feel it.
ReplyDeleteLovely Mamlu. Almost felt that I was there experiencing it. Great.
ReplyDeleteWonderfully written, Mamlu. Your portrayal of Roshni is funny, candid and spot-on. I loved the line about feeling you had stepped out of The Great Gatsby. And the ride back, with its many adventures was beautifully narrated. Please do keep writing.
ReplyDelete