Back in the Day – VI

by Shipra Castledine

Everyone who has lived in tea can lay claim to fame to knowing some really colourful characters! The one who stands out in my memories is Big Mac, Donald Mackenzie. I am sure there are many readers who have an instant recall of this literally big man and his booming voice. Donald and his beautiful six foot tall wife Betty loved India. They would eat Indian food at home in their bungalow as we ate Indian food as a daily routine. I can remember Mum discussing shorshe bata recipes with Betty and Betty reporting back with how it had turned out! Betty was an excellent cook as was my mum.

We used to joke about knowing how a Jamair flight had come in to land by how Betty’s lipstick was put on!! The lipstick would be all over the place if the plane had had a not so gentle landing! And we had a lot of good times, our two families. 

Junior and I were childhood playmates and when Aunty Betty would visit with him, we would go off and play and Mum would enjoy Aunty Betty’s wonderful company. Betty learnt how to cook all our Indian dishes including specialised Bengali items like shukto and bhapa ilish shorshe bata. They were at Bagrakote TE when we were in Baintgoorie.

Another thing good I remember was how a number of tea families would host children from Dr Graham’s Homes, Kalimpong. This was a school set up to house and educate orphaned children mainly from Anglo Indian background and to this day it is a wonderful institution. 

Some information about the institution: Dr. Graham's Homes was founded in 1900 by Reverend Dr. John Anderson Graham, a missionary of the Church of Scotland, who settled in Kalimpong and worked with the local community for several years during the turn of the 20th century.

Over a few years we hosted some children. One of them was a girl around my age who we brought home for school holidays three or four times. Her name was Anne Stewart. I still remember what she looked like. At the same time another family hosted two boys from the homes, Alan and Bertie. They were friends with Anne and we would all get together and have a great time.  I was in love with Alan 😉!

We visited Dr. Graham’s Homes a number of times when we would collect the children and drop them back.  I loved the set up. The children were housed in actual homes probably 8-10 of them in a home. They would have a ‘mother’ who would look after them. It was like living in a family home where the children had chores to do and they treated each other like a family. In fact I dimly remember spending some days with the children at their home.

A cottage at Dr Graham’s Homes

The mountains around the Dooars were an integral part of our lives. Of course we lived and studied up in Darjeeling for nine months of the year. The car trips home were a joy. We were never just ourselves in the car. One set of parents would collect a few children of the same district and take them home. Inevitably down the really windy, steep, narrow Hillcart Road one or two children would be sick! The journey back to school was always quiet but once we were back in school we bounced back. Over the years we visited most of the mountains around where we lived. Gangtok and other hill stations in Sikkim, Kalimpong, the hill stations we passed on our way up to Darjeeling and many other more remote forest ranges. In later years when I was married and had my two children we made a few trips to Bhutan. God’s own country.

As I mentioned in another chapter of my stories planters became friends with the army and air force and the forest department. My parents had one family who were amongst our closest friends. They were the Palits. Their daughter Kakoli was my age. We were very close friends for the years we were together in the same district. Sadly for us Mr. Palit got transferred to Calcutta in a few years' time. But we still had enough time that courtesy Mr. Palit who was the head of the Forest Department, we visited and stayed in every forest bungalow the Department had. 

And what absolutely enchanting places they were. I am so glad we did as most of them were burnt down during the later years of political trouble the Darjeeling district had. Most of the bungalows had no electricity and we saw by kerosene lamps but it was sheer bliss. They are experiences to be treasured all my life. 

The kitchen was always an outhouse and usually had a wood fired stove. There would be a bawarchi who was also the chowkidar and who would cook up very basic food but it was like the best food we had ever eaten. The wood smoke taste in the food ... it is tangible as I write. Breakfast would be toast, grilled over the wood fired stove in an iron frame toast holder and eggs however we liked them, usually an omelette or fried eggs. Lunch would be rough rice, no basmati! - a thin daal, probably an aloo bhaja and a chicken curry with a thin gravy but absolutely delicious. The chicken was always freshly caught and butchered. Tea would be cups of tea from freshly manufactured tea courtesy tea estates in the area and corn on the cob (bhuttas). Dinner was usually sabji and hot, thick rotis.

Internet picture of Lava forest bungalow, one of the bungalows that we visited back in the day.

I can clearly see one night when after dinner and after clearing up we stepped outside the bungalow. There we were in the quiet of the forest, mist through the trees and it was a full moon night. How to describe it. The hair is standing on my arms as I recall the beauty of it all. The light of one kero lamp burning inside the sitting room, beds with mosquito nets all tucked around the bed ready for us to slip into and this scene outside. God’s artistry. A little puppy yipping and bounding up to us as we sat on the little verandah of the bungalow not needing to say a word.

I must end this part here as I cannot top this memory with anything better for now! 

 

MEET THE WRITER:

'My name is Shipra Castledine nee Shipra Bose (Bunty). My parents were Sudhin and Gouri Bose. I am a tea 'baba' of the 1950-s era. I spent a part of my life growing up in the Dooars and another large part of my life married to a tea planter's son the Late KK Roy son of PK and Geeta Roy of Rungamuttee TE in the Dooars. I continued to be in the tea industry for many years as KK was a tea broker till he passed away in 1998.' Read more stories by Shipra here: https://teastorytellers.blogspot.com/search/label/Shipra%20Castledine. 

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. 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/Indian Chai Stories

Pugla Primate and Pooches

by Alan Lane
Have any of our ‘Indian Chai Stories’ readers/contributors had any other pets excepting for dogs?

My father had, besides Boko the Hoolock Gibbbon, two Slow Lorises – named Asti and Susti – if he had had another one he said that the third one would have been named 'lai-lai'! Dad had also had a leopard cub that had grown to perhaps three quarter size before he had to ship it to the Calcutta Zoo. Also, he had a mongoose, named as expected, Rikki, and a Black Sun Bear that was named Clementine. Unfortunately I do not have any photos of these animals. 

Clementine died from blood poisoning as she had been attacked by a leopard (there were many, many leopards in Kalline). Clementine climbed a tree at the burra bungalow, turned around, and as the leopard climbed after her, she swiped out with her claws and took nearly the whole face off the leopard. The leopard fell down and was in a very bad state and my father had to shoot it once the hullabaloo subsided in the bungalow.

My step-mother Christina, and Charlie as a chick

 Dad also had a Hill Mynah, named Wilbur, who was a very great mimic. Wilbur used to swear a lot in Hindi (naughty night chowkidar!) plus he had the sound of the chowidar clearing his throat absolutely perfect. Dad normally kept Wilbur in his big cage on the verandah, but he was moved to the bottle-khana when any lady guests came over for dinner, or indeed the local Padre!

“Boko” was rescued from the local bazaar by my father’s head bearer, ‘Michael’, where it had been tied up around the neck by a stall holder. My father, as an ‘honorary forest officer for NW Cachar’ confiscated the gibbon.Boko was allowed to ‘run free’ at the burra bungalow and was completely house trained, and he had the free run of the bungalow and the compound.

The Golden Spaniel, “Sandy” was my step-mother’s dog, and the dachshund  “Mattie” was my father’s one. The Hoolock Gibbon, “Boko”, was my father’s also

The photo shows Boko just about to pull Mattie’s tail, and then run like the wind up the nearest tree, where he would whoop away at Mattie, who being on short legs could not catch the mischievous ape. Boko had a typically inquisitive mind, and very much a chalaki badmash little fellow. 

On my father’s front verandah, there was a bowl of slightly over ripe fruit that was for Boko to help himself to, and another bowl with better fruit in located in the dining room. Boko used to see if we were looking at him and if not, he would run past the good fruit bowl, snatch  a banana, apple or papaya, and streak past us, out of bungalow verandah and up the nearest tree, where yet again he would whoop with joy, convinced that he had fooled us. 

Other days, when not in such a crazy mood, he would be found with the chokri mali weeding the lawn – looking at what the chokri was pulling up and doing the same. When he got bored with that he would tease the chokri by throwing some of the plucked weeds on her hair. Boko was never a vicious primate, never bit or scratched, but would often look at you in the eye and we wondered what the next crazy thing he was thinking about. 

Quite often, in the early evening before his bedtime, Boko would come and sit in your lap, cuddle up, and look at you with those dreamy loving eyes before he would go off to his small, always open door, cage, lying down and covering himself with a gunny bag. Some days, Boko would sit on the bungalow fence that was on the perimeter next to the road leading into the factory. Everyone knew him and sometimes would give him a ‘chini chumpa’ banana which he enjoyed. Sadly, Boko contracted polio and died a few months before my father left Assam in 1966 – which in retrospect was the best thing for him.

Mattie and Sandy did have a couple of puppies. If you can imagine a black coated spaniel on short legs, and having a long tail, then you would know what they looked like. One of the pups was taken by Cliff Hart, at that time Manager of Jellalpore TE in NW Cachar (next to Kallinecherra TE) and he named him Nobby. This little dog was an absolute character. The Jellalpore burra bungalow is situated on a teela, with a drive way going up to it. As it was situated on the top of the teela, a pathway had been cut at the front of the compound which wound round the side and eventually met the road at the bottom. 

As many of us know, goats had a preference for flowers and plants that one had around the compound. It was a daily occurrence for the goats to make their way up the side of the teela to the plants at the bungalow. Cliff’s bearer, or chowkidar, would try to huff the goats away, and on hearing this Nobby would take off on his short legs, running as fast as he could with his black spaniel ears flapping away, to chase the goats. 

Goats are very adept at climbing steep teelas, and could just run down the teela without any problem. Nobby, on the other hand, never learnt that running at full speed would get him to the teela edge pretty quickly, however, mini-spaniels on short legs don’t have much braking power. So over the teela he would go, rolling over and over until he reached the road below. He never seemed to hurt himself but would climb back via the road to the back of the bungalow, and turn up on the verandah, covered in dust and bits of vegetation, and a sheepish look on his face, He would throw himself down onto the floor, tongue hanging out, and give a satisfied sigh enough to say, “See, that showed them who’s boss on this teela!” Of course the same thing would happen again the next day when the goats were out on the scrounge.

 This is a photo that I had taken from the edge of the burra bungalow compound at Jellapore TE (NW Cachar), so you can get an idea of the lay out where Nobby used to chase the goats.

The second pup, named Pinto, exactly the same in appearance, was taken by Dave Lamont, who had been at Kalline TE, but moved to Bhubandhar TE in Cachar before my father arrived at Kalline. Dave Lamont (who I still correspond with in Australia) took his little spaniel on short legs to Bhootechang TE on the North Bank.

My father had rescued a hornbill chick from the local bazaar in Kalain, Cachar, and it grew to a full adult. It was named “Charlie” and had full freedom to fly into the jungles of the Mikir Hills, and fly to and fro to the burra bungalow at Kalline TE. 

Charlie, when he grew up, used to spend most of his day in the surrounding jungle, but always came home at chota hazri time for his breakfast – usually a couple of bananas. He always came home to roost each night at the burra bungalow, and his perch was located in the gussel-kamra in the third bedroom (second guest room). Anyway, when I was staying with my father at Christmas 1964, I was ensconced in the first guest bedroom. Cliff Hart, from Jellapore, came over for dinner, but as the evening wore on it got too late for Cliff to return to his garden – the route back was via Craigpark, and Kallinecherra to Jellalpore. In the cold weather there was always a herd of elephants on this road so it was quite frightful to traverse. 

 Anyway, I digress.  

After dinner, Cliff had need to go to the toilet and so as it was dark he did not bother to put the light on. Just as Cliff was having a wee, Charlie had a snap at Cliff’s ‘appendage’ which of course gave Cliff an almighty fright. He came out of the bathroom in a state of shock. Luckily Charlie had missed his aim, but father said that maybe Charlie thought that he was getting another banana for evening meal!

Charlie found a mate before my father retired, and he - my father - was very pleased. Eventually Charlie did not return to the bungalow, although my father used to see him - or her perhaps? - flying around at the far end of the tea estate. 

Editor's note: 'Susti' is a Hindi word for indulgent lethargy and 'lai-lai' (spelt more often as 'lahe lahe' these days ) is the Assamese way of saying the same thing, or, 'taking it easy, nice and slow'.

 Meet the writer:

Alan Lane, a 'cha ka baba', was born in Bombay. His contribution to Indian Chai Stories goes beyond the written word: he keeps a large number of people all over the world connected with their roots in India. In his own words, 'My wife and I still have lots of connections with India and we are, as you may well say, ‘Indophiles’.' Alan and Jackie Lane live in the UK; they left India a little over fifty years ago. Read the story of this cha ka baba's return to the tea gardens of Assam as a Crossley engineer here: Indian Chai Histories.  You will find more stories by Alan here. 

 

Is this your first visit to this page?  
In February 2018, I started 'Indian Chai Stories' because I believe one of the best things about tea life is story-telling. The most improbable things happen in tea. 

The raconteur was a stock character in tea - at the club, at your breakfast table, at a dinner party - everywhere. It all changed as people grew older, retired or went away. One rarely meets a storyteller in the gardens these days. 

You will meet many of them online at 'Indian Chai Stories'. 

 
Tea planters and their families are generous souls, and they have shared their stories for the sheer joy of the retelling!! Read stories by the chai ka saabs, memsaabs, 'baba and baby log' here. 

 

Do you have a story of your own to tell? Send it to me here : indianchaistories@gmail.com
The blog is updated every two to three days. You will find yourself transported into another world! Cheers to the spirit of Indian Tea!
- Gowri Mohanakrishnan

Flying into the Unknown

 by Aloke Mookerjee

 

Aloke landed in the Dooars 58 years ago ,on May 7, 1963!  

'I was awestruck by the beauty and tranquillity of my new habitat...the sights and sounds in this sublime, alien wilderness.' 

Pix from 1963/64 by Venk Shenoi, another tea planter who has written for Indian Chai Stories!  L to R – Aloke Mukerjee, Jeff & Narbada Tikari, Dilip Mukherjee (?) and Chand Kapur.

   

Pic by R.A.Scholefield from https://abpic.co.uk/pictures/operator/Jamair

The first rail journeys from Calcutta to the Dooars took up to three days. To the pioneers of old, this long and tedious trip aboard a puffing train would surely have seemed like a cake-walk - in their day, it took three months to reach the tea gardens of Upper Assam from Calcutta.*

 

By the early 1950s, a basic infrastructure for air travel was established; facilitated by a few defunct airstrips that were already dotting the N.E. region. These airstrips, hastily prepared by the U.S. Airforce during the 2nd World War for their legendary air-lift operations over the Eastern Himalayas to S.W. China - famously known as ‘Flying the Hump’ - were restored and made operational once again, along with some others on open fields within the tea estate premises. With the travel time now dramatically compressed to a mere three hours, flying became the most convenient and favoured means of commuting between Calcutta and N.E. India.    

Along with the ‘joining allowance’, my new employers handed me an air ticket to fly me out of Dum Dum Aerodrome (as it was then called) on a Tuesday, one of the three days in the week when the flight operator ‘Jamair’ flew out to the Dooars into North Bengal at the unearthly hour of 4 AM. The name ‘Dooars’, I was to learn, was derived from the word ‘duar’ or door that so aptly described this magnificent expanse as the ‘Gateway to the Himalayas’.  

The tale of Jamair's adventurous American founders, amongst the earliest pioneers of private aviation in India, had by then spread and attained exalted status. 

 

Pic of James B Muff and Eddie Quinn from https://cnac.org/quin01.htm

James B Muff and Eddie Quinn had been with The China National Airline Corporation (CNAC) during WW II and arrived in India soon after the war ended. Here they met up with the Jamsahib of Nawanagar and in partnership, formed ‘Jamair’ by acquiring a few Douglas C47 aircrafts that had survived the incredible perils of ‘flying the hump’. The legendary C47s, popularly known as the ‘Dakota’, had been adapted and renamed, for military use, from the hugely successful Douglas DC3 civilian aircraft. After the war, the redundant but airworthy C47s (along with the larger Douglas C54 ‘Skymasters’) were put up for sale at enticingly attractive prices. 

With their soaring reputation and acclaim, Jamair’s air services to the North-East became much sought after by the tea community of Calcutta and the airline began to receive vital support with the patronage of the many companies that flourished in that booming post-war city. 

On reaching Dum Dum Aerodrome, I was advised to drive along its outside perimeter road and enter the premises from the rear gate, to board the aircraft parked in a hangar. At the sight of my approaching taxi headlights, a Bihari chowkidar came loping out from the dark and with the customary ‘salaam’, swung open the wobbly low-slung gate. I entered grandly with air ticket in pocket as the only document in possession.  Security checks were non-existent; hijacks and human-bombs unheard of. Life was simple.  

I spotted Jamair’s brightly lit hangar in the distance and we drove towards it. A vintage Dakota was waiting inside. It was just after 3.30 a.m. A good deal of assorted cargo including bundles of the ‘dak-edition’ of The Statesman, mail bags, crates of machinery parts, cartons of cold stores and other miscellaneous items were being loaded into the cabin and strapped up with a thick rope net. They were to be my co-passengers! Thankfully, there were no bleating livestock which, I was told, travelled alongside occasionally! The aircraft bucket seats, I learnt, were either bolted on to the cabin floor or removed altogether and left in the hangar (as a temporary seat for waiting travellers) according to the passenger and cargo manifesto! There was only one other person waiting, rather listlessly, to board. A sense of adventure tingled within me in anticipation of my flight into an unknown land of tea in a hoary war seasoned aircraft.     

The pilot arrived just before 4 a.m. looking a trifle flushed and buoyant – no doubt the outcome of an evening of merriment before the call of duty! It caused no waves as it might have done today. Together we entered the steeply inclined cabin of the legendary aircraft. A musty odour of some intensity greeted me, entrenched no doubt, by all those varied items of cargo which were flown during and after the war. The bare metal floor was almost entirely occupied by the strapped-up goods. As expected, there was no cabin crew. The pilot disappeared into the cockpit but not before chucking a couple of shoddy blankets towards us with advice to keep them handy. “Might need ‘em”, he remarked cheerily! Yet another alien odour invaded my senses as I held the woolly catch.  

Barely had we settled into our seats, when the two propeller engines roared to life. The old Dakota rolled forward and taxied out quickly for take-off. A long reverberating climb later the shuddering aircraft calmed down. The roar of the two labouring engines dropped to a tolerable drone as we flew on into the indigo void, of a star filled sky, with the compass set north for our destination at the foothills of the eastern Himalayas.    

Later into the flight, I was getting to feel distinctly cold, and looking around, found the cause of it. Thin shafts of piercing cold air were streaming freely into the non-pressurised cabin through narrow gaps at the joints of the riveted panels. The seasoned Dakota was clearly showing her vintage! I wrapped the bristly blanket around me, silently thanking the pilot for providing some protection. The monotonous drone continued, lulling me to a fitful sleep.    

In about three hours, we were flying over the Dooars region of North Bengal and preparing to land at Grassmore, my destination airfield, as the early morning sun was lighting up the sky. Looking down through the haze of dawn light, I could see neat rows of the flat-topped tea bushes, shaded by tall trees, looming closer. A young boy was frantically prodding his herd of cattle away from the aircraft’s landing path. I realised, with some concern, that there was no tarmac in sight, and braced myself for a dubious landing!  There was no need for anxiety though, for with the seasoned veteran at her helm, the old Dakota continued on her descent with confidence and practised ease. An admirably smooth touch down on the evenly mowed grass field followed. With fingers now uncrossed, I silently thanked the pilot for the second time in the course of our few hours together!  

The roar of the engine died down as the old flying machine finally ground to a halt. Silence engulfed us. The flight, at the very best, would have matched the description ‘spartan’. It seemed to complement the sense of adventure that held me in its grip! 

The cabin door opened with a loud clang and I stepped out into a morning bathed in bright and clear sunshine. Ahead, a black and white windsock was fluttering gently in the cool early morning breeze. In a corner of the airfield, I could see a large tin shed that served as Jamair’s godown. A couple of tea garden ‘lorries’ were parked alongside, presumably, to collect their cargo brought in by the aircraft. A sporty ‘Standard Herald’ car was parked close to them with what appeared to be a planter in shorts and an open necked shirt leaning against it. He turned out to be the other Assistant Manager of Nagrakata Tea Estate - waiting for me.

A pre-monsoon shower, the day before, had scrubbed the skies clean and settled the dust.  The vegetation all around appeared rich, the colours intensely vivid. In the pure and serene country air, the hysterical call of a ‘brain-fever’ bird and the distant sound of a trundling tractor drifted in with astounding clarity. Nearby, the animated chatter of the Adivasi cargo handlers in their unique ‘tea-garden Hindi’ (which I would soon enough learn) was coming through loudly. The sights and sounds seemed to create a strange and colourful aura in this sublime, alien wilderness. 

I was awestruck by the beauty and tranquillity of my new habitat, far removed from the din and dirt of the big city that was a part of me just a few hours ago. This became my reality with the city fading into a hazy dream.   

A rainy day on the road to the Dooars  from Bagdogra aiport, where commercial flights now land. Darjeeling hills in the background. I took this pic in 2011 -Gowri

*See Charwallah 1943's comments below. - Gowri  

 

Author's footnotes:
Jamsahib of Nawanagar: (also known as the Nawab of Jamnagar, a princely state in Western India

 Dum Dum Aerodrome: now an international airport in Calcutta (now Kolkata) and known as Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport

 Dak Edition: postal edition of daily newspapers for remote regions

 The Statesman: the most popular English language daily morning newspaper of Eastern India those days

 Godown: word for a closed storage shed in India. Origin unknown!

Lorry: a particularly English word for truck we always used in tea

Adivasi: the original tribal inhabitants of India

 

 

Meet the writer: Aloke Mookerjee

Here's what Aloke has to say about himself :

 

I am a planter long retired from the Dooars  as well as Assam and Papua New Guinea where I was in tea and coffee for several years. I have been writing about my life in tea. These are really ...the early impressions received by a young 'greenhorn ' of those times upon his arrival at the plantations.

 

Even after all this time, tea remains alive in my thoughts; those were the best years of my life.  I have relocated to Goa recently and its hot and humid weather is taking me back to my 'tea days'. Alas, I cannot say that of the cold weather here. Nothing could beat the wonderful cold months of NE India!

 

Other interests? Always loved jazz music - still do - and have written about this incredible genre. Love vintage airplanes (thus my love for Dakotas!) and cars, and intend to make this my next focus.'  Here is the link to all posts by Aloke - Stories by Aloke Mookerjee

Aloke's book, The Jazz Bug, is available on Amazon. Read about it here: https://notionpress.com/read/the-jazz-bug?fbclid=IwAR2HjxSU2rY6sq5cX_lzBxJY5oat1i_Z22qKdRRP1Tm77Dqp48B2CAlnGvY 

 

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/