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. 

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