Back in the Day - VII

by Shipra Castledine

Relatives visiting us in tea experienced a few days or a few weeks of a pampered, colourful time. Over the years that my father was in tea all our family on both sides visited. Now when they read instalments of my story they enjoy it as they relate to it. Like the new city people who came to live and work in tea, our relatives too got familiar with the very tea specific terminology. Like the paniwala, the bawarchi, the malibari. Being woken up in the morning with a ‘chota hazri’.

My Jethu and Jethima with my cousins, my Didi and Mejdi visited us one time at Baintgoorie TE. Jethu was a very humorous man and his relation of incidents was hilarious. He talked of the travails of the spring beds in our bungalows and on top of that, the ‘dunlopillo’ mattresses. It was true that these were really quite uncomfortable as they sagged when you lay on them. But the hilarious bit was Jethu describing that when he turned over on one side - and it happened to be the side to get off the bed - the mattress would flip up behind him and he would be on the floor!!! Not really a laughing matter, given that he could have been injured, but as he wasn’t it became a tale of great hilarity in the family!

Let me bring in the practicality of mosquito nets that we had to have hung around all beds if you didn’t want to get eaten alive by mosquitoes. The master bedroom was very grand in the Baintgoorie burra bungalow. You could probably fit in a current small sized flat into that bedroom! There were twin massive sized single beds joined, sprung with spring! But not dunlopillo mattresses! Over the beds was a ceiling fan (DC – direct current not AC – alternate current as electricity changed to in modern times). Above the ceiling fan was a large iron ring suspended from the ceiling. The ceiling was very high, I could say approximately 20 feet. On to this iron ring was hooked the mosquito net which then draped down all the way to the floor and stayed there as it was weighted down with stones sewn into the bottom of the net. One end folded over another at appropriate junctures of the net so one could just move the net aside to get out. 

This gives you an idea but it was much grander in the Baintgoorie master bedroom

My bed in comparison had posts and rods around the bed and the mosquito net was tied on to the rods. 

My bed would have looked more like this but the net would be all the way around and tucked under the mattress so you pulled it out and lifted it to get out of bed.

And then there was the sound of big black beetles hitting and bouncing off the walls of the bedroom! Jethu would recreate the sound of these beetles slowly buzzing around the room then hitting the weatherboard walls, so realistically that we would be in splits! Between mum and Jethu we were almost all the time in peals of laughter.

We enjoyed showing our relatives the beautiful parts of the place that we lived in. Picnics on riverbanks with clear water rushing along, white pebbled banks where we put out rugs and laid out a delicious spread. Sometimes it would be a picnic near a ‘jhora’ (a stream) with shady trees around, the water gurgling and as we dipped our feet in the water small fish tickled us as they went about their business. The tea estates were in lush surroundings of rivers, mountains and forests. Trips to forest ranges run by the West Bengal Forest Department were made when we had visitors. In those days you didn’t have to get lucky to see a Bengal tiger, leopards, plenty of deer and elephants. You would see the wildlife. The safari was usually carried out on elephant back. We would have lunch in their guest houses (dak bungalows as they were called) and it was normally a standard lunch of thick, rough rice, a thin daal and aloo bhaja then a fiery chicken curry cooked with free range chickens butchered on the day. It was sheer heaven. These chicken curries have gained fame in Indian recipes as Dak Bungalow Chicken Curry.

Jaldapara Wildlife Sanctuary, North Bengal

Jaldapara forest bungalow

Gorumara Forest was very close to our tea estates. We would go there often with or without visitors. The Mahindra jeep was the vehicle for rough terrain as was the Land Rover. Both these adequately traversed jhoras and mini rivers, rough forest roads and allowed us to regularly experience the forests and see wildlife.  Other than the government managed forestry there was plenty of natural forest around us to take drives to and spend time in them. There were times when some well meaning local would tell us to go away as a herd of elephants had been sighted and could meander along where we were. But the ultimate danger was from a rogue elephant who would have been kicked out of its herd for one reason or another. These rogue elephants were frustrated, often sick and angry. There have been deaths amongst the planters who have gone on shikar to kill one of these. 

Old Land Rover

 One of the best things I remember was driving out of Baintgoorie TE and coming to the cattle trap gate out of the estate and seeing the vista of the mountains in front. Sometimes if we were lucky we could see the snow ranges which is the Himalayas. I must talk about those cattle traps across the road in various parts of the estate. As a child I was mortally afraid of having to cross them. Luckily some of them had a little pedestrian gate on the side so we could walk through. But when there was no option but to step on the cattle trap........it took me 10 times the time it should have as I gingerly put one foot over two bars, stopped, almost shaking, then the other foot would come forward! And then there were the children who would literally run over them! Not fair! Growing up in a tea garden was the perfect playground for a child. Your imagination could run wild, you could be adventurous and you hardly spent time indoors.  

A catte trap

As there was no other means of entertainment in those days, everyone in the tea estates became pretty proficient with entertaining in their bungalows. The adults’ social life was a round of dinners at various bungalows some as far as a two hour drive, probably 60-70 miles away. Children weren’t always a part of these dinner parties. A reliable ayah would stay the night over to babysit us children. And if we were taken we usually went to bed at a good hour at our host’s bungalow with other children whilst the adults enjoyed a large part of the night away. We would be picked up sleeping when it was time to go home.

I spent only some years growing up in tea so I wasn’t a part of the adult activities till much later when I married and we were a part of tea life again. I do remember the ‘club do’s which us children would be a part of. On special occasions like Christmas parties the club that was in our district, Western Dooars Club for us, would usually hire a live band from Shillong particularly for the New Year’s Eve ‘do’ as there were good musicians there and there would be a rollicking show on, with dancing and fun. We would be allowed there for a while but got sent home with the ayah in reasonable time if it was safe for us to be sent home. By safe I mean how far we’d have to go to our tea garden travelling with the driver and ayah.

A lot of ladies and gents in tea were very good dancers. The jive and the cha cha cha were very in and rock and roll and latin American music was played in our homes whilst the good dancers tried to teach the amateurs!  And as I have mentioned in an earlier instalment, the food was something that should have been documented and photographed, it was of such high standard. All the memsaabs outdid themselves in stoking their bawarchis to shine and be better than the others in the district! For those of us who were natural born foodies the groaning tables of food were the highlights of our existence! And there was no hope ever again that we would get off that food wagon!!

On that hungry note Part VII comes to an end!

Editor's Note: 
Jethu and Jethima: uncle and aunt, specifically, father's older brother and his wife
Didi, Di : An older sister (or cousin)
Mejdi : literally, 'middle di', so neither the youngest nor the oldest
Aloo Bhaja : crisp potato fritters, a favourite in Bengal
(All pix in this post sourced from the internet by Shipra )

 

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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