The Lost Sounds Of ‘Tea’

by Sarita Dasgupta

 “I hear the sounds, of distant drums…. Far away, far away…………………….”

I remembered these words from an old Jim Reeves song, and thought nostalgically about the rhythmic, hypnotizing sound of the drums that would waft to our bungalow from the workers’ Lines every evening, borne gently on the breeze. It was an integral part of an evening in the tea estates of Assam during my childhood. In those days of simpler living on the estates, sans such things as TVs, the workers would sing and dance to the beat of the drum after a hard day in the field. Now, the drums come out during festivals only. Whenever I hear them, I’m taken straight back to the halcyon days of my childhood. We used to join enthusiastically in the ‘jhumur’ dance when the workers came to the bungalow to dance on a special occasion. By the time we learned the steps of one movement, the dancers had moved on to another! But it was great fun, and as the song says - “The rhythm is gonna get you” - it did!

Dancers, photograph by Venk Shenoi, Nagrakata area, Dooars, c.1963-'64 

Speaking of drums and music, we had a sweeper once, who tied his hair in a small bun at the nape of his neck, a little towards the left. This was sufficiently out of the norm to intrigue us. He was a taciturn man, so we didn’t have the courage to ask him the reason. During one of the festivals, a party of musicians and dancers came to the bungalow to entertain us, and lo and behold, if it wasn’t old Budhu, with hair down to his shoulders, playing the ‘ektara’ and singing folk songs! My excited brother kept calling out to him, but he completely ignored us. The next day, the old, taciturn, Budhu was back, wielding the broom instead of the ‘ektara’! But my little brother looked on him with new eyes. It was rather like having a Pop Star working ‘incognito’ in one’s house!

Another sound one hardly hears nowadays, is the howl of the foxes. One of my younger sister’s favourite words, (‘sounds’, rather) was ‘hukkahuwaa’ - this being her take on the foxes’ cry. I must say, it was a fair imitation! We were taken out for a walk every evening, and it was the first call of the fox which told the ayah that it was time to turn back home. First, one fox would call, then another, and another, from different sides, till there was quite a chorus going on, happily joined in by my sister! After I got married in the early 80s, I wondered where all the foxes had gone till one shot across the garden road one evening sometime in 2005. My husband was surprised at my excitement, which, to him, must have seemed rather excessive. But, to me, it was like seeing an old friend after a long, long time. My only regret - the fox hadn’t howled!

An old dastoor on the estates was for the factory chowkidar to beat a gong (ghanti) on the hour, every hour. Other strategically placed gongs all over the estate would follow suit, till everyone knew the time. The sound of these gongs was another integral part of life on the estates. I had quite forgotten this, till some years ago when I spent the night at an estate that still follows this practice. At first, I was happy to hear this lost sound from my childhood, but, I must confess, it became less and less enchanting as the night wore on… my sleepiness wore off… and my nerves wore thin! However, after I’d recovered from the experience, I was nostalgic about the gongs all over again!

The other sounds I miss are the sounds of words no longer heard on the estates. Everyone says ‘factory’ nowadays, but when my father was a mistry sahab his duty lay in the kol-ghar! In those days we had someone called a din-chowkidar, who came on duty in the afternoon when the other bungalow servants went home for lunch. One rarely hears of a maliani (female mali) these days, and certainly not of the gobar-buri who used to come to the bungalow every day to make fuel cakes out of dried cow dung and coal dust for that huge cooking range! Gone are those ranges. In fact, gone are those kitchens, separated from the rest of the bungalow by a long passage-way. Now, the kitchen and pantry are one entity, and so the word botol-khana is going out of the bagaan vocabulary too.

I suddenly and most unexpectedly heard the sound of a cricket (cicada) two nights ago on my 7th floor balcony here in Kolkata. I was rooted to the spot physically but taken back to the tea estates mentally…that constant, shrill sound that irritated me no end while I was there, is actually music to my ears now!

Most of all, I miss the sounds of birds cheeping and chirping early in the morning. Here, it’s the hoarse ‘caw caw’ of the crow that awakens me! I would welcome the sound of the factory siren any day in place of that!

Change is inevitable, and most changes take place for the better. However, like scents, sounds are also evocative, and these lost sounds, if heard unexpectedly, take one back to certain places or happy times in one’s past, where one dwells in spirit for that infinitesimal moment, and comes out smiling.

Editor's note:  The video ( of the cicada in the tree ) was shot at Burra Bungalow, Thanai T.E., Assam

Meet the writer: Sarita Dasgupta

"As a ‘chai ka baby’ (and grandbaby!) and then a ‘chai ka memsahab’, I sometimes wonder if I have tea running through my veins! 

I have been writing for as long as can remember – not only my reminiscences about life in ‘tea’ but also skits, plays, and short stories. My plays and musicals have been performed by school children in Guwahati, Kolkata and Pune, and my first collection of short stories for children, called Feathered Friends, was published by Amazing Reads (India Book Distributors) in 2016. My Rainbow Reader series of English text books and work books have been selected as the prescribed text for Classes I to IV by the Meghalaya Board of School Education for the 2018-2019 academic session, and I have now started writing another series for the same publisher.

Read more bySarita here:  https://teastorytellers.blogspot.com/search/label/Sarita%20Dasgupta

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
 
Sarita mentions this lovely old song - for those of you who started humming it, here's the video!

The Extension Interview

by V.R.Srikanth

The year was 1976, and armed with an Honours degree in Political Science, I embarked on my journey to Cochin for my first interview ever, with any company, and this one was Malayalam Plantations Ltd., one of the very best. We were interviewed in the afternoon, the first day, and were asked to appear for an examination the next morning on general knowledge and mathematics.

Having successfully negotiated that, we were asked to appear in the afternoon, the same day, and some of were asked to proceed to various estates for an extension of our interviews. Being new to this process, I was completely unprepared for an extension interview and just didn't have the right clothes, having just packed my best formal clothes.

I drew a test estate in the Vandiperiyar area along with another candidate: I.K.Anil from Coorg. We were handed letters of introduction to our respective estate superintendents and and asked to present these to them at the Vandiperyar Club.

So having been packed into an Ambassador taxi, we sallied forth from Cochin in the early afternoon, hoping to reach there by late evening as originally scheduled. But there was a fallen tree and a small landslide en route, and with communication facilities being poor those days, it took a while to get cleared. Armed with a pint of rum each, IK and I took regular swigs while warming up to the conversation that we were having. The block being cleared, we resumed in our journey and set off in the last evening light.

It was dark when we reached the Vandiperiyar Club, and as I recall, we strolled up to the snooker room, which if my memory serves me right was rather prominently located near the entrance. A Senior Assistant Manager from Wallardie Estate, whom I shall not name, welcomed us and informed us that our Superintendents had left the Club earlier, having waited for us, leaving instructions for us to proceed to their respective bungalows.

Before we could do so he ordered a couple of double large rums for us, to be downed in a gulp, in keeping with the time honoured Malayalams' tradition, as he put it. Having happily obliged, a very self assured IK and I proceeded to the Wallardie Bungalow first. Somewhere along the landslide halt both of us had removed our ties and stowed them in our bags as we retrieved our rum. Just as we reached the Wallardie Bungalow gate, I pointed out to IK in total darkness that our ties were not on. So we groped our way into our bags and found them and managed to put them on somehow, being very skilled at this.

Wallardie, pic by Outlook Traveller

 The Wallardie Estate Superintendent’s Bungalow, as I recall, had a long passage with rooms extending out on both sides. As you entered it, the first room on the left was a day office room and I saw a man sitting before a crank telephone sporting shorts and a t shirt, and speaking in fluent Malayalam.

Having known that the Superintendent was a British expat, and finding that this gentleman sported a prominent tan - and maybe it was the rum -  I took him to be one of the bungalow staff.

I asked him rather nervously in Malayalam, for I was not totally sure who he was, "Dorai Undo" which meant, “is the master home.” He looked at me rather incredulously, turned a bit crimson and replied after a little while, "He is, and you are bloody well looking at him. It’s about time you bloody well got here."
I sobered instantly, and thought to myself, "You’ve made a fine initial impression and got off to a flying start, haven’t you Mr.Srikanth."

I proceeded to introduce IK who was a most amused spectator to this tamasha and who was rather anxious to leave to meet his Dorai, wondering what lay in store for him. For sure he would be treading rather warily, as opposed to the the candidate whom he just dropped.

I was shown to my bedroom and asked to appear in the drawing room after I had cleaned up. The Superintendent was a bachelor and a gracious host. He obviously was looking forward to my company and to assessing me thoroughly.

After a few minutes in the tub, scrubbed and tubbed, I was back for my first real trial. He offered whisky and I was ready to accept anything, considering my anxious state after the initial faux pas.
We covered a variety of subjects that evening. Starting with my background, education, hobbies and pastimes, discussion on politics and various until subjects until dinner.

Post dinner it was back to a nightcap and more conversation until the clock struck midnight, when he asked me if had brought my pair of shorts. I instantly replied stating what a pleasant surprise it was to find that there was a tennis court in Wallardie. He looked at me incredulously again to say,  "You're a funny bugger aren't you. You are supposed to be in the fields at the first light. The Senior Assistant Manager will pick you up and drop you back for breakfast." I promptly bid goodnight and trudged softly into the bedroom congratulating myself for a second faux pas.

Well, the next day passed being shown around the estate, and after breakfast with the Dorai, it was again back to be shown the routine field and factory operations for the day. Lunch however was hosted by the Senior Assistant Manager at his bungalow along with another Assistant Manager in the estate.

When I returned to the Superintendent's Bungalow in the evening, he was in the garden enjoying a spread of tea with a lady guest who I found was the wife of the Manager of a neighbouring estate. As he looked at my soiled appearance and the havoc the estate had played on shoes and my formal trousers in particular, he agreed to my cleaning up first before joining them.

During the course of that evening he divulged more information about the company and what was expected from me. I found out that I had to remain a bachelor compulsorily during my first contract for four years. I replied that it was quite impossible for me to do so as I was already engaged and that my fiancée would certainly not wait for four years.

He looked at me incredulously for the third time and asked me if I was quite certain about what I thought of turning down. I replied that I was. After berating his company about not letting me know about this policy in the first place, he suggested that I meet a Director of the company at Cochin, who would help place me in another company which had a more relaxed policy about marriage, based upon his personal recommendation. He even suggested another prominent company based in Munnar. He also added that if I missed out on the right girl, I might not find the right one again, but I could always find another job.

I didn't finally take the offer of employment made to me. I joined an Indian plantation company based in South India that has a more relaxed "marriage policy."

Meet the writer: V.R.Srikanth

I am a resident of the Nilgiris. I am a retired Corporate Management Professional having done two brief stint as a planter, nearly thirty years apart, mainly in Coffee. I live on my estate growing timber, organic herbs and vegetables. 

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
 

Ring, Ring!!

by Gumi Malhotra
Just a few lines on ( the lack of ) a telephone!

Living in the Chhota bungalow was blissful, there was a comfortable feeling of being ‘one of the younger ones’ which I enjoyed and played to the hilt.

If there was an object of envy in the Burra bungalow it was The Telephone and that too with STD facility. Out station calls were half the rate after 8 o’clock and a quarter rate post 11 pm.

One would wait for the breadwinner to come home, persuade/nag/ plead for the phone call, quick cup of tea and an hour to forty minute drive to the nearest town for the weekly call home.
Then came the big bonus.

The Manager of the estate probably remembered his phone struggle days and once the office closed the telephone came home to us. Literally. No kidding. It was disconnected in the office and arrived home with due respect on a tray with the bearer saying, “Memsahib phone aya hai”!!

We didn’t realize then that we’d never look back. Henceforth, we would always be at the end of a line.
 

Does this song ring a bell? 

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


 Meet the writer: Gumi Malhotra

Gumi Malhotra

Hello chai people, here’s my first attempt to pen down one of the million memories I carry with me. We came away twelve years ago with our hearts full ( not so much the pocket) of such nuggets. We live in Bangalore now and what started as a hobby in the gardens has become my calling. I paint pet portraits. The happiest days spent in tea were in the Jali kamra with my paints, the boys occupied with make believe cars and a steady stream of tea flowing from the kitchen. Cheers!

  

The Flimsies of the Second Flush

by Aloke Mookerjee

With frequent spells of the eagerly awaited pre-monsoon showers, tea bushes pruned during the previous cold weather would begin to sprout new shoots that gradually filled the skeletal form with lush new green leaves. Slowly, the characteristic ‘flat table’ of the tea bush would begin to form by the regular rounds of ‘tipping and plucking’ the new growing shoots at a specific height. The factory, shut for overhaul during the dormant cold weather months, would be cranked up for manufacture yet again. Back in those days, teas manufactured by the estates of the Dooars Tea Company (as with most others in the Dooars) were of the ‘Legg Cut’ variety.

The Legg-Cut machines used in the tea factories were originally tobacco cutters that had been modified and adapted to tea. Its wide spread use in the Dooars made the term ‘Legg Cut’ synonymous and singularly associated with this North Bengal region.

Unlike the ‘Orthodox’ or ‘CTC’ types of manufacture where the freshly harvested leaves are first ‘withered’ for several hours before the subsequent processes, manufacture of Legg Cut teas began immediately on arrival of the freshly harvested green tea leaves from the garden. The process resulted in a brew that took on a bright copper colour when milk was added to it. While these teas were still in demand then, particularly in the UK, they fetched lower prices than the CTC and Orthodox varieties. Apparently, the blenders of Calcutta and London used the strong and ‘coloury’ Dooars teas as ‘fillers’ for their brands by adding a generous dose of it to the more mellow and costlier CTC variety.

After the pale and aromatic ‘Darjeelings’ that I was accustomed to, the Dooars ‘Legg Cuts’ tasted rather harsh – not unlike freshly mowed grass! It took me a while to get accustomed to it but never enough to be a fan of this robust brew. The plantations of N.E. India, including the Dooars, experience a brief but very special spell every year, from around the end of May to the third week of June, known to all in the tea community as the ‘second flush’. When the unmistakeable ‘brightness’ in the infused tea quite suddenly appeared during the production process and its taste changed, overnight, from the plain and ordinary to a rich and mellow cup, we would know that the ‘great’ second flush had finally arrived.

The eagerly awaited and much sought-after Assam second flush teas fetched the highest auction prices (excluding the ‘Darjeelings’ ofcourse). Similarly, for the poor cousin, the Dooars teas also although never at the lofty levels of her neighbouring brethren states!

Prior to its ‘appearance’, the ‘Head Tea House Babu’ of Nagrakata and his factory staff would gear themselves up, in anticipation, and ensure that all potential flaws in the production process had been well contained so as not to cause a loss in quality whether owing to machinery failures or negligence of the factory workers. The field staff would now put in their extra effort to ensure that the quality of the leaf harvested was never a cause for contention. Samples of the manufactured teas, packed in tiny flat round tins, would be air-mailed every week to the brokers in Calcutta and London for their evaluation and comments. The Calcutta and the London Auction Reports, mailed to the estate, would begin to arrive punctually every week. Both would be eagerly scanned upon receipt.

The London Auction Report was popularly referred to as ‘the Flimsy’ for the fine tissue like quality of its air-mail paper. ‘The Flimsy’ listed the names of all estates across the world selling their teas through the tea auction house located in the historical Mincing Lane near the Thames in the City of London. I was then unaware that this quaint and charming ‘tea lane’ of international fame was, in the days of yore, not only the most important centre for tea trade but was also a prime hub of the world’s spice trade (alongside Venice and Amsterdam) and of the infamous money spinning Opium and Slave Trades of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The ‘quartet’ formed by tea, spice, opium and slaves brought in untold wealth to coffers of this tiny island nation, as much as it did to the traders.

In comparison, the hoary past of the Calcutta Tea Auction centre famously known as ‘Nilhat’ house would seem to appear docile with its history of first starting as a bustling trade centre of a mere vegetable dye, Indigo, before it succumbed to the onslaught from the newly formulated, cheaper chemical colours. The Calcutta Auction Reports listed only those estates that sold their teas through Calcutta. Along with London, they formed the two major tea auction centres of the world with smaller ones at Cochin (now Kochi) in South India, Colombo in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) and Mombasa in East Africa.

We would see in the reports, names of estates earning the top honours of the week as well as the ones dragging their feet! Nagrakata rarely, if ever, made it to the top of the ladder but that did little to dampen the enthusiasm and unstinted loyalty for our manager whom we considered, with all the wisdom of our few months in tea, to be the very best professional in the industry!

And then, there was yet another set of ‘flimsy’ papers we received regularly from overseas that do also need mention! This was the airmail edition of the venerable ‘Daily Telegraph’ which were flown out from London to our Calcutta office every day and thence a copy forwarded to each estate of the company. On arrival at the plantation, the newspaper was circulated amongst the senior staff but strictly in accordance to the hierarchical order starting with the Manager and then down the line to the junior most Assistant Manager.

When, finally in the hands of the last young bachelor assistant, several days after its publication, the much ‘revered’ paper, after a quick scan, underwent a rather humiliating transformation by the bungalow ‘Bearer’ when he neatly cut the fine tissue like paper to pocket book page size pieces and relegated them to the bathrooms well packed in a cardboard box! While not a reflection on the quality of content that caused such an ignominious end to an ‘august’ daily, it nonetheless demonstrated a fertile and innovative mind busy at ‘re-cycling’ and saving some of the spend thrift bachelor ‘chota saab’s’ hard earned money!

Meanwhile, even as the Daily Telegraph and the ‘Flimsies’ continued arriving with their usual unfailing regularity, the brief and glorious second flush would vanish for yet another twelve months leaving behind its presence only in the packed tea chests ready for their onward journey to the warehouses of Calcutta.

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! 

Meet the writer: Aloke Mookerjee

Here's what Aloke has to say about himself : 'Long retired from tea, but still active in business. Even after all these years, tea remains to live strongly in my thoughts; they were the best years of my life. 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 has recently published a book, The Jazz Bug, which is available on Amazon. Read about it here: https://notionpress.com/read/the-jazz-bug?fbclid=IwAR2HjxSU2rY6sq5cX_lzBxJY5oat1i_Z22qKdRRP1Tm77Dqp48B2CAlnGvY

The Periya Dorai's Angle to Angling

by Indi Khanna

After two years on Panniar with my father figure P.D. (Abid), I was transferred to one of the other Malayalam's properties in the High Ranges – Surianalle Estate. Despite us being directly on the other side of the valley from Panniar with a clear line of sight and just a couple of kilometres away as the crow flies, most times we never really ever got to see Surianalle. The reason for that estate being almost always invisible most times is explained by its very name - Surian (the sun) Illay (not there!).

Which is exactly what it was – almost totally bereft of any sunshine. Every morning one went down to the muster in thick mist which hung over us heavy as a blanket, all the way through to well past noon at which time, as if by magic, the mist would dissipate to allow the sun to stream in (when the sky was clear, that is). Conditions which allowed all of us to get our daily fix of vitamin-D till about 1500 hours at which time we went back to being Surrian-alle!

The author at Surianalle

I digress, so let me wander back to the tale which needs to be told.

My P.D. (the big boss) in Surianalle was a short (all of 5' 4") stocky and tough as nails Scot from Aberdeen. Clyde Lawrence, despite all his bluff and bluster (and he had oodles of that to toss around), was at heart a bit of a softy. All in all a rather delightful teddy bear package. After a couple of months of making me run around like a trained monkey and having established that maybe I was an 'alright type', one day while walking through the fields he casually asked me whether I had any interest in angling. Me – angling!! Having arrived in South India straight out of the dry hills of Simla, followed by college and university in Chandigarh, it was like asking me whether I had ever visited the moon  - since in Punjab the only angling one had ever heard about was 'marroing angle' on anything in a skirt or a salwar-kameez.

Being told that I was a total blank on anything to do with fishing, Clyde asked whether I might be interested to get involved. Having heard through the grapevine that the P.D. was an avid angler (he was known to have actually said that getting a fish at the end of one's line was much more pleasurable than having an o******), wild horses would not have held me back from grabbing the opportunity to get further into Clyde's good books.

Having established my interest, that evening I was invited to the P.D.'s bungalow for a drink and was presented with a hand-me-down rod, a spinning reel, some line and a couple of swivels and spinners. Having been explained the basics of how one was supposed to use the tackle I was told that every evening, post work, I should drop by at Clyde's bungalow armed with the equipment. And so began an almost three month training session of converting 'young Gurrinder' into a well rounded planter by me learning how to cast a line, the way 'it is done in Scotland'! The Surianalle P.D. bungalow has a huge lawn on which, armed with my 'new' rod, duly threaded and with a spinner at the end of the line, I was told to stand at one end of this 'cricket field' while a small coin was placed at the other end.

And so began my training. Day after day, week after week, I had to keep casting to try and hit the coin. While the new angler-in-the-making toiled away, Clyde and Winne would sit in the verandah having their evening cuppa and scones and cakes and every now and then making appreciative 'oohs' and 'aahs' whenever my spinner spoon actually managed to land on target and we all heard a rather satisfying 'ping' from that end of lawn.

Three months later as a well trained angler, though one who had never been near any water with his rod, I was asked whether I might want to accompany Clyde and Appu to Gravel Banks on Rajamallai estate. Appu, a couple of years senior to me, had obviously already been through the grind and was accepted by the boss as being a fisherman.

Come Sunday Appu and I hopped into Clyde's Ambassador to be driven to Rajamallai at breakneck speed totally unmindful of potholes, bumps or anything else on the road. Clyde's Scotsman logic being that if one sped over impediments, one felt them less and that the cars suspension was less prone to wear and tear. The fact that his car was more often in the estate workshop for replacement of the dozens of rubber bushes (a typical feature of the Ambassador) rather than with Clyde, did not deter him from changing his mind on how that poor vehicle needed to be driven.

Two hours later, duly shaken and stirred, we arrived at Gravel Banks, on the way having been tutored by Clyde to watch out for the leeches which, in size in and around Rajamallai, were reputed to be in close competition to the trout in the stream. After we had assembled and threaded our respective rods, in good P.D. fashion Clyde told us that he was going to head upstream from the fishing hut and that Appu and I should head downstream.

The P.D. logic was that with him being upstream from us he would be casting for fish which had not yet been spooked. And so downstream the two of us headed with huge leeches reaching out to us on both sides of the path and even dropping down our backs from the thick overhanging branches. The only way to avoid the leeches was to walk along in the water unmindful of the rocks and suddenly finding oneself waist deep in freezing water, all the while casting out at regular intervals and every once in a while pulling in the usual 12/13oz tiddlers which is the 'Gravel Banks standard'. So as not to disturb each other Appu walked along one bank of the stream, me on the other.

About two hours into the pleasurable exercise, I saw Appu's rod curved at a rather acute angle which could only mean one of two things, that either he had snagged his hook on to some rock/bush/whatever (a regular feature in Gravel Banks) and was yanking to release the hook OR that he had a big one on the end of his line.

Panniar, Turner's Valley

  From where I was I could see that Appu had that fisherman's look on his face when he knows he is on to a good thing. As well he should have because following a bit of a struggle, out came a goodish 1½ pounder which by Gravel Banks standards could only be described as a whopper. Almost as excited as he was, I waded through to his side of the bank to look jealously at the thrashing trout in his grip. While both of us were admiring the prize Appu casually pulls the hook out of the fellows mouth and then, horror of horrors, puts the poor sod back in the stream. It took me a minute to realize what he'd gone and done by which time the 'catch' was well on its way, probably counting its blessings!

When I found my voice to ask Appu the reason for this totally inexplicable behaviour, I was given a lesson in P.D. 'management' which stayed with me through my planting days both in the South as well as in Assam, that for a peaceful next working week one never went back home with a bigger fish than Clyde and never with a larger total catch and that, should one end up in that situation where nature has given you the larger bounty, just let it/them go!

By 1300 hrs when we met back at the fishing hut, asked by Clyde what we had in our respective bags and shown our rather meagre harvest and not a word about the 'one that had got away', the P.D. with a ear to ear grin opened his bag to reveal plenty more of the 12oz wonders than the two of us collectively had.

It worked! Like magic it did. Monday to Saturday while the other two assistants on Surianalle were at the receiving end of Clyde's 'weeds in xxx field' and 'signs of bad plucking in others', messers Appaya and Khanna were only educated further on what the two of us should have been doing to ensure a bigger catch!

The ones that didn't get away!

*P.D. - Peria Durai, a Tamil term meaning 'Big Boss', like 'Burra Saab' in North India.

Is this your first visit here? Welcome to Indian Chai Stories! 
ADD THIS LINK TO YOUR FAVOURITES : https://teastorytellers.blogspot.com/Indian Chai Stories
There are over a hundred stories here, and they are all from the tea gardens! Our storytellers are tea planters and their memsaabs, baby and baba log. Each of our contributors has a really good story to tell - don't lose any time before you start reading them! 

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!

Meet the writer:

Indi Khanna with Xerox

With an industry experience and a tea knowledge base of four and a half decades and counting, I literally live and breathe tea. 

Starting my career in 1975 as an Assistant Superintendent with Malayalam Plantations Ltd, rolling up my sleeves by 'dirtying' my hands at the grassroots level and having literally 'grown' in the business, my experiences have matured me into a ‘one of a kind’ unique entity in the industry.

My journey which literally starts from the tea nursery and stretches all the way up to the consumer shelf, is in many ways unique. Regularly roaming the tea world, delving into the most remote areas wherever tea is grown or consumed, constantly interacting with Tea folk, I have always been learning and innovating. The invaluable experiences along this very interesting route have culminated into a unique new venture, a one-of-a-kind specialty tea manufacturing facility unit in the Nilgiris - www.teastudio.info.

My life has been and continues to be blessed.

Thankfully this very interesting Tea journey continues as an ongoing learning experience.

Is this your first visit here? Welcome to Indian Chai Stories! 
You will meet many storytellers here at Indian Chai Stories, and they are almost all from the world of tea gardens: planters, memsaabs, baby and baba log. Each of our contributors has a really good story to tell - don't lose any time before you start reading them!

First Impressions

                                                 

Pic of Hattigor T.E. from the Amalgamated Plantations website - https://amalgamatedplantations.co.in

by Radhika Tandon
Memories ! It's true, the brain is the finest camera. Thirty-five years ago, images seen, clicked & stored - glorious memories, clear as if it's yesterday. I can see them, but unfortunately I can't print them.

I was introduced to a young Assistant Manager of Tata Tea. Frankly, I didn't know Tatas made tea.
I barely knew where Assam was. I don't know what I fell in love with first, the romantic notion of moving to Assam or with the young man, but fall in love I did, with both.

My journey from Bombay ( my home ) to Delhi ( his home ) to Assam ( our home to be ) was a long, long train journey followed by a long car journey to 'Hattigor Tea Estate' where I was met with the warmest people who would soon become family.

To say that I was in another world would be trifling. From concrete jungle to vast open spaces.
Picture perfect carpets of tea bushes between endless straight lines of trees. A sky full of stars, I have never seen so many anywhere else ! Birds chirping, crickets screeching, plants & flowers that I had never seen or heard of...ahhhh, pure bliss !

I firmly maintain that Assam has more stars in the sky than anywhere else. 

Here are a few first impressions that I was introduced to....
Chang Bungla - A house on stilts that creaks from head to toe every time someone moves.
Telephone - A curio that generally adorns all " Burra Banglas "
Burra Bangla - Manager's bungalow.
Mali Bari - Kitchen garden, basically your main source of sustenance.
First Class - Car, generally an Ambassador.
Tick-Ticky - Lizard, & believe me there were plenty of them !
Poka - insects - cockroaches the size of a sparrow, I kid you not ! v Chokku - Eyes. All pervasive, all seeing.
The list is endless, the recall memory needs to be recharged, so I'll stop here.

Meet the writer:

Radhika Tandon

Says Radhika, "I am one of those city girls who took to tea life like a fish takes to water. From concrete jungle to vast verdant greenery, who wouldn’t ? Been a tea wife for all my married life. Posted mostly in Assam with a very short stint in the Dooars. We moved to Bangalore on transfer in 2005 & have been here since then." 

Is this your first visit here? Welcome to Indian Chai Stories! 
ADD THIS LINK TO YOUR FAVOURITES : https://teastorytellers.blogspot.com/Indian Chai Stories
There are over a hundred stories here, and they are all from the tea gardens! Our storytellers are tea planters and their memsaabs, baby and baba log. Each of our contributors has a really good story to tell - don't lose any time before you start reading them! 

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!

A Matter Of Honour

by Dip Sengupta
I grew up in the tea gardens of North Bengal. Tea gardens tend to be lonely, isolated places - miles and miles of plantations, often bordered by dense forests. The bungalows, built by the British, sometimes lay bang in the middle of the ancient routes that elephant herds had followed for centuries - to go from one part of the forests to another.

The Brits, of course, couldn't care less.

It was of no concern to the greatest empire on earth if a herd of elephants was inconvenienced by a bungalow built right in the middle of the path they had known and used for ages. The elephants would have to shift their route and that was that. So, the British planters and engineers built their lovely bungalows with tall iron gates and bougainvillea hedges and thought no more of it.

The elephants too, couldn't care less.

Elephants, of course, are known to have elephantine memories. And etched into them was a sense of direction that had guided them for countless generations, almost like a pachyderm GPS. When a herd moves, munching, bellowing, trumpeting with pesky calves, anxious mothers and aggressive young males just about turning into musth with hormones flowing, traffic niceties and giving right of way to a bungalow in their path seems to be too much to expect. I was once caught in the middle of this standoff, when I was all of eight.

Pic sourced from the internet

My parents had gone for a dinner and I was alone in the bungalow. 'Alone' was a misnomer because my parents had left me with two chowkidars, two bearers and an ayah, telling me as they got into the car that I should read my books, eat dinner on time and generally behave as I was now the captain of the ship. For good measure, they requested Mr. Jhalani, a fellow planter and neighbor, to look out for me.

The elephants came soon after my parents left.

It was a large herd, and following their pachyderm GPS, they had come straight for the bungalow en route to the rice fields that lay beyond. The tall iron gates they just walked over, and when the bougainvillea hedge came in the way of a couple of playful calves, the lead elephant solicitously opened up a path right through it. Soon they were milling about all around the bungalow. The kitchen garden with its pineapple patch was being noisily relished.

The chowkidars, the bearers and I went into a huddle. The chowkidars put out the lights inside the rooms and we crouched down among the sofas as the sound of the elephants steadily increased - the trumpeting of the adults, the squeals and bleats of the calves, the sound of leaves being shoveled pneumatically down hungry throats and occasionally a rough scraping sound as an elephant or two scratched itchy sides against the bungalow walls.

In the midst of all this appeared Jhalani uncle. Armed only with a five-cell torch, the kind planters always had close at hand in those days, he had somehow made his way from his bungalow to ours, through the wall of elephants, to make sure I was safe. How he did it I do not know till this day, but there he was in our huddle. He wanted us to try to leave immediately, because the herd was growing in size and becoming a little restive. Grabbing my hand, he prepared to make a dash for it.
All of eight, I disagreed.

I had just started reading commando comics - World War 2 tales of leadership and valour in the face of adversity. Pulling myself up to my full height - I would have been about four feet in my pajamas; I uttered the ringing declaration, 'A captain does not desert his sinking ship.'

No reply was forthcoming. I just remember being bundled out of the bungalow by Jhalani uncle. I still recall the run in the moonlight, the crouching, the swerving, the strong elephant smell all around and trumpeting and snorting very close by.

It was a not so honorable night for the captain of the ship.

Meet the writer: 

Dip Sengupta

Dip grew up in tea estates in Cachar and Terai and the first words he picked up as a two-year old was not in Bengali but in “Madhesiya”, much to the horror of sundry relatives. He has a rich and varied experience of “Bagan life”, including elephants dragging out refrigerators from the dining room ,leopards on the porch and snakes in the storm drains. When memory overwhelms, he tries to put theses in writing and marvel at the wonder of it all. An advertising professional of 25 years, Dip now lives in Gurgaon, with his wife and two daughters. Occasionally he drives up to the mountains to feel once more the magical stillness of the tea- gardens and hear the sound of a leaf fall to the ground.

Is this your first visit here? Welcome to Indian Chai Stories! 
ADD THIS LINK TO YOUR FAVOURITES : https://teastorytellers.blogspot.com/Indian Chai Stories
There are over a hundred stories here, and they are all from the tea gardens! Our storytellers are tea planters and their memsaabs, baby and baba log. Each of our contributors has a really good story to tell - don't lose any time before you start reading them! 

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!