I Have my Licence

Lataguri. Gorumara. These are names you see on travel websites advertising holiday stays at 'resorts' in the Dooars. There was a time when the forests of Lataguri and Gorumara were dense and forbidding; they were dark, even during the day. Venk's story brings that era to life.

by Venk Shenoi

Pic of Venk with the Tata Nano in which he went round India in 2013

Grassmore Tea Estate is spread over 2,000 acres of land and getting around on foot at all hours of the day was not practical. I had my trusted Hind bicycle which gave me four years’ service during my student days in Kharagpur. Pedalling up and down the *Mela-tracks was hard work particularly in hot-weather and rain, and you were dependent on others for lifts to the Club.

The company offered loans – up to 15,000 rupees for cars and three or four thousand rupees if you got a motor cycle. A Hindusthan cost Rs 11,000 and a Triumph Herald Rs 9,500. I opted for the cheaper option and preferred the freedom of the elements on my face at speed. 

My motorcycle, the latest Rajdoot in 1963 (see photo) cost 3,400 rupees and arrived from the agents in Siliguri on the back of a lorry after a month’s wait. The driver gave me basic lessons – start, stop, turning my head looking for oncoming traffic and rudimentary hand signals, although I was not sure how I could give hand signals while gripping the throttle on the handle bar. May be the instructor was talking about driving a car.

I got the hang of it in no time. For a while I dashed around the estate tracks falling down occasionally on the slippery slopes crossing the jhoras - rivulets - and burning skin off my left calf on the exhaust pipe. That was really painful. Getting up after a fall and lifting the bike up on the slippery track was a skill I acquired after some practice.

I soon realised I needed a licence to take the bike on the road. The chief Babu in the office arranged to get me a learner’s licence from the District Office in Jalpaiguri in no time and I was on my way to train myself towards getting my first licence. No matter the falls and occasionally dashing against a cow or buffalo trying to cut across my path uninvited.

The day arrived when I had to present myself for the test. Getting up early I started for Jalpaiguri some fifty miles away via Mal and the kacha-roads through Gorumara forest on to Lataguri and Moynaguri to the Eastern banks of the Teesta River which was several miles across in the flood-season. An island which changed its shape with the water level lay in the middle of the river and you had to take two ferries to cross over to Jalpaiguri Town.

The first crossing brought you to the sand banks and the motor cycle wheels sank in the loose sand. So pushing hard with occasional help from those around, I made it at last on hard ground in Jalpaiguri. It had taken nearly four hours including the two hours walking and ferrying across the river. Excited, I managed to find the District Transport Office and presented myself to the chaprasi. It was 1.30 pm and the Licence Babu had gone for lunch.

Hungry, I managed to get some tele-bhaja and chai by the road side and waited for the Babu to arrive. He came at 3.00, and apologising profusely that I had had to wait so long. took out his note book and wrote down my name and address and scribbled that this was a provisional motor cycle licence which required formalising within six months after Police checks. Feeling cheated, I asked – ‘Thank you Babu, but what about my test?’

‘What test?’ he exclaimed. ‘How did you come here?’

‘On my bike, Babu’, I said politely.

‘So that was your test!’ he retorted, somewhat annoyed that I had dared to question his decision.

Never one to give up, I insisted he gave me a proper test according to the Highway Code for which I had been practising for weeks.

‘Achha Paagol**!’ he said and we went together to the field behind his office.

He asked me to do four rounds of the field and stop in front of him sharp which I did obediently. He then asked me to look right and then left and turn right and then left and return after two more rounds.

He was in better humour by now and asked me, ‘Are you satisfied with your test?’

‘Yes, Onek Dhonnobad’,*** I mumbled.

‘So you have passed your test now properly and can ride your motorcycle safely’, he said.
‘Thank you Babu’, I said as he handed me the hand written note which was supposed to be my licence. He also stamped the paper. I had passed my test at last.

It was four o’clock by now and I had to return and cross the ferry across the Teesta and it would be dark soon. The return crossing only took an hour and a half and I was on the Moynaguri side as darkness fell.

The road back through Lataguri and Gorumara was hell on earth as torrential rain hit me in the dark. Millions of insects splattered across my face and glasses as I progressed slowly, hardly seeing the road ahead and trying to keep my balance as I approached the edge of the road. The head light on the Rajdoot was not up to cutting through the rain or the cloud of insects as I progressed towards Grassmore. It was a long, long journey.

Yes, I made it at last after three hours ride in blinding rain, soggy and wet.

Yes, that was my real test, and I knew I had passed.

*Mela - tea plucking row. This is called 'Mela' in the Dooars and 'Padhi' in Assam

 **Paagol - madman

 ***Onek Dhonnobad - many thanks

 
Meet the writer:

Venk and Anna Shenoi

 

Over to Venk: 'Born in Chertala, Travancore (Kerala), grew up in Chertala, Calcutta and Bombay. Can read and write in Bengali (my best Indian language), Malayalam, Hindi and Marathi apart from English, smattering of spoken Czech, German, Mandarin Chinese, Tamil and Konkani (my mother tongue, which I have forgotten for all practical purposes). 

Was a Dooars Tea Company Assistant Manager from 1962 – 65, posted at Nagrakata and Grassmore T.E.s.

Went round India on a Tata Nano in 2013. 

Member of the Conservative Party, and served two terms as an elected District Councillor in the Forest of Dean Gloucestershire where I live. Apart from travel, visiting museums and archaeological sites, history, radio, photography, vintage fountain pens, concerned about world population explosion and resource limitation leading to extinction of man on earth soon.' 

Read all Venk's stories here: https://teastorytellers.blogspot.com/search/label/Venk%20Shenoi

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