Back in the Day - Part XI

by Shipra Castledine

I am back after another gap! I guess it is because I am now in the timeframe of my last chapter, not living in the tea gardens but still very much in the tea industry and thus very much connected. Our holidays continued to be in the tea estates with one friend or another. The visits to friends in their bungalows was reciprocal as we would put them up when they needed to be in Siliguri. The close friends we would visit over and over again amongst others in previous years were Timmy Randhawa at Dam Dim TE and our trek to Dalsingpara TE to the Circars whenever possible.

We first started spending weekends at Timmy’s assistant’s bungalow when he was a bachelor. We would be comfortably put up in his large ground floor bedroom with a bathroom on that floor. Now, if any of you know Timmy you know that he was kind of OCD. Let me give you an example. Timmy would question if you did not clean out a tomato sauce bottle top before screwing it back on! So this leads to a funny incident which brings a laugh every time I recall it. The bathroom we used had a tub and a shower over the tub. There was a shower curtain that you drew around the bath so water did not slop all over the bathroom. We had all finished our baths and were outside enjoying the garden. Tubloo, my late husband, was the last to have his shower. I’m not sure why but I think Timmy came downstairs to check everything was alright for his guests and in that he visited the bathroom. As he came out to be with us his first question to Tubloo was ‘why didn’t you draw the shower curtain?’ I don’t think Tubloo deigned to reply. Timmy would have repeated the question to Tubloo a number of times in the course of the rest of the day ha ha.. I can walk into Timmy’s mind and envisage his horror at seeing water all over the bathroom floor!

And to this day we cannot forget Timmy’s cook Bahadur’s meringue custard! It would come to the table at the end of a wonderful dinner, in a big Pyrex baking dish, hot with wonderfully charred swirled blobs of meringue over a delicious baked caramel custard! I have never had anything that good since! And another thing I remember as a speciality at Timmy’s bungalow was a breakfast of scrambled eggs on toast which was a creamy mound of scrambled eggs on a well browned fried slice of bread! You were served toast separately too.

In the memories I must take you all back to Ozzie and Chinny and our special connection with them. I am talking of the year Chinny got pregnant and decided to go ahead with the baby at the age of 45 I think it was. Chinny, you can correct me if I am wrong. Then started the visits to her doctor in Siliguri. It meant that they would need to stay overnight in Siliguri and we gladly had them stay with us. We shared Chinny’s term of pregnancy with her. The trials of being at her age and yet wonderfully bearing the pregnancy.

Came the final days. Chinny’s due date was nigh. They prepared to stay at our place till Chinny needed to go into hospital. The day / night Raoul was born Chinny visited her doctor in the day and he told Ozzie to go back to the garden as the baby was a long way in coming. So off Ozzie drove. Well, as babies do, Raoul decided to come into the world that night! Tubloo and myself took Chinny in to the hospital and waited, pacing the floor like expectant parents! It wasn’t too long later that Dr Mukherjee I think it was came out and announced that Chinny had had a healthy baby boy! It was SO exciting for us! And we felt so bad for Ozzie not being there. Ozzie came back the next day and I am sure he was the proudest Dad. We still have the beautiful painting that Chinny presented us.

Chinny's painting on the wall at the back

Ozzie and Chinny followed up with more visits to Siliguri for baby check ups. These connections are lifelong. I re-connected to Chinny on Facebook several months ago after a long long gap and the warmth and feelings were just the same. I know I can visit them in Chandigarh whenever it is possible and the hospitality will be the same as we had in Dalsingpara TE. So much life has happened in between and life changes. It is very comforting to find people like Ozzie and Chinny who are just the same.

My daughters have perhaps a stronger connection to tea as it is more recent and they were brought up in their formative years in Siliguri. They recall times spent in Siliguri with a great deal of fondness and homesickness. It was not only the beautiful surroundings that we lived in but the quality of life. And as Tubloo and I were both tea baba-s our children felt at home in the tea estates. When we recall memories from our years in Siliguri they remember the picnics and the food we all pooled in. One family outdoing the other. One spot in particular we would visit was a divine spot we named Carritt’s Beach. It was past the Coronation Bridge on Sevoke Road and on the road to Kalimpong and Sikkim. We would park our cars on the top and trek down to the Teesta river. It wasn’t an easy trek down but we all managed along with alcohol and food and rugs to sit on. It was incredibly beautiful. I can’t even tell you how many times we had a picnic there. Not to mention the moonlit picnics we would have to other easier access spots on the same road around the mountains. Hard to imagine these blessings we had, to take full advantage of mother nature in all ways. The bounty of her landscape, the fresh produce we enjoyed, the climate.

On Carritt's Beach

Another picnic spot my daughters remember is one that was closer to Siliguri. I can’t quite recall which direction it was but we would bump along kanchha paths to reach a big ‘jhora’, not quite a river but a strong flowing stream with plenty of rocks in it. On a hot day we would all just get in the water and sit on those rocks, have chilled beer and drinks and the food would be passed around in their containers. One of these times my daughters never forget and neither do I, is one where one of the ladies had brought delicious large jumbo prawns simply cooked in garlic and chilli. OMG, sitting in that cold water and eating those incredibly succulent, delicious hot huge prawns was heaven! These sorts of days went by in a wave of hilarity and enjoyment. The world has become so difficult now. I wish we could reinvent days like those.

One occasion we always remember is a day all the tea broker families who were living in Siliguri decided to get together for a men’s cook off. The menu was Khao Suey with all the garnishings. Naturally much alcohol was imbibed, cricket was set up on the lawns of the selected house we were having the day in. Pre lunch drink time went by, lunch time went by, tea time went by and the men weren’t finished with their cooking!! Loud men’s voices in the kitchen arguing over the progress (or non-progress) of the cooking emanated and the girls and children were getting famished. Ladies visited the kitchen from time to time to give their advice but were shoo-ed away! Guess what time we finally ate lunch!! 6pm ha ha Was it worth the wait??? Debatable but it was a memorable day! If you have eaten Khao Suey you know that it is a challenge not to dribble gravy! Rajiv Puri did not dribble! We were in awe of his fastidiousness!! Regardless of the time, we had double helpings and the dekchi of chicken Khao Suey was emptied!

If I were to enumerate all the wonderful outings and drives it would truly fill up a book. I am sure some of these recollections will resonate. More in my next….

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 all Shipra's posts 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