Traditions'r'Us

Still haven't recovered from the post-Diwali blues? Christmas will be here soon, and here's some cheer for all our readers - a new post by a new writer! We've 'celebrated' family over the last few weeks at Indian Chai Stories, and now it's time for friends. One of our well loved Christmas stories on this blog is Rajesh Thomas's account of what it felt like to play Santa Claus. Today, Kamran Mohsin tells us what it was like to be his Man Friday at that same Christmas celebration. Enjoy your read!

Traditions 'r' Us 

by Kamran Mohsin

The High range has had many glorious traditions and one such tradition is the children’s Christmas party at the Club. Two assistant managers are randomly chosen, one would be Santa & the other his man Friday. There would be a grand entrance where Santa & man Friday would come swooping in & since the children were still children in those days & not the ‘glued to the screen PUBG / Mine craft playing wizards’ that they are today; they would return home with a treat & a present (from their parents of course) and a big smile. For them, it was a day full of laughter & cheer, watching ‘Simba the white lion’ and it was something they looked forward to every year. It was their big day at the club. The club on that day was full of ladies, mostly young mothers & their children. Knick knacks, balloons, and party poppers could be found all over the place. Being from the same planting district & more dangerously, the same company, we knew them all & they knew us. A cock-up here, therefore, was not an option.

The task at hand was quite simple. Make a grand entrance, wish everyone merry Christmas without scaring the bejezuz out of the little children, give them the treats & presents & pose for a few photographs (of which I have none unfortunately) & get out while your dignity was still intact. It was the man Friday’s job to hand over the presents to Santa & Santa’s job to hand over that presents to the children. One by one.

But life is not so hunky dory & so this is where the twist comes in. 

The reward for partaking in this fanfare and putting on that fancy dress & making a mockery of yourselves would be a bottle of rum. Old Monk, no less! Furthermore, as per tradition, that bottle of rum was to disappear between Santa & his side kick before the fanfare started! And as per another tradition of the high ranges, they were both expected to complete the above task, no matter how intoxicated they were & finally after it’s all over, get back to their estates in one piece.

I never knew Santa had a man Friday until I was cherry picked to become one and my good friend Rajesh was to be Santa himself. Which was great for us because 1) we both got half a day off from the daily rigmarole of the estate & more importantly, 2) free booze, DUH!

So, on the designated day, both of us arrived at the club on our steeds, straight after lunch. Bang on time, as usual, in keeping with another tradition in the high ranges. Punctuality.

We were given a club room all to ourselves where we would make the monk disappear & also change into our outfits, all while waiting for our ride to come pick us up before our grand entrance into the club. But I am getting ahead of myself.

We had the happy hour to celebrate first & the ‘old monk’ was staring us in the face. Between the two of us, Rajesh was a seasoned hand, while I was still finding my feet. But booze was never wasted, free or otherwise. Another High Range tradition! I know I had a couple of big swigs & was on the wrong side of tipsy while Rajesh, Rajesh had the rest of the monk all to himself and handled it like a pro. 

Like that seasoned boxer who tires his opponent out by soaking in all he can throw at him & then when the opponent has no more to give, our man delivers a tight right uppercut & seals it with a left hook. In no time I was happy where I was but Rajesh was happier still. In this happy state of ours, we began attempting of get into our fancy dress. 

Edmund & Tenzing must have had an easier first attempt, I can promise you that. Rajesh was into his Santa suit eventually & I don’t recall what I got into. If we knew any better, we should have gotten into our suits before saying hello to the monk. But being young & courteous assistants we didn’t want to keep the old chap waiting. Another high range tradition upheld by the young guns. Courtesy.

Now, how we finally got into our costumes is a blur. And so is the time when they handed over a flimsy bicycle for us to ride & make our grand entrance in. One lousy push bike between the two of us! I mean, we knew there were budgetary restrictions but this took the cake. I could swear it was a jeep and we were driven into the club but Rajesh insists it was a bicycle.

Apparently, I rode it & he was sitting behind me, hanging on tight for dear life! Anyhow, it’s been 25 years & you can’t blame us for not remembering the details. So off we went. Crossed the club cattle grid and all! So far so good.

And then I have some faint memories of lying flat in front of the kids on the club portico. Thank god for the balloons lying about that cushioned our unceremonious dismount. The kids found that amusing to say the least. So we made our grand entrance with a ‘bang’ then!

Eventually, I found myself in the club lounge where a small stage was set up upon which Santa would do the honors. Happy hour was over, now we had to deliver, Santa & I. Speaking of Santa, he was nowhere to be seen after we ‘hit’ the portico! A search party was sent to gather Santa and carry him to the stage. He seemed in good ‘spirits’. Anyhow, all good things must come to an end. Presents were given I am sure; although I cannot confirm if the right child got the gift his or her parents wanted them to get. It’s all a bit of a blur. I am also not so sure about what else was said and done on stage during the fanfare. No one’s complained ever since, so I am guessing Rajesh & I must have accomplished the task given to us with flying colours. It was the tradition to maintain the tradition & the two of us did it with ‘mucho gusto’. Or so we were told.

I am also assuming we rode back to our estates in one piece later that evening.

Like I said, the blur is real & it’s been 25 years! Happy days!

Meet the writer: 

Kamran Mohsin

I joined the tea plantations with Tata tea in Munnar straight out of college in 1995 and eight years later found my self in the warm heart of Africa: Malawi, doing much the same and perhaps more. After ten years in Malawi, I am now based in Mombasa, Kenya for the past seven and visit the game parks here more often than I did my fields back on the plantations. I am an amateur photographer and being on a safari is the closest I can get to the good old planting days where the great outdoors was home.

 More Christmas stories here: https://teastorytellers.blogspot.com/search?q=christmas

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. 
Happy reading! Cheers to the spirit of Indian Tea! 

As it happened: Dry Wit

by Murari Saikia

Some incidents always remain imprinted in one’s mind, and even age doesn’t fade away these typically ‘cha bagan’ experiences. As they say, it only happens in tea.

 As instructed, (while the ‘kit allowance’ was handed over after I was ‘inducted’ into the company), I bought myself two pairs of ‘stout’ canvas shoes, which I picked up at the Bata store in the Grand Shopping arcade in Calcutta, in addition to cotton shorts and polo neck T shirts, socks etc, shopping around in New Market along with the other lads who were also selected for postings in Assam and Dooars.

I was posted to Assam. When I landed in the garden, Tarajulie, I was surprised, yet very happy to find that I would be sharing the bungalow with an old class mate from school, Biraj Barbara, a second generation planter, who had joined a couple of months before me. Had lost touch with Biraj for a couple of years as he left school two years before we took the Sr. Cambridge exams, and yet he somehow managed to complete his graduation a year ahead of me and the rest of the class!!

Anyway, back to my tale. It was June 1981 and the monsoons had just commenced. We used to be ‘kitted up’ in our ‘battle dress’ for kamjari and by the time I came back for breakfast, more often than not, I would be soaking wet. Anyway, young Anil our ‘trainee bearer’ would place my other pair of shoes with a pair of dry socks out in verandah for me to wear when I went out for work again. It would invariably rain once more between breakfast and lunch time, so, the cycle of getting soaked would carry on. In the afternoon, I would once again find my other pair of shoes nice and dry, the thicker parts at the toe would be a tad damp, but, what the heck, much better than wearing a squishy wet pair of shoes! 

This went on for a couple of days, but I never gave it a thought of how Anil was drying up my shoes. Realization struck me on around the third or fourth day and I decided to find out the ‘secret’ of how I would get dry shoes (in spite of the rains) when I found my shoes were a little warm to the touch……..

As usual when I came in for lunch, I wrenched out my wet shoes and socks sitting on the verandah steps, Anil came by with my glass of the compulsory ‘nimbu pani’ and carried away my dripping shoes and socks… I quietly followed him to the back to see what he’d do to get my shoes magically dry, the pouring rain notwithstanding.

Anil opens the screen door and gives a couple of violent jerks to expel the dripping water and then, walks back into the kitchen and opens up the large cast iron oven door and shoves in my shoes and socks to be ‘baked dry’….I could also spy a pair of Biraj’s shoes sitting side by side the tin bread box where our Morg cook Pradip places the dough to bake his tasty breads and croissants for us!

It’s very important that the chotta sahib gets dry shoes to wear!!! 

Meet the writer:

Murari Saikia

I was born in Dibrugarh in 1959 and grew up in Shillong. After finishing school from St. Edmund’s College (School Dept.), Shillong in December 1975, went off to Delhi University and graduated from Ramjas College, in 1979. Joined FSL (Nestle) around mid-79 and was in Calcutta for a short while and thereinafter joined tea in 1980-81 almost by accident!! 

After a career spanning 36 years in the plantations of McLeod Russell & the Luxmi Group, I retired from the gardens in 2017. But, the love and the lore of tea have not left me. I am still actively involved with the industry currently with Parcon (India) Pvt. Ltd as a Visiting Advisor. 

It’s always a pleasure visiting the gardens and meeting up with some very good old friends who have weathered the storms together, and as always it’s also a treat to meet the younger generation of planters and get to learn a thing or two from these lads too, while throwing back the sundowners!!

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.

 

Happy reading! Cheers to the spirit of Indian Tea!

It’s always Tea-Time in my World

It's family time at Indian Chai Stories! Please welcome Noreen Wood - last month, Noreen had  sent us her brother Norman's story 'Shobha the Bison'. Three generations of planters in their family, and you will love reading what Noreen has to say about growing up in the tea estates of the Nilgiris in the 1950s: ' Life on a tea estate in Southern India was unique... everything a child could ask for.'

It’s always Tea-Time in my World

by Noreen Wood

Twenty-two miles up from the hot, dusty, South Indian town of Mettapalayam is the quaint hillside town of Coonoor, nestled 6000 feet above sea level in the Blue Mountain Range called the Nilgiris. The eucalyptus trees and green tea gardens growing in abundance give the mountains their blue-green colour. With no airport, the town is accessible by cars, buses, or lorries using a narrow, winding road with sharp hairpin bends cut into the hillside. Coonoor is not accessible by broad gauge trains either, the slope up the mountains is too steep for that. The narrow- gauge train track is fitted with a rack and pinion device between the two rails to keep the train from slipping as the track is the steepest in Asia with an average gradient of 1 in 24.5 (4.08%) and maximum gradient of 1 in 12 (8.33%). The little blue and yellow train starting from the Mettapalayam Terminus, crawls up the mountain and takes roughly 3 hours to reach Coonoor and then on to Ooty, a popular Summer resort and tourist attraction for families who flock to the Hills to get away from the heat of the plains.

I was born in the Nilgiri Hills and spent my childhood on one of the tea plantations in the area. Growing up on the tea plantations was a way of life that was handed down from one generation to another in my family. Life on a tea estate in Southern India was unique to a few Anglo-Indian families who loved the call of the wild and the adrenalin rush of big game hunting in the thick jungles that surrounded most tea estates. The remoteness of the place often dictated the way we lived. It was the 1950s and there was no electricity in these remote places, so we made do with kerosene lamps and battery- operated radios. However, the hydro lines were soon brought to our area and we ran around the rooms switching on every light in the house.

Boarding school was never optional for children of planters, so we went to school in Coonoor under the stern discipline of the nuns and we were allowed to go home on the weekends. From the close confines of the convent walls to the open fields and wilderness of the tea gardens, it was everything a child could ask for.

The big event was always the shikar hunt, organized by my father and other family members into the dense jungles that stood on the periphery of the tea gardens. Hunting deer, wild boar, and wild fowl was routine. My grandfather, father and brother all kept and maintained guns in their homes on the plantations. They were kept away in a safe place under lock and key and were only taken out when a hunt was on. The red cartridges were as commonplace to us as toys on the floor of any other child. My uncles and cousins were also good shots, and after one of their hunts we had enough fresh meat to last a week, and sufficient dried meat (“ding-ding”) to last a month.

My life on the tea estate is many, many moons away and now that I have lived in Canada for almost 40 years, the memories keep flooding back into my mind like warm April rain. The taste of tea never leaves my lips. Coffee has always been the beverage of choice for many Canadians and tea is seen as a brew to be taken when one is feeling sick or under the weather. During my career as a chartered accountant in Montreal and Toronto, my colleagues soon got used to seeing me put on the kettle for a cup of tea in the late afternoon and brush the eccentricity aside with a remark that “she is sort of British” (as opposed to Canadian).

The assortment of teas from Fortum & Mason (UK). The teas from Assam, Darjeeling and Ceylon topped the list in flavour and fragrance. The painting in the background is the painter's impression of the Nilgiri Hills which we had commissioned to a well known local  artist, Deepa Kern.

All through the years that I have lived in Canada, I have continued the tradition of afternoon tea with my family or alone at the office when I was working. Recently I received a gift of an assortment of teas from Fortnum & Mason, a store in the UK that specializes in tea (see picture). Canisters of tea from Darjeeling, Assam, Ceylon (Sri Lanka), and teas from China, Kenya, Rwanda and Russia arrived in the package, enhancing and expanding the pleasure of sitting down to tea with family and friends. My daughter and I sit down for a chat every week over a freshly brewed pot of tea. 

My 4 year- old grandson loves to sip tea from my cup and he says, “I love it” smacking his lips. The Japanese have their Tea Ceremony and we have ours. It’s always Tea- Time in my house. Tea is and has always been a strong link to my roots with the tea gardens of Southern India. In a coffee drinking world in North America, tea still has its place in my life and over the years I have got my Canadian friends to appreciate the taste of tea. At lunch and dinner parties in my home, the coffee machine sits silent in my kitchen while the kettle sings sweetly as the water comes to a boiling point for the tea pot.

There have been times when I am driving home on the straight three-lane Highway, with the snow blowing across the lanes, making it hard to see, and I imagine, if only for a moment, that I see green tea fields stretching as far as the eye can see, the yellow buttercups dancing at my feet and my father far away in the distance, instructing the coolies to start the day’s roll-call.

Meet the writer: 

Noreen Wood is a retired Chartered Accountant living in Montreal, Canada. She currently is the Financial Trustee for her Family Trust School in Coonoor, Nilgiris which is run to benefit disadvantaged children in the area. Her experience of eight years as a teacher in Frank Anthony Public School, Bangalore teaching Physics and Mathematics and her 30 plus years as a Chartered Accountant with CA Firms in Montreal and Toronto gives her the ability to run the school's accounting and financial affairs from her desk in Canada. The school employs 58 staff members and has a student body of 925 from LKG to Grade 10. 

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. 
Happy reading! Cheers to the spirit of Indian Tea!

Personali 'teas'

by Conrad Dennis

Any tea aficionado will proudly exalt the many types of tea and emotively describe their brightness, briskness and strength. I’ve penned a few anecdotes about the equally strong and bright men who, like tea, possess unique character… men behind the cup that cheers.

May what I do flow from me like a river. Moments of solitude  

My attempt at writing is primarily to inject a sense of humour into a profession that at best demands a tremendous amount of hard work under extremely trying conditions by a dedicated band of men and their wives (who are an indispensable part of the tea canvas). To the non-tea populace it is difficult to comprehend the effort that goes into curating their daily cuppa. To start at the very beginning… which as the song goes “is a very good place to start”.

One of the primary requisites for a prospective Duncan Planter was a clean bill of health from Dr C.K.M Thacker, the Company “Chief Medical Officer”. After clearing the interviews and armed with a letter from Duncan House I found my way to Hindustan Building on Chittaranjan Avenue. The imposing edifice reeked of heritage and the cage lift embodied it. There were no buttons, just a semi-circular burnished brass appendage akin to an old fan regulator. I was sure the wizened old operator predated it. One look at the file in my hand and he just clanged both the collapsible gates shut and we rattled up. He stopped on the fourth floor and let me out with a supercilious look that seemed to say, remember… I brought you up!!!!

The receptionist gave my letter a cursory glance (she possibly recognised the letterhead and guessed the contents). I was ushered into a large airy room to be greeted by a gentleman who was short, rotund with horn rimmed glasses and a clipped British accent. He was just an amazing blend of Billy Bunter and a character straight out of P.G Woodhouse.

I was told to strip and he conducted a very thorough examination, at the end of which I was told to stand in the “on your marks” position as if poised for a 100-yard dash. A gloved hand then reached down and cupped me not too gently from behind and he said “cough”. I was getting dressed when he was finishing off a similar examination on an overzealous lad who mistook “cough” for “off” and leapt eagerly forward…. They were still rubbing him with ice cubes when I left for Harrington Nursing home for my chest X ray. I cross checked with Mr Krupa David and Mr Navin Huria and they both confirmed that nothing had changed since the late 60’s. How’s that for consistency?

One of the many colonial throwbacks is the children’s Christmas party, looked forward to by one and all. The clubhouse would be dressed up with balloons and decorations, the Christmas tree in a place of prominence with a brightly lit star on top. The goodies - all prepared by the District ladies - were simply scrumptious.

Every yuletide one hapless Assistant was cornered into becoming Santa and he would be driven to the club on a festooned mode of transport which could range from a jeep to a bullock cart and anything in between (a far cry from the reindeer and sleigh we read about in all Christmas tales).

The year was '83 and my friend Kevyn David from Matelli was shanghaied by his Bara Memsahib to be Santa for the Chulsa Polo Club party. Traditionally, to bolster the surrogate Santa for the ordeal ahead he was plied with the better part of a bottle of “Honey Bee” brandy…neat. This helped lighten the load of a sack of toys and dealing with a hoard of children of all ages. The more mischievous would tug, poke and pull at the hapless Santa (this made a few of his Ho Hos cries of discomfort not joy). By the time Kevyn reached the club house he was so high he could have just reached out and touched the North Pole.

Traditionally Santa had to engage the children in light banter before handing over the gifts which I would pull out of the bag one by one and hand him while calling out the name of the child. Santa in his enthusiasm went a step further and with a “Hic and a holler” wanted to kiss the kids (the younger of whom were in their mother’s arms). It could have been the alcohol fumes or just his persona but each and every little one burst out crying. Kevyn, not one be out done, yelled above the cacophony, "If I can’t kiss the babies, I want to kiss the mummies!"… I had to drop the bag of gifts and restrain Kevyn from making good his threat. There were deliberations on whether to scrap Santa or get Kevyn to stay on for a few more Xmases… the more sensible said let’s just water down the brandy next year. It then made sense as to why generally bachelors were the chosen ones. There was no Mrs Claus to post mortem the poor man’s performance (!!!) once the party was over in both the literal and metaphorical sense of the word.

With Sam Sing having been sold I rode off, not into the sunset but to Hantapara Tea Estate in Dalgaon District to be part of Mr Somraj Kocchar’s team. Little did I know that after a few months with him I would wish I had joined the army or taken up something more restful like becoming a lion tamer.

He was one of the most knowledgeable people I have met in all my years in tea. He had a tenacity and an innate ability to spend nights in the factory or hours in the field till he resolved the problem at hand. His expertise covered field, factory, Accounts and labour laws to a level that left one in awe and admiration. He had the most enviable command of the English language and even his charge sheets were literary masterpieces which took a while to explain to the errant worker “in a language he understands”. He could prune a bush better than the best pruner using a 3” folding knife and his speed, standard and style of plucking was amazing. He was a perfectionist and expected all in his team to measure up to his exacting standards. We all fell short in some area or the other.

He had the habit of driving up to the section at 2.30 in the afternoon just when you were planning to get back for lunch and he would put his foot on the mudguard of his jeep and say, "The bush under the Albizzia in the north of the section is not flushing freely…Why??”

He was checking: did you know north? did you recognise the shade tree? could you tell that there was a pest called thrips which caused a bush to have a supressed growth? He was a task master and I learned a tremendous amount from him about tea but more importantly I learnt what he didn’t propound or tolerate: that you could get a lot more out of a person or a team with a little understanding and compassion and by being fair and firm. Even if you go strictly by the book oftentimes one needs to read between the lines and if you don’t you kind of lose the plot. It is then that the lines get blurred between being disciplined and dogmatic.

Apparently even the cows in the tea area did the disappearing act at the sound of his jeep. 

The Senior Assistant was an equally tough task master. He sat me down one evening after work and told me that he didn’t know the meaning of fear, he didn’t know the meaning of compromise, he didn’t know the meaning of quitting, he didn’t know the meaning of weakness. In fact, he didn’t know the meaning of so many words that I was tempted to buy him a dictionary for his birthday which was the following month. He is an amazing planter and we remain good friends.

To quote John Milton, "They also serve who only stand and wait" ...on us, hand and foot, caring for us and cooking for us. This is to acknowledge a man who was my veritable Jeeves.

It was in Hantapara that our old house help Babu Khan who had been with our family when I was growing up, expressed his wish to come and take over domestic charge of my bungalow. He was an amazing cook and I readily agreed. Babu Khan arrived on a train one cold wintry evening and the days of warm plates and excellent food for the first week of the month began (following that, money ran out, and thereafter was the start of the most innovative culinary preparations of potatoes, eggs and whatever seasonal vegetables were available in the Mali Bari for the rest of the month). My colleagues DK Arora, Darvesh and Arjun were regular visitors only during those first weeks.

A few months later I drove down to Kolkata for what is termed “long leave”. I made the most of the holiday catching up with friends and the latest in entertainment. It was at a Navy Ball in the Park Hotel one evening when I met Brenda (an ex La Martiniere, Lucknow lass whom I was meeting again after the last “inter Martiniere” meet many years earlier) and to cut a long story short, she was crowned the “Navy Queen” … I proposed before returning to the Estate and we got married in February the following year. Babu Khan was at the wedding keeping an eagle eye on the gifts and generally feeling proprietary about the whole show.

On the way back we travelled in a coupe on the Darjeeling Mail with Babu Khan on the same train. At six am the next morning we were awakened by a peremptory knock on our door accompanied by loud argument. I opened the door and found Babu Khan standing outside with two steaming earthenware pots of tea balanced on a very battered tin tray. The poor Chai Walla was screaming to get his tray back so that he could peddle his tea to others before the train pulled out of the station. Babu Khan would have none of it and was futilely explaining that it would be sacrilege to serve tea to his Sahib without a tray.

PH Bungalow-isolated- between two rivers and backed by a forest. Electricity from one small temperamental genset with a fixed quota of diesel... candlelit dinners lost their romantic appeal

Things were a little like a Hindi soap once we got home, with Babu Khan discouraging Brenda from coming into the kitchen, wooing her with promises that he should just be told what to cook and for how many people and voila, enjoy the meal. She would have none of it and since we have now been happily married for the last thirty-five years no guessing who bit the dust back in the day.

I have to confess though, that sometime past our fifth anniversary Brenda wistfully said that she wished Babu Khan was with us… she would happily abdicate the kitchen to him and enjoy her independence.

Mohan and Gowri visited us in Hantapara in ’86 and I think Gowri would disagree with the likening of Babu Khan to “Jeeves”. With his tall, gaunt look, beaky nose and white jacket just beginning to fray at the sleeves he was more akin to a character from Adams family, his whole demeanour seemed to say … I’m at home and wish you were too. 

Some of us are not luminous but are good conductors of light…

Mr Jogesh Biswas was a success story at Kilcott Tea Estate in the early 50’s. He had worked diligently over the years and reached the coveted and powerful position of Head Clerk or “Bara Babu”. Mr K.J. Perry (the Manager at that time) was an avid investor and when Jogesh Babu was told to send a telegraphic request to buy 100 shares, (trusting his Bara Sahib’s financial acumen), two telegrams would be sent and he would buy ten shares for himself… and so on. 

Over a period of time he had a reasonable number of shares in Kilcott tea Company and even attended one of the AGM’s in Kolkata. A definite first in that era that must have raised a few eyebrows and caused a few stiff upper lips to quiver in the panelled meeting hall. What is wonderful is that his son in law Bacchu was initially a Duncan planter who retired from Lakhipara and his grandson Abhijit Raha joined Duncans and rose to became the Manager of Kilcott…connecting the dots from generation to generation with pride and accomplishment.

As we live through one of the most trying times in human history let us develop the ability to look into a puddle and see beyond the mud, find happiness and peace in little thing, connect with friends and family with whom we have lost touch. I am confident that we shall overcome.

Stay strong and stay safe… remember even the worst day has just 24 hours.

Meet the writer:

Conrad Dennis is a professional with over 39 years of experience in the plantation sector. He has worked in Darjeeling, North Bengal and Assam and has headed a team setting up new tea estates and a factory in non-conventional areas of the Dooars. He oversaw the production and profitability of the Amalgamated Plantations Tea Estates in North Bengal and the Packaging. Division. He also is the Editor of the APPL Foundation’s E- Journal “Organic Growth” which seeks to connect organic Entrepreneurs and share the innovations and benefits of a shift to Organic Agriculture. 

Conrad is on the Institutional review Board of the Tata Cancer Hospital (Kolkata) and is part of the Ethics team that clears any Research and trials on treatment and drugs that seeks to control/cure the dreaded disease.

 After having retired as General Manager of Amalgamated Plantations he has moved to the social sector and is the COO of Mission Smile a Medical NGO that conducts free Compassionate Comprehensive Cleft and palate Surgeries to underprivileged children throughout the country and on Missions abroad.

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.
 Happy reading! Cheers to the spirit of Indian Tea!