Here Comes the Bride!

Hello, friends! Here is another delightful read from Sarita Dasgupta. I'm sure it will brighten up your Friday evening!

by Sarita Dasgupta

Truth be told, I had not wanted to marry a tea planter. Having grown up as a ‘tea’ child, the grass was definitely greener on the other side – the city. I worked for a while as a trainee copywriter at an ad agency in Kolkata and then as a receptionist at a five-star hotel, trying out both to see which I liked better. Of course, the former won hands down, but then I decided to apply for a scholarship to do my Masters in English at Oxford.

Fate intervened in the form of a certain young tea planter, and within three months of our meeting, we were married, and I was a tea memsahab!

Although slipping into the life of a tea memsahab is perhaps much easier for a tea ‘baby’ than a girl from any other background, it is not without its pitfalls!

When I got married, I didn’t know how to cook. This my husband didn’t believe because he had the vague impression that every woman knows how to cook. Fortunately for me, he had a decent Cook, though I heard later that this individual had planned to leave if I threw my weight around too much. In fact, the cake he baked to welcome me had a rather long message iced on it: “Treat your servants well and they will serve you well.” In the act of cutting the cake, I paused to read the rather long and unusual message (for a wedding cake!) iced all around it. Thank goodness I passed muster, and he stayed on!

One Sunday, when the Cook had gone to the weekly market to buy vegetables, some friends landed up and asked us to join them on a picnic. My head reeled! What could I take for the picnic? Somehow, I managed to make a fish curry (the gravy was as thin and runny as water!) and got the Bearer to boil some rice. Both were edible enough, though I did get a speaking look from my husband when he saw the runny gravy. He realized I had spoken the truth when I’d told him that I couldn’t cook.

It was after this incident that I decided I had to learn to cook. I soon realized that every curry the Cook made tasted the same because he used the same spices for every dish! I leafed through the recipe books I had been given as wedding gifts by helpful family and friends, and tried to teach him, and myself, some dishes.

When I suggested that we try something new, he looked down his nose at me loftily, and pronounced that he had cooked for this sahab and that memsahab, none of whom had had any complaints. All the people he named were conveniently retired and gone, leaving me with no way of corroborating his claims, but I made a tactical retreat for the time being.

I renewed my efforts with great diplomacy and eventually got him to try out new dishes, mollifying him by lavishing praise on his efforts. Eventually, he became quite a virtuoso!

After a few years, he contracted TB and had to be excused from work for three months, during which time I made sure he had a glass of milk and an egg every day, and generally looked after him. Once he was cleared to re-join work, the doctor warned him off alcohol, and, for a few years, he heeded that warning.

Alas, when my husband got his billet at Attareekhat Tea Estate, in Mangaldai District, the Cook took up with a woman who brewed and sold bootleg liqour. He started drinking again, as a result of which, not only did his health suffer, but so did his cooking! After quite a few talking-tos and warnings, much as I was fond of the man, I had to give him an ultimatum – he either gave up alcohol or stopped working with us. Unfortunately, he chose alcohol, and so, much to my sadness and regret, we parted ways after fifteen years.

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 An ordeal I still remember was at a cocktail party I attended as a very new bride. It was held in honour of one of the company’s Directors who was visiting the estates. He was a fatherly gentleman (I think one of his daughters was my age) who kindly asked me how I was settling in, and how I spent my time. To my horror, my husband’s boss’ wife, who is a very dear friend today, but whom I could have happily murdered that evening, told him I could sing! Obviously, the gentleman asked me to sing a song.

I tried to demur, but I was drowned out by words of encouragement from the others present, so not wanting to be unsporting, I reluctantly agreed. With a battery of eyes turned expectantly on me, and my horrified husband looking like a hunted animal desperately seeking a place to hide in, I felt my throat close up. As the silence grew longer, I managed to gulp, clear my throat, and start singing a Hindi song with trembling lips and voice. Fortunately, my voice settled after the first few bars, so that I could give a creditable performance, but my lips, and limbs too, kept trembling till the very end. The Director said kindly that I had sung a difficult song very well, and there were encouraging smiles and applause from the others present. Ever since that occasion, whenever I was asked to sing, my husband would have that same hunted look!

Bishnauth Gymkhana Club, Bihu Nite 2009

 

I was barely married for three weeks when the big New Year’s Eve bash was held at East Boroi Club. As we were at Halem Tea Estate, where the club is located, I was asked to help with the decorations and other preparations. It was all great fun and I was really looking forward to my first New Year’s Eve with my husband.

The evening was going really well till a rather tipsy but persistent man kept following me around asking for a dance. My brand new husband was livid and looked as if he was ready to bash the chap’s face in, although the person was a senior (though from a different company). Before a contretemps could occur, a senior planter saw what was happening and stepped in, firmly leading the man away. Thanks to him, I managed to avoid the unpleasant experience of getting on the dance floor with a tottering, tipsy partner on my very first New Year’s Eve as a tea memsahab.

We went on to become good friends with the man in question (who was rather nice when sober) and his wife.

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Three months after our wedding, my husband got transferred from Halem to Monabarie Tea Estate. The bungalow we moved into was previously occupied by a bachelor, so I wasn’t very surprised when I was told that there was only grass growing in the kitchen garden. Imagine my puzzlement when, instead of grass, I saw some kind of plant growing all over the place. The gardeners exchanged shifty looks when I asked them what the plant was, and shuffled their feet in discomfort. Concluding that it was some kind of wild plant they couldn’t identify, I told them to uproot all of them and prepare beds for the vegetables I planned to grow.

It was only later, when I got my leg pulled by others on the estate, that I realized what kind of ‘grass’ was growing in my kitchen garden!

When we got married, my husband had just completed three years of service, so he hadn’t been eligible for a car loan till then. His trusty old motorbike didn’t have anything for a pillion rider to hold onto, so obviously I had to hold onto him whenever we went out together. While passing by workers or clerical staff on the estate’s roads, he would hiss at me to remove my arms from around his waist or my hands from his shoulders. I couldn’t understand why he was embarrassed. I was his wife, after all!

On one occasion I was sitting sideways because I was in a sari, so when we were going past a group of workers and he, predictably, told me to remove my hand from his shoulder, I flatly refused, telling him roundly that his wife’s safety should matter more to him than his misplaced sense of propriety!

I’m sure he was very relieved when a couple of months later, his loan application was approved and we became the proud owners of a black Ambassador bought from his Burra Sahab who was retiring from service. The car had an illustrious history, as it had first belonged to the Visiting Agent of the Company!

Perhaps that’s why it was temperamental – having belonged to senior people, it didn’t relish being used by us plebeians! 

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When we got married, my husband had a beautiful dalmatian who had belonged to his father. When my father-in-law passed away, my husband brought him to Assam. This lovely dog was great company for me on my walks within the estate. Most of the workers passing by on their way home from work just glanced at him warily and gave him a wide berth, but one evening, a woman screamed, “Leopard! Leopard!” and started running. The other workers took off too. I thought she had really seen a leopard (not uncommon in the tea estates) and whistled to our dog, who had bounded after the screaming woman, no doubt thinking it was some kind of a game. He came lolloping back to me, and keeping a sharp eye out for the leopard, I started walking home as fast as I could. When I recounted the story to my husband later, he gave a shout of laughter and said that our sweet dalmatian had been mistaken for a leopard because of his spots!

After that, I made it a point to reassure passing workers that he was my dog, and not a leopard before any nervous person among them set up a hue and cry!

*** Towards the end of my first year of marriage, our daughter was born, and I transitioned from Bride to Mother… and that, as the saying goes, is a whole other story!

Meet the writer: Sarita Dasgupta

Sarita enjoying a warm cup of Kawakawa tea in New Zealand. 

Read about it here

 

"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.

More stories by Sarita 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!
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