Monkey Mail

 by Gowri Mohanakrishnan

Hello again, dear readers! Tea garden life has a flavour of its own. And some things just drive you up the wall. I have been waiting for a parcel which some dear friends despatched around two weeks ago. To think of all the trouble they took, not to mention the expense! I hope it wasn't all for nothing. That's why I decided to share this particular story with you today. Hope you'll enjoy it!

Sunset over the Torsa river. All pix by author

When I married my tea planter husband in 1986, I had never heard of the Dooars. I’d had visions of living on some green hillside with chilly mists swirling around our little red roofed house: a tea garden scene from a Hindi film!! That dream bubble went ‘pop!’ soon after we got off the train at New Jalpaiguri Railway Station. There were hills on the horizon, blue in the morning light, but Mohan and I got into a car and went off in the opposite direction! The first tea garden I ever saw was on flat land, and it was dotted all over with trees.

Pretty soon I realised my life had changed for ever. There was no telephone, to start with. There was no way I was going to be able to hear my parents' voices, for who knew how many months! Newspapers reached us three days old and a letter from Delhi took a week to arrive. 

We didn't even have what seemed like a proper postal address. In all these years, we've never had an  address with a house number or a street name. Instead, it's always been 'c/o' my husband, followed by the name of a tea garden, a Post Office, and a district name.

A bit like Phantom comics, where a man goes to collect 'any mail for Mr. Walker', a tea garden has a 'dak wallah' who goes to the nearest post office to drop off and pick up letters and parcels. Couriers don't deliver at our door either, but leave their dak or mail and packages at the nearest town.  

Some years ago - long before Amazon and Flipkart started operations -  my sister Viji sent me a package from Mumbai with some things that our brother Bala had handed over to her in the U.S. Naturally, she was worried when she didn't hear from me. She called me on the 28th of the month and said the courier office had informed her that the parcel had been collected from Hamiltonganj. Yes, it had been collected on the 25th, by one 'Surit Nandi'. 

'Surit Nandi?' That was not our dak wallah's name. Surit turned out to be the driver of the school bus that conveyed the workers' children to various schools in the towns nearby. Mohan spoke to him, but he denied (stoutly? perhaps) that he had picked up any parcel from anywhere. Viji called with more news. The parcel was on its way back to Mumbai, according to the courier, DHL. This was terrible. 

The garden Bara Babu told Mohan he would do what he could. He spoke to his friend, the proprietor of Sree Krishna Stores in Hamiltonganj. Sree Krishna's son swung into action. He stormed into the DHL outpost in Hamiltonganj, thumped on the desk and hollered at the clerk there. 

Why, he asked, had they not alerted Sree Krishna Stores when a package arrived for Mr. Mohanakrishnan?  That was all they'd had to do. Sree Krishna - and Son - would have taken all responsibility from then on. The clerk apologised. It was a terrible mistake, he agreed. He promised to make enquiries.

A further call from Viji said the courier was not DHL, but DHC. Right. After we had - well someone had, on our behalf - made such a ruckus at DHL.  I felt sorry for the chap who'd been threatened. But he hadn't protested! He'd apologised for a mistake he'd never made. It must be a tough life out there in Hamiltonganj.

Hamilton's 'Human Laboratory'!

I asked Viji what DHC had to say. Once again, the "suspect's" name cropped up. Surit Nandi. He had signed for the package on the 28th, not the 25th.

I decided to go to the DHC office in town. It was a little shop, not an office, which turned out to be in Kalchini, not Hamiltonganj. Oh boy. More confusion.

'DHC?' I asked in a chilly voice. 'No, Madam, this is Jaycee courier service'. Silly me. I felt even sillier when the man behind the desk stood up and directed me to the right place in a polite voice. I went outside in a hurry. Our driver brought someone to the car. A sweet-faced plump chap who smiled and gave me a 'Namastey'.

'Memsaab, this is Surit ', said the driver. What! This man? But he didn't look like a badmash at all!  He was still smiling. One thing was clear. I wasn't going to let him disappear before this mess was sorted out. I asked him if he could come to the DHC desk with us.

This time I made sure I saw a sign that said DHC before opening my mouth. I took out a piece of paper on which I'd scribbled the docket number that Viji'd called out on the phone.

'Do you have this package?' I asked the man at the desk, putting the piece of paper in front of him. Very business-like.

He had no smiles for me either, but matched my aggression with a 'So what?' kind of defensiveness. Here's how it went:

Man at desk:'Yes, I received it.'

I:'Where is it now?'

Man at desk: 'I made so many calls to the telephone number on the packet. That person said he would come. I rang up five or six times. He kept saying he would come, and he never came.'

I:(dripping with sarcasm) 'Oh! Is that so? Let's talk to him now.' (I called Mohan from my phone)

Man at desk:(quickly) 'But he was in Alipurduar'. (I cut the call)

I :'Who was in Alipurduar?'

Man at desk: 'My brother! Actually it was my brother who rang him up from Alipurduar. My brother isn't here now.'

I: 'I want to check when your brother called my husband's number.' 

Man at desk: 'He should have come to collect it.'

I: 'I am his wife, and I have come to collect it. Where is it?'

Man at desk: 'Company rules say that if a package is not picked up in three days it has to go back to the place where it came from. But I know you are from a tea garden, and not from town. That's why I asked him ( pointing at Surit ) to sign for it.'

I:'What! You gave him the package!'

( Immediately Surit piped up, 'I don't have any package! I didn't take anyone's package!' )

I:(frantic) 'Then where is the package? When will it reach Mumbai? What did they say?'

Man at desk:'I have it.'

I: 'WHAT!! You have it here??'

Man at desk:'I didn't want it to go back to Mumbai. But I couldn't break the rules. That's why I took Surit's signature and informed the company in Mumbai that it had been collected.'

(Short silence)

I :'Will you give it to me?'

Man at desk: 'Yes.'

He went in and came out with a parcel. I couldn't believe it. It had my name on it. It had Viji's name on the other side, spelt Vigi. I smiled. He smiled. I said thank you. He asked me what my name was, and wrote it in his receipt book which I signed. I asked him what his name was. Ajit, he said. He smiled and said thank you, and I smiled and said thank you. 

Oh, the joy of coming home with the package! I unpacked the wedding video and we all watched it as soon as we could. At dinner time, Mohan had something to report.  'Halla has broken out among the garden workers that Surit is a badmash and that he stole your parcel.'

 Oh, oh, oh. 

The Torsa river and Jaigaon town

*Dooars is an old name for the long "chicken-neck" that is part of present day North Bengal. It has a border with Bhutan in the north and Bangladesh to the south. A truly beautiful land, the Dooars, with its forests, rivers and mountains. 

Meet The Writer/Editor: Gowri Mohanakrishnan  

 I was teaching English at Indraprashta College in Delhi when I met and married my tea planter husband in 1986. He brought me to the tea gardens - a completely different world from the one I knew! Life in tea continues to be unique, and I began writing about ours many years ago.

Early in 2018, I started Indian Chai Stories to collect and preserve other people's stories from tea.

The first chai stories I ever wrote were for a magazine called 'Reach Out' which Joyshri Lobo started in the mid eighties for the Dooars planters. Some years later, Shalini Mehra started 'The Camellia' and I started writing there regularly. Shalini put me in touch with David Air, the editor of Koi-Hai, who gave me a page there.  My family has always believed that I can write, and that is what keeps me going, whether I agree with them or not.

Here is the link to all the stories I have written at Indian Chai Stories - https://teastorytellers.blogspot.com/search/label/Gowri%20Mohanakrishnan 

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, maybe long, 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/