Fire Fighting in Limbuguri

Hello friends! I'm happy to bring you another story by Indi Khanna -  a story for the season, as it concerns a tea factory, and one that's packed with action, as you'll see. Enjoy your read! Cheers!

by Indi Khanna

In 1986, while managing the Dhoedaam factory, another one of the many and regular altercations with the boss Bahadur Singh, this one about the outlet temperature on one of the eight dryers laid out in a series in that massive factory, ended up with me blowing my top. The upshot was that I ended up literally tossing the factory keys at the boss with a "Since you can manage the temperatures better than I'm able to, have fun. I quit." Storming up to the factory office I had my startled excise babu type out a terse one line resignation letter which was handed over to the office boy to find Bahadur wherever he was and to hand that over to him.

Walking back to my bungalow I was hit by the stark reality that I had a wife and two small kids to support and that, having literally burnt my boat, I was going to find myself up the creek without a paddle. Shoving that fear to the back of my young and impetuous mind, I addressed my immediate need, which was to jump into bed and get a full days sleep. Those who are aware of how a factory assistant in Assam has to slave during peak season, would empathise with me. 8/9 hours of a blissful and undisturbed sleep without having to get up and rush to the factory every couple of hours! Next morning, I was summoned to Bahadur's office. He expressed surprise that I had actually written the letter, accepted that it was written in a fit of temper and wanted to know if he could destroy it. My response was that I needed a day to think about it and that I was not going to go to the factory that day.

Instead of moping around in the bungalow, aware that a couple of propriety tea companies were headquartered there, I made a bee line to Dibrugarh, ending up at the office of the Jalan Tea Company. Walked up to the person furiously hammering away at a typewriter that I wanted to meet the boss and found myself seated in front of Mrigendra Jalan, the M.D. A short discussion with Mrigen ended up with him offering me not just a job but also a remuneration package which blew me away. Having shaken hands on the offer, I was asked whether I would be willing to take on the job of managing the Limbuguri factory. An offer prefaced with me also being told that Limbuguri had probably the most undisciplined and militant labour in the whole of Upper Assam. Which youngster doesn’t like a challenge.

Next morning, much to the surprise and chagrin of Bahadur, I requested him not to tear up my resignation letter please, but to send it ahead to the Central Office. A fortnight later my family and I moved lock, stock and barrel for me to take up my new appointment.

Having relocated from the very well oiled and organised set-up of Dhoedaam, as is the custom in Assam, at midnight I toddled off to the factory where I spent the next five hours literally twiddling my thumbs with the factory workers casually straggling in one by one. It was well past 0600 Hrs before we got the leaf moving from the troughs to the rolling room. The next three days were a repeat of the first with me having to swallow my pride and cool my heels in the factory office from midnight to day break. By day four having had enough, at 2300 Hrs I got hold of the line chowkidar, had him accompany me and drove across to the labour lines. Walking into their houses I physically dragged the factory workers out of their beds and into the jeep so as to get the factory running, as it should have been, at midnight. A fortnight of these nightly kidnapping escapades in the labour lines had the desired effect so that the trickle into the factory gate starting earlier with each passing day. I was, obviously, rather chuffed with myself for getting the factory back on track.

A couple of days after I had set the house in order, on a Tuesday when workers would almost ritualistically arrive either drunk or at best suffering from a hangover, I had managed to get things going with the leaf into the rolling tables a little past midnight. At 0230 hours the fermenting room supervisor walks into my office to tell me while they'd moved the first batch of leaf to the firing room, they were unable to feed the dryers because the dryers had not been fired up. Rushing across to the firing room I found the stoker curled up besides the gas stove, dead to the world. A good shake-up by the collar got the guy up to his unsteady feet. Bleary eyed he gave me what to him was probably the smartest military salute he had ever executed and then turns the knob on for the gas flow. That done he starts patting his various pockets, doesn't find what he is looking for and asks me whether I have a match box. My glare reminding him that I was a non smoker, he scoots off, gets a match box from another worker, sets fire to the cotton wad at the end of the rod used for lighting the stove and sticks the rod into the gas furnace.

With him having turned on the flow before going off on his match-box hunt, gas having accumulated in the furnace, all it needed was a flame. Fortunately I was standing besides the dryer as otherwise the huge explosion that followed would have blown me away. The stoker, however, was in front of the furnace though behind a fire guard which protected him from the thigh up. The moment he stuck the rod into the furnace, there was a huge 'whoosh' sound as the back flow blow-out flame hit him. Parked where I was on the side of the dryer, I saw the skin of the stokers unprotected lower legs immediately charring and turning jet black while next to me the huge cast iron side plate of the dryer bulged out and then collapsed inwards with a very loud crack. The 'explosion' brought down massive amounts of tea dust which had probably accumulated over decades on the rafters and eaves. By the time I recovered my senses, all I could see through all the 'smoke' was workers running around like headless chicken screaming 'fire, fire'. While in actual fact the only fire was the burning wad of cotton wool at the end of the stokers iron rod, all the smoke and general pandemonium had me too convinced that Limbuguri factory was burning down. 

 

Grabbing hold of one of the headless chicken workers, I shouted to him to run and get the fire extinguisher from the bank on the factory main entrance. Back he comes with the extinguisher and then, to my utter astonishment, lifts the cylinder up above his head and taking aim with one eye closed, tosses this onto the only flame visible, the cotton wad! It was only then that it struck me that while we had the equipment, not one of the workers or staff had a clue on how that equipment was to be used when required.

Postscripts:

The stoker, despite the very severe burns on his lower legs, recovered fully and was back at work within a fortnight.

Unable to get a replacement for the cast iron side panel of the ancient Britannia dryer, we ended up patching it up with rivets and metal caulking. The dryer was very much in operation when I left Limbuguri four years later.

After a shutdown of 10 days to put the house back in order, Limbuguri factory restarted; immediately after which I instituted a fire and safety drill for all the workers.

The one positive fallout of the accident was that the workers and I bonded with their belligerent attitude towards me evaporating.

Within a couple of months of that crazy night, I was promoted and handed over the reins of Limbuguri Estate. Managed that property for four very successful years till I finally relocated from Assam in 1990.

Meet the writer:

Indi Khanna with Xerox

With an industry experience and a tea knowledge base of four and a half decades and counting, I literally live and breathe tea. 

Starting my career in 1975 as an Assistant Superintendent with Malayalam Plantations Ltd, rolling up my sleeves by 'dirtying' my hands at the grassroots level and having literally 'grown' in the business, my experiences have matured me into a ‘one of a kind’ unique entity in the industry.

My journey which literally starts from the tea nursery and stretches all the way up to the consumer shelf, is in many ways unique. Regularly roaming the tea world, delving into the most remote areas wherever tea is grown or consumed, constantly interacting with Tea folk, I have always been learning and innovating. The invaluable experiences along this very interesting route have culminated into a unique new venture, a one-of-a-kind specialty tea manufacturing facility unit in the Nilgiris - www.teastudio.info.

My life has been and continues to be blessed.

Thankfully this very interesting Tea journey continues as an ongoing learning experience.

Read more by Indi Khanna here: https://teastorytellers.blogspot.com/search/label/Indi%20Khanna

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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!
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