My First Home

by Mansi Chaturvedi

Good evening, dear readers! It’s lovely when the stories start pouring in again, and I’m delighted to welcome Mansi Chaturvedi to our band of writers. Mansi writes with affection and wonder about her arrival in the Dooars as a ‘tea bride’. 

They say a home is where the heart lives. For me my first home as a bride was the beautiful TataTea estate DamDim in the Dooars. Every girl visualises how her home is going to be once she settles down with her partner. For a man who has been a bachelor for some years, taking up responsibilities and changing his style of living is also rather difficult.

Picture of DamDim T.E. from https://www.getbengal.com/details/from-tea-bush-to-tea-cup-enjoy-damdim-s-super-tea-trail

My husband was an assistant manager at DamDim Tea Estate when we got married in the year 1999. My parents were sceptical about how I was going to adjust from city life to life in a tea garden. I on the other hand was really excited, and the moment we arrived at the estate I was so thrilled to see the sprawling green surroundings. My bungalow was huge and the view of the Kanchenjunga on a bright clear day was mesmerising.

I had started to settle in and started rearranging everything in my new abode. There was nothing much to bother about as I had so many bungalow servants who would do anything for us. The best part in the bungalow was the guest room which was called the 'Faaltu kamra'. The word ‘faaltu’ means ‘useless’ in Hindi, and it was funny to hear them say so. It took me two three days to do up my home and every evening my husband would be happy to see the changes.

It had just been four days and we were invited for a party at the 'factory bungalow', the deputy manager's bungalow near the factory. I was amused to hear these names. The party went on till midnight, and being the new bride, special care was taken of me. 

We returned home and it was a lovely drive. The only thing was that I found it weird that there were no street lights. The only light was from the headlights of the car. We reached home very tired, and the moment I entered I saw my bungalow in a mess. The sofas had been turned upside down, the carpet rolled up, the decorative items all disarranged and scattered all over as if it had been ransacked. My husband remained cool while I was losing it completely. 

The night chowkidar had no reply and no one knew what had happened. I had taken such pains to do up my home and it was all undone. To my surprise there arrived two cars . It was past midnight and my husband welcomed the guests with the rooms all messed up. He introduced me to them and I kept myself calm and composed. 

I was a bit reluctant to meet them, wondering what would they think about my house and me. Tea was ordered, which took very long. On enquiring I was told there was no milk or tea. I had never been in such an awkward situation. When I joined my husband and guests, I came to know all that had happened. 

While we were away, these friends had come in to mess up my house, something that they always did when anyone got married - and then they would come back again after a while pretending they had never been there! It was all taken in good spirit and everyone laughed about it. They apologised for what they’d done, as they could clearly make out it was not funny for me. That is how they used to have fun with friends and family in those days at our tea estate.

You might find this weird, as I did initially, but I would like to let you know, my stay in a tea garden was the best part of my life after my marriage. The memories I made there, the friends , the fun and the bonding I have never ever seen anywhere. It has been twelve years that we left and settled down in a city, but we still long to go back and live life again in the midst of nature. There are so many instances that happened with us in every tea garden where we stayed, but DamDim Tea Estate is the home where my heart lives.
  

About the writer:

My name is Mansi Chaturvedi. I am based in Kolkata. I am a published writer and a blogger. I had been part of the tea family for 15 years as my husband was working for Tata tea. We had wonderful experience in tea gardens both in Dooars and Assam. 

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! 

This is the link to all the stories on this blog: https://teastorytellers.blogspot.com/
Be sure to add it to your list of favourites! Happy reading!! Cheers to the spirit of Indian tea!

 

'A little bit late'

by Vineet Rajvanshi 

Hello, friends! There are some things that could only ever happen in a tea garden! Please welcome our latest writer,Vineet Rajvanshi, who tells us a most intriguing and interesting story.

It was during the year 1996, when I was posted as divisonal Manager at Lakmijan Tea Estate, Nazira, District Sibsagar, Assam.One afternoon after lunch break, had just settled down in my office and was preparing for my afternoon round of the garden, when office peon informed me that Doctor Babu wanted to come in.

The Doctor Babu, an elderly pharmacist, said that there was a snake bite case in the nearby labour line but the patient was refusing to come to the hospital for treatment.

I advised him to go to the house of the worker and get him to hospital. After about 15 -20 minutes the pharmacist, along with the worker and a few of his neighbors came to the office. The worker who was in his early twenties was in an inebriated condition. He was holding a baby king cobra about a foot long by its neck. On inquiry, he explained that he had gone to fish in the pond near his house and found the baby snake on the bank. He tried to catch the same, in the process it bit him 2-3 times. He proudly stated that he had finally caught the snake.

The pharmacist complained that with the snake still in his hand, how could he provide treatment to the patient. I convinced the worker to release the snake .When the snake was released, the pharmacist gave him first aid and referred him to the group hospital at Mackeypore Tea Estate.

I was later informed by Dr Phukan, the Medical officer at Mackeypore that the patient had been referred to Jaysagar Civil Hospital. He was further referred to Assam Medical College and Hospital, Dibrugarh.

However the patient died near Moran, on the way to Dibrugarh.

The following morning the labour union secretary named Masa Koyah approached me. He lamented that the worker could not be saved despite all efforts, basically as he was drunk and the very reason why he was bitten by snake. Moreover he reported to the hospital very late. I gave my usual sermon to him about the ill effects of consuming liquor, saying that this menace must be checked. He being a seasoned trade union leader supported my views, nodding his head. However, I could sense that this was just a formality. After discussing a few other points and seeking customary help from the management for the cremation of the deceased, he left the office.

Next day, seeing Masa Koya near my office, I casually enquired about the cremation of the worker, and was shocked to learn that he had not been cremated. Masa Koyah told me that the OJHA of a nearby village was doing JHAR PHUNK on the body and family members of the deceased were hoping for his revival. 

I reasoned with him that the dead can’t be brought to life and it was already the third day since he died. Masa Koyah pleaded with me to allow one more day , for the satisfaction of his near and dear ones. Reluctantly I agreed, but warned that by the next day he must be cremated. 

Next morning I called the union secretary and enquired about the progress. He replied in the negative. With my patience running out, I told him that if the cremation was not held on that day and if there was any infection in the labour colony he would be held responsible. 

He replied that he was making a last request and sought time up to evening. He told me that there was a very renowned Ojha near Moran town who possessed supernatural powers, who was known to have made dead men alive by his medication and yantra mantra. The family of deceased wanted to take the dead body to that Ojha as a last resort.

With a warning that the deadline must not be crossed, he was given the go-ahead. That evening the family came back from Moran Town and the body was cremated. 

Next morning I asked Masa Koyah what had happened at Moran. He replied in all seriousness, "Ojha bola ki thoda sa deri ho gaya, nahi toh theek kar deta" ( You are little bit late in bringing the patient, otherwise he would have been cured)!
 

PS

I was transferred the following year to Poloi Tea Estate, District Cachar, Assam, as Manager. The property changed hands during 1999 . I chose the option to work with the incumbent company up to the year 2005. Afterwards, continued working in Cachar and Tripura for couple of companies. However, in an interesting turn of events, got a call from Lakmijan Tea Estate during January 2018 to rejoin that garden. Considering the long association with that company, I decided to join again.

It was a strange feeling going back to same garden after a gap of full 21 years. So much change had taken place in and around the garden. Many staff members had retired, though a few were still there. Masa Koyah the Union secretary of yesteryear and many others had already left on their journey to the next world.

My driver Kamal Gogoi, who used to be lean and lanky, had  turned into a stout fellow with grey hair. Kamal Gogoi used to take me around the garden on my daily visits. One day I mentioned to him about the case of snake bite during my earlier stint. He immediately recollected the incident as he was ambulance driver at that time and had taken the worker to Assam Medical College. He informed me that the man's widow and his son were permanent workers in the garden. 

After a few days, a frail woman appeared outside my office window in the morning hours. The window used to be kept open while I was in the office to facilitate any communication regarding any grievance or requirement.

I asked her what the matter was, and she explained that she was the wife of the worker who had died of snake bite many years ago.

“Saheb Kamal driver bola ki aap ham log ka khoj liya tha,” ( Sir, I came to know from driver Kamal Gogoi that you had enquired about our well- being ).

She did not marry again, though she must have been very young when widowed. I conveyed my condolences and expressed my anguish that her husband could not be saved. She said “Kya karega saheb woh itna peeta tha. maanta hi nahi tha.” ( Sir, my late husband used to drink so much despite being asked not to drink).

Editor's note:
Ojha - medicine man/faith healer
Jhar-Phunk - mystic rituals
Yantra- Mantra - charms/incantations

The writer, Vineet Rajvanshi

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! 

This is the link to all the stories on this blog: https://teastorytellers.blogspot.com/
Be sure to add it to your list of favourites! Happy reading!! Cheers to the spirit of Indian tea!

The Hump on the Road

Hello again, dear readers! I'm most happy to bring you another lovely story from Indi Khanna. Get ready to travel through time to the High Ranges in Kerala, 1978. I'm going to get myself a good cup of tea before I settle down to read this; why don't you? Cheers! Gowri

by Indi Khanna

I’m terrible with dates. While I need to shovel loads of fish down my gullet to simply remember even my own date of birth date, the one date which is firmly etched in my memory is the 1st of January 1978. I was a young pudian (green horn) SD (Sina Dorai = Assistant Superintendent) on Panniar Estate in the High Ranges in Kerala. The estate was teeming with with elephants so much so that Panniar had one Division going by the name of Anairankal (literally translating into ‘the road by which the elephant goes down’).

The upshot was that not a day went by when one, while going around the estate, didn’t bump into at least a couple of the pachyderms. The SOP was straightforward, you see a fellow, you simply swivel your bike 180 deg and head post-haste in the opposite direction. Workers, since they were always on foot, whenever they saw an elephant (which was a regular feature) either turned on their heels or should the fellow be too close and have been encountered while coming around a corner on the road, would simply duck under the nearest tea bush and stay put till the gentle giant(s) had ambled across. Perfect harmony and cohabitation. The man/animal conflict tale was, in those days, unknown and waiting in the wings to be played out many decades later.

Back in the day the High Range Club was always buzzing and VERY active. With the district encompassing 26 estates, 23 Tata Finlay (now KDHP) properties and 3 belonging to Malayalam Plantations (of which company, I as an Assistant Superintendent, was a teeny-weeny cog in the machinery) the strength of covenanted staff in the district was enough to ensure that the club was always alive and kicking. Never more so than on New Year’s eve. Which ‘evening’ traditionally ended the next morning with an early 0500 Hrs breakfast of dosas, leaving one just about enough time to hop on to one’s bake and make the one hour plus ride back to the estate in time for muster. 

The High Range Club on new year’s eve (besides other big bashes and inter-district meets through the year) was very pucca. Ladies resplendent in their best saris and all the men in formal attire – dinner jackets or ‘bandh gala coats’. The accepted form back in the day was that, following the New Years dance and somewhat extended dinner, on the 1st of January one attended muster (always sacrosanct and de rigueur) allocated the day’s work and could then take it somewhat easy through the day. I digress, so back to 1978 and the first day of the new year.

Leaving the club post a hearty dosa breakfast, still in my formal dinner attire, I rode into Panniar just in time for my morning muster at 7 a.m. As the workers trickled in, they were assigned their work for the day and headed off to the allocated fields. Around 0800 Hrs, by which time normally all the workers should have reported for work, my conductor Mr Balia (Incidentally NEVER Balia – always Mr Balia) remarked that he found it rather strange that not a single worker from the No.5 line had come in for work. Odd indeed. So I got on to my bike and heading off towards the lines. Nearing the line houses I saw that a whole lot of workers and kids were sitting on the roofs of their houses. Seeing me they started shouting that I shouldn’t come any further since there was an elephant sitting in the middle of road.

Did a quick about turn and drove up instead to the main office which was on the hillock opposite the No.5 lines, from where I could also sight the road leading up to the lines. Sure enough, there it was – this huge pachyderm sprawled across the road with his massive head slightly raised off the ground, resting on his tusks. On the question being shouted out, the workers hollered back that the fellow had been there since midnight in exactly the same position. As to why everyone was perched on their rooftops, was told that they were scared to come down. By which time Mr Balia having also arrived on the scene, explained to me that the elephant on the road was the same one which had been visiting the lines regularly to raid their kitchen garden plots for banana and sugar cane which the workers had planted. To fend the fellow off, whenever the workers would hear or see him heading their way they would scramble up on to the roof and would start banging on the CI sheets to drive the fellow away from their homes.

This particular time, probably fed up of being chased off all the time and being robbed off the juicy cane, it appeared that the tusker after trumpeting and raising his trunk to its full height, had charged towards the lines and had probably tripped and fallen over and was most likely injured. Which would explain him sitting on the road in the position he was in. In all the continuing pandemonium and egged on by Mr Balia, one of the workers finally picked up courage, clambered down from his rooftop perch and approached the elephant with a large rock in his hand, got close enough and threw the rock which simply bounced off the elephants back with not so much as a twitch from the mastodon. That gave all the others, including me, the courage to approach the fellow. Which is when we saw the high tension cable firmly lodged, running across through his mouth above his lower lip. And him obviously dead!

By this time Rajah Pooviah (red arrow) who, since Abid was away on a longish leave, was the acting Superintendent had also arrived on the scene. After much discussion the only conclusion we could arrive at was that when the big fellow charged the lines, his trunk being very high up in the air, had probably hit the electric cable dragging it into his mouth. And there it stayed with the electric poles on either side of the sagging cable bent inwards and leaning at an acute angle towards our poor dead pachyderm.

The matter being reported to the Divisional Forest Officer resulted in almost all the government functionaries in the district descending upon Panniar. Which lead to two days of a merry-go-round with Rajah being threatened with arrest for having willfully electrocuted the elephant. Two days of tension and with all sorts of pressure being applied before the DFO finally arrived at the obvious conclusion that the death was the result of an accident. Which then culminated in a formal permission from the district authorities to the estate management to dispose of the carcass.

Ever tried to dispose off a 4 ton carcass? Easier said than done I assure you. The first option being cremation, 600 litres of diesel was brought in from the factory and poured over that massive body and from a very safe distance, a burning rag was tossed on. Whoosh! A cloud of dense black smoke and a massive flame which died away as quickly as it had erupted. The smoke having cleared we saw that, barring only the hair on the elephants hide which had disappeared and some singing of the hide, the carcass itself was totally unaffected. After much deliberation and logistical planning a massive pit was dug across the road just behind the carcass. The estate tractor fitted with a winch cable and our two lorries were pressed into service to pull the elephant, dragging it into the pit. Following which the workers paid their respects to the tusker by conducting a Swami Kumbra (a prayer ritual) before the grave was covered over, leaving a massive hump in the middle of the road. 

Fast forward to 2018. I had to visit Munnar for some work with KDHP and decided to pay a visit to my first estate. Walked up to the office and looked down into the valley. Yup! Not high or as prominent when we’d buried the hapless soul, but there it was immediately discernable – the hump in the middle of the road!

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 

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! 

This is the link to all the stories on this blog: https://teastorytellers.blogspot.com/
Be sure to add it to your list of favourites! Happy reading!! Cheers to the spirit of Indian tea!