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| Thank you for weaving us all into the web on Koi-Hai, David! |
David Air passed away on the 22nd December, before I posted my Christmas greetings to him.
David was the founder and editor of Koi-Hai.com, a webpage that brought together people all over the world who had worked in the tea gardens of Assam, Dooars and Darjeeling. He launched the website in 1999, and it became a virtual club for thousands of planters and their families. They sent in stories and photographs, and they sought and found old connections, friends and family roots. No easy task setting up a service like this some two decades before the era of WhatsApp groups.
David included me in his list of correspondents and gave me a page on Koi-Hai some fifteen years ago. Seeing my posts up there gave me the encouragement I needed to keep writing about the Dooars and our life in the tea gardens there.
Two days ago I sat and re-read all our old emails, and found these lines I'd sent him:
"I'd never have written ...(as much as I did ) if it hadn't been for you and Shalini Mehra. I remain indebted to Shalini and to Ali Zaman for introducing me to Koi-Hai and to you. I always admired the way you'd take out time to acknowledge every story that I sent, and you would give it a fine introduction as well (whether it was deserving or not! )"
David left India in 1962 - the year I was born. His interest in India and the tea gardens went beyond any nostalgic longing for days past. He was always delighted to get my little 'reports' of some quirky occurrence in the bagan - like the one on (the failed) Doomsday in 2008, when dozens of workers in our garden stayed home, slaughtering all their poultry and livestock in preparation for one last grand chicken and mutton lunch.
David was a wonderful editor. He was patient and encouraging without being patronising. He would acknowledge emails promptly. When he'd posted anything I'd sent him, I'd find a courteous note in my inbox, asking me to take a look at the 'What's New' page on Koi-Hai, to see whether I "approved" of the introduction he'd written and the way he'd presented the story.
Koi-Hai was my inspiration for Indian Chai Stories, but I had never edited so much as a school magazine until I started working on it. There were many things to worry about - how much to leave out in a longish story, how much to alter, and so on. And then I would think of David's way of doing things - he welcomed everything anyone sent him, and valued the effort they'd made. Each one of the contributors mattered to him. Koi-Hai was about people, at the end of the day.
I'd once written to David introducing a friend who was too shy to send him anything herself, and his response was characteristically generous: "Any friend of yours, Gowri", he wrote, "is a friend of mine." David was kind - he was indulgent, really, and there was much humour in his emails. He often addressed me as 'young lady' which did wonders for my ego!
No one could have been as selfless or self-effacing while working single handed on a web page with so much traffic, and which was, I imagine, a sort of "India Abroad" for so many. To those of us in India who still live in the tea plantations, it became a virtual bridge across time and space, connecting us to people all over the world who had also lived and loved this life.
I'm happy to re-post below a piece on David by Ali Zaman which appeared in Shalini Mehra's Camellia several years ago. Many thanks to Alan Lane who sent me the digital copy.
- Gowri Mohanakrishnan
THE KOI HAI OF DOT COM
by Ali Zaman
David Air, the author of website http.//www.koi-hai.com, has enabled
personnel who served in the tea
industry, now scattered across the
globe, to keep in touch with one another
and narrate those tales of a unique life
style they had lead in India. The life
style, from the days of the British
pioneers has not totally faded away, in
spite of the changes of time. Many
traditions and customs prevail and the
age old summon, ‘koi hai’, which activates personnel on a tea estate, can at times, still be
heard.David, who qualified as an engineer, flew with the Fleet Air Arm of the Royal Navy. One day, the First Sea Lord, Mountbatten of Burma, was reviewing the officers, who were all Sub Lieuttenans (Air) in the aircraft carrier HMS Theseus, he stopped in front of David and enquired of his name. “Sub Lieut Air Sir”,
Lord Mountbatten quipped, “I don’t want your b----- rank I want your name”. When the Squadron Commanding Officer explained that his name was indeed ‘Air’ Mountbatten exclaimed, “Good God” and moved on.
On his release from service, a family friend in the tea trade arranged an interview for David with George Williamson in London. The Company recruited him as a mistri sahib and sent him to Assam. It was work from the day he joined Mijicajan, in 1954, with no respite, even when he fell through the factory roof!
The Sterling Companies, after WW II and India’s independence, studied the future of Indian tea before investing in their properties. The scenario appeared encouraging and companies commenced developing their fields and factories. A change over from orthodox manufacture to CTC was made. David was soon an authority on CTC’s and at the same time fitting into plantation life.
David mentions the veteran planter Doug Meston, of Borpukhuri, a confirmed bachelor, a great shikari, and a good host, who held on to his guests. Meston had his living room furniture arranged in a manner where the bearers never stepped in front of the guests to refill the glasses. The trained bungalow personnel kept topping the drinks from the back without the visitors’ knowledge. Dinner was always served late and the cook would be summoned and reprimanded for serving cold soup. The soup removed for reheating was an excuse for the host to lead the guests back to the gol kamra for more rounds. Meston served what he hunted; the steaks could be anything from elephant, tiger or python meat!
The Company Air Scheme, under the charge of the Superintendent at Pertabghur, was operated by an eccentric pilot. The pilot, never on good terms with the Superintendent, regularly complained of technical defects of the aircraft. David was asked by the Superintendent to give an opinion on the plane’s air worthiness. This was done and reported that he could find no fault. The plane was then flown back to Majulighur by the pilot with David accompanying him in the passenger seat. Shortly after take off, to David’s great embarrassment the planes engine cut out –point made by company pilot deliberate or otherwise.
At Borgang he had encounters with the unnatural and natural. He describes his dinner disappearing in front of his eyes from the tray held by the bearer. Queries revealed of eerie happenings in that residence. Another night the house shook and it was not an earthquake. It was a herd of elephants scratching their backs on the bungalow’s walls.
It was at Borgang that his fiancée Christine joined him and they were married on the estate. For their honeymoon the couple drove to Shillong in a Standard Vanguard estate car, which had indicators between the doors that lit up and flipped out to show directions. The honeymooners had difficulty driving to Shillong as wedding guests had reversed the connections between the horn and signal. Applying the horn had the indicators flipping out and the horn blew relentlessly when the signals were operated. The frustrated groom, in desperation, yanked off the wires to the horn.
Christine and David settled down to tea life. The children arrived, the first born a pair of twins, boy and girl. With the second birth, another set of twins, two boys, the Superintendent quipped, “David, you must realise that you are paid to produce teas”!! At Mijicajan an elephant, adored by the children, became the family pet. The owner, John Batten, who reared the animal from a calf, was posted to Africa for eighteen months. A dilemma was encountered when the pachyderm, prescribed pills for an ailment, refused to swallow them even when the tablets were camouflaged in papayas. The fruits were relished but the elephant spat out the capsules. Finally the medicines were fed wrapped in molasses.
Posted to the south bank, David served on Sangsua and Gootonga. In between he acted at Boroi and installed the manufacture of CTC teas.
David informs that from his youth he belonged to the church of golf, a game he plays well till today. For his golfing skills he was regularly invited to play with the Bara sahibs, including the veterans Bill Gawthropp and Bath (Ghusal) Brown, Superintendents of Jorehaute Tea Company. David was requested to join a foursome which included a Major General. The Army brass was accompanied by two ADCs, one carrying a bag of golf balls and the other Ben Hogan’s Book on Golf. Some shots the General played, where the ball hardly moved or flew in the wrong direction, the ADC had to refer to the book and read out the error made!
David talks of the days when he and the other Service Veterans, in dinner jackets displaying their campaign medals, would gather at Digboi for the ‘Trafalgar Day’ dinner. He fondly recalls his tea days in Assam which he decided to leave in 1962.
David joined North British Rubber Company in UK. The children settled down to the changed life style and schooling. Penny, their daughter, for a class essay on pets wrote about the elephant. The teacher summoned Christine and informed that her daughter was a bright child but her imagination was running riot. While the other children described their cats and dogs the girl wrote about an elephant as a pet! The teacher was amazed to learn from Christine that they had indeed had a pet elephant.
David in 1970 was asked to join Dunlop and the family moved to the Midlands. Life was pleasant for the Airs when tragedy struck. Christine was diagnosed with cancer in 1976 and passed away in 1980. The older twins had already left the nest but the younger pair was still there. After a few years the younger pair progressed to further education. David was visiting the USA in 1988 where he met a wonderful lady, Cynthia, and they married in 1991. He then retired and moved to live in Florida. It took him a little time to adapt to the American way of life.
David still retains a Directorship of Engineering Company in Florida, Gencor, which is deeply involved in supplying Equipment for Road building. Cynthia and David live in a beautiful house in Florida where visitors, especially from tea, are made to feel at home. Cynthia, who has never seen a tea garden, has developed an interest for that unique life style from the tea tales which fascinates her. She and David regularly visit UK and have attended the planters’ reunions in Aberdeen and Eastbourne. Cynthia was recovering from a knee operation, when I visited them, but ensured that David showed me around Florida. He drove me to Cape Canaveral in his beautiful Cadillac where I dozed off. Planters and their lie backs!!
The creation of the website occurred when good friends from the Assam days, Jimmy and Wendy Knight, visited the Airs. Talk, as it always happens with planters, centred on the wonderful days of tea. The Knights suggested that the stories should be preserved and David, having trained himself in computer application, was the right person to do so. David designed and created the koi-hai web site* which brings so much pleasure to the chaiwallahs scattered across the world.
Thank you David.
- Ali Zaman