Face to Face with an Elephant

Hello, everyone! Here's a story for the season. Thanks to Vineet Rajvanshi for sharing his latest with all of us! - Gowri

Winter is a very happy and relaxing time in the tea gardens in Assam. The weather remains pleasant. There is plenty of sunshine, working hours get slashed, and pruning remains the main operation in the field. It normally finishes early in the day. 

Breakfast table, as a rule, is laid under the garden umbrella on the bungalow lawn, with lots of juicy local oranges. The garden Head clerk, Roy Babu used to visit Nowgong almost every week. Among other things he used to buy oranges for me, 25-30 local oranges used to cost Rs.5/- only.

I joined Tea during 1976, fresh from college, and my first garden was Gopal Krishna Tea Estate, P. O. Killing Valley, District Nowgong (now Morigaon), Assam. The garden was very close to the Karbi Hills district. The name Killing Valley was attributed to large scale hunting of wild animals during British rule. Similarly, the name of the river flowing through the garden was Killing River. The post office used to be run from a small room near the main office. An office clerk of the garden, Kali Babu, was part time postmaster and the office used to remain open for 1-2 hours.

Gopal Krishna had three divisions - the main division, Nellie Division and Auguri Division. Auguri was under Mikir Hills district (now Karbi Anglong).

 The main division was split into three. On the East Bank of Killing River was Bargaon division, where the Factory, Main Office, Bungalows, Hospital, Staff and Labour  quarters were situated. On the west bank was Killing division, and further, across a bheel named Gova, was the Gova division.

 There was a hanging cable bridge over the river Killing which was the only bridge across. It had a span of 170 ft and was approximately four ft wide with wooden planks. Even the villagers who wanted to go across the river used that bridge. The pluckers engaged in plucking on the other side of the river had to bring green leaf over the bridge,and  sometimes 20-30 pluckers with green leaf used to cross the bridge at a time. The Gova bheel , which was about 20-25 wide, had a bamboo bridge. The Bamboo bridge had wooden posts made from straight tree trunks cut from the jungle, pointed at one end and inserted deep enough into the bed of the bheel to remain stable.

  To enjoy the lovely winter of 1979-80, my colleagues decided to organise a picnic at the Salbari located in Gova division.That season the Pakistani Cricket Team was visiting India, and since I had a portable Phillips Transistor, I was requested to carry along the same.

 I took my Yezdi motorcycle with Bhanu Chakraborty riding pillion, the transistor hanging from Motorcycle handle and broadcasting the running commentary of the match, to reach the picnic spot . On the way we passed by a beautiful mustard field bordering the tea section no. 'Old Killing'. It was a picture postcard scene.  On the river bank there was the vast expanse of mustard fields up to the bottom of the blue hills. The yellow carpet of mustard flowers and the background of blue mountains was marvellous. After crossing this mustard field we arrived at Gova bheel, which we crossed, and finally reached the picnic spot, the Salbari. The Salbari was a mini forest which was self grown and comprised of hundreds of Sal trees.

We were served with hot tea and pakoras on arrival . The boys had a make shift chulha for cooking. We sat around the chulha in a circle, with most of the boys sitting on wooden logs. My transistor also got a seat on such a log.

After we finished our lunch, I thanked Bhanu Chakraborty, the chief organiser of the picnic, for the lovely arrangements and food, and left the place on my motorcycle.

Pix from the internet - just for fun! - Ed.

When I approached the Bamboo bridge at Gova bheel , which was just four feet wide, I suddenly noticed that an elephant was rushing towards the bridge from the other side. It was not  full grown but quite big. There was a steel chain dangling from one front leg, which implied that it was a domesticated elephant. I was about to cross the bamboo bridge but seeing the elephant rushing towards the bridge, I stopped and contemplated my next move.

The elephant slowed down on reaching the bamboo bridge and slowly put its leg over it, which it removed immediately as the bamboo matting made a cracking sound. Realising that the bridge was weak , the elephant immediately retreated and took a right turn and started descending into the bheel to cross. That was the right opportunity for me - which I took, and drove over the bamboo bridge full throttle.

On my way to the bungalow, I saw two men running towards the bheel.  They were the mahouts of that elephant. In fact the elephant belonged to a forest contractor named Chandan Dey based in Nellie Village. Later that day, the elephant was caught and brought back to its owner.

- Vineet Rajvanshi

Vineet

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!

 

SURVIVING THE MONSOONS

 by Aloke Mookerjee

Hello, dear readers! I was delighted to find a new story from Aloke in my inbox. "It's hard to believe I am writing about times sixty years back. I remember those days so clearly," he wrote. Yes, so clearly, that I felt I was there! Enjoy your read, friends.- Gowri

The impending monsoons had us looking up at the skies darkened by heavy clouds hanging low and moving in ominously. For planters, this was arguably the most strenuous season of the year, what with huge harvests to be handled daily and the long hours, with the factory running day and night. The rapid growth of the tea leaves and their high water content drove away the quality of the second flush that we had been so far relishing, transforming the ‘rains teas’ to a plain watery brew. It was now the time to manage volumes.

The monsoons were, undoubtedly, the most awesome in the Dooars. Hugging the Himalayan foothills, Nagrakata was known for its frequent cloudbursts when the brooding cumulonimbus clouds rolled, crashed and thundered while unburdening their watery contents with ferocious intensity. Menacing flashes of lightning, often striking alarmingly nearby, accompanied the deafening rain. The proverbial ‘pouring buckets’ aptly describes those thunderous downpours. And when not pouring, a steady and continuous drizzle, sometimes for up to two weeks, virtually without a break, turned each dismal day into hours of dreary and damp misery.

Not to be outdone by the gloomy weather, we would counter it by zesty club activities with unabated vigour. It did, indeed, bring cheer in those doleful times. The weekly movies were, as always, well attended. The rain gods were not about to dampen the spirits of a true planter, for even when the old tin roof of Nagrakata Club sprang massive leaks, it did little to deter the members from their unstinted support. They arrived well prepared with umbrellas in hand and ‘wet’ (in more sense than one) gatherings continued to prevail at the bar to keep its usual air of conviviality fully intact. The Western Dooars Club in Mal, about fifteen miles from Nagrakata, held a ‘Mid-Rains Ball’ every year in August with a live band from Calcutta in attendance. It was always a success.

The inter-club football matches held across the Dooars were meticulously organized by the sports committees as were the now forgotten rugby matches. Since only a handful of Indians (and Anglo-Indians) played the quintessential English game of ‘rugger’, the sport remained a preserve of the expatriates. It was an amusing new experience for me to see the mud splattered players invading the bar after a match, to quaff their rounds of frothy beer as a deserving reward, while upholding the age-old tradition of rugger songs belted out lustily enough to reverberate across the premises.

It was football, though, that remained the bright ‘star’ of the monsoon sports, particularly among the estate workers and the junior staff. Each plantation fielded its own team for the popular inter-garden tournament. The selection process of the team was taken very seriously by the estate management, ably aided by the advice and recommendations of the junior staff. The contests generated huge excitement and emotional outbursts, reaching a high pitch during matches between the best rival teams.

These vigourous activities did much to break the mundane and monotonous work routine of the monsoons. Nevertheless, our CMO would now also remind to start our daily course of Vitamins as a precaution against the common ailments of this debilitating period. Perhaps it helped, for we did remain in good shape. Yet, despite all the precautions, some still succumbed to the viruses pervading the air. It was then, that the ‘cure all’ solution, in the form of a luridly red liquid, prepared and bottled by the garden ‘Doctor Babu’, would come to our rescue. Even if we were never quite sure of its true worth, it seemed to restore our health pretty quickly!

Nagrakata received almost eighty percent of its yearly rainfall during the few monsoon months between June and September. The voluminous rains helped vegetation grow and spread at a prodigious pace. With herbicides yet to be in vogue, weeds were controlled manually either with a hoe or a sickle, but with harvesting given the highest priority, almost all the plantation workers would be diverted to leaf ‘plucking’ and weed control left languishing for another day. This was particularly so in the aged low yielding tea blocks which received the management’s lowest priority in the weed control programme. It inevitably led to a dense knee-height growth of weeds in these neglected areas!

The thick undergrowth would become a perfect breeding ground for a host of ‘creepy-crawlies’. Mosquitoes swarmed and flies buzzed. Caterpillars crawled about the ocean of succulent green foliage, devouring with vicarious delight, the chlorophyll laden nourishment that nature provided in abundance. Colourful moths, often with wing spans of up to eight inches, sat motionless on tree trunks, exhausted after having laid their thousand eggs in the cracks and crevices of the old gnarled surface. Beetles of primordial visage emerged from their hideouts to creep along saplings or just cling stubbornly on without a movement, seemingly with no purpose left in life. Leeches would multiply with enormous speed and start emerging from the undergrowth, probing and searching the warm-blooded mammals for which to attach themselves. A walk through the weed infested blocks in that wet and gloomy weather would find many of these slimy creatures attached to our bodies, relishing their fresh blood diet. We would return home to often discover several still unpleasantly stuck to us, a revelation, that lent substance to the age-old proverb!

If all this was not enough, large intimidating tarantula like spiders would suddenly begin to appear, in that damp shadowy gloom, to cast their silken webs, from across one dark and dripping shade tree to another, creating eerie backdrops reminiscent of a brooding, surrealistic canvas by Salvador Dali! Occasionally a slithery snake would suddenly appear but being wary of confrontations, they would retreat quickly without causing harm.

Adding to this encounter with the multitude of ‘snakes and snails’, a seemingly life-threatening (but in fact quite harmless) monitor lizard would sometimes make its silent appearance in the undergrowth of the tea bushes, blissfully unaware of the fatal consequences its presence would create amongst the blood thirsty humans! The tribal workers considered these oversized reptiles (some up to five feet in length) a culinary delight and at the sight of one, work would come to a quick dead halt. Moments later, the lull caused by its portentous arrival would suddenly shatter, as if by some kind of telepathic signal, with all the male workers making a mad dash for the creature at the same time. Wielding their garden implements with yells and shrieks of unbridled excitement, they would crash through the tea bushes in a wild and boisterous chase. The doomed creature would be caught, killed and triumphantly carried out, dangling by its tail. I was often offered a ‘prime cut’ of their prized catch with assurances of its delectable flesh being tastier than chicken. I admit having no evidence to corroborate this claim!

Despite the umbrellas and waterproof apron distributed to the workers as a protection from nature’s elements, the insidious and virtually perpetual rain penetrated their wear to turn their clothes droopingly damp. With their dank clinging clothes, clammy hair and wet muddy feet, the workers’ mood would turn as dark and doleful as the depressing overcast skies. To extract productive work under such conditions was a challenge. 

Aloke's story doesn't really need any images, but I couldn't resist adding this one from my collection. I took this at Moraghat T.E. in the Dooars in the year 2010 - Gowri

The advice of older planters to remain alongside the workers in those dismal times and keep their spirits buoyant with doses of humour and genuine empathy went a long way. And it lightened their mood no end seeing the ‘chota saab’ wet to the skin in soggy clothes and squelchy shoes looking as woefully bedraggled as they were. With the drenched and unkempt ‘Chota saab’ by their side, the workers stayed on and work progressed in a somewhat cheerfully miserable way!

Happily, even the worst of times is not permanent. Soon enough we would see the last of the rain clouds and look forward to the wonderful clear weather of autumn and the crisp ‘cold weather’ that was to follow.

Meet Aloke Mookerjee:

 

I am a planter long retired from the Dooars  as well as Assam and Papua New Guinea where I worked in tea and coffee for several years. I have been writing about my life in tea. These are really ...the early impressions received by a young 'greenhorn ' of those times upon his arrival at the plantations.

 

Even after all this time, tea remains alive in my thoughts; those were the best years of my life.  I have relocated to Goa recently and its hot and humid weather is taking me back to my 'tea days'. Alas, I cannot say that of the cold weather here. Nothing could beat the wonderful cold months of NE India!

 

Other interests? Always loved jazz music - still do - and have written about this incredible genre. Love vintage airplanes (thus my love for Dakotas!) and cars, and intend to make this my next focus.'  

 

Here is the link to all posts by Aloke - Stories by Aloke Mookerjee 

Aloke's book, The Jazz Bug, is available on Amazon. Read about it here: https://notionpress.com/read/the-jazz-bug?fbclid=IwAR2HjxSU2rY6sq5cX_lzBxJY5oat1i_Z22qKdRRP1Tm77Dqp48B2CAlnGvY 

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/

A jumbo ‘earthquake,’ from the eyes of a nine-year-old

by Sudipta Bhattacharjee

I was delighted to get an email from Sudipta. She wrote: "I decided to put my work aside for an hour and write about the elephants in the tea garden. I just let some words tumble out from my memories..." So glad you did, Sudipta. I loved reading this. So will you, dear reader. - Gowri

This season of earthquakes and tsunamis across the globe reminded me of the terrifying sensations of feeling a house, especially a wooden one in a tea garden, rattle incessantly in the dead of night, aeons ago, when I was a little girl. My uncle, Sukumar (Dhruba) Sengupta, a tea planter, was then posted in Assam’s Udalguri district, bordering Bhutan, in a garden called Majuli. To a nine-year-old from the bustling city of Calcutta, the flight to Guwahati and the long but smooth drive through scenic countryside to the sylvan foothills was nothing short of a magical journey.

Majuli. Pic sourced from the internet by the author

 We visited my uncle once in four years, and this as the first time I was old enough for the impressions to register. Once the blue hills, possibly those of Bhutan, began to materialize in the distance, my genes (being the granddaughter of forest officers and being blessed with botanist parents) exerted themselves into a random dance of joie de vivre.

Once the neat rows of tea bushes heralded the garden zone, we wallowed in the fresh fragrance that nature bequeaths on the plantations. As we left the main road for the garden trail, there was a delicious sense of anticipation of seeing the manager’s bungalow.

We loved it on sight! My aunt Tanima, famed for her flower gardens, had also made fruit and vegetable patches along the lawn. She took me on a tour to show the raspberry patch before we could sample her delicious raspberry jam for tea. Of course, we had not been inducted into the joys of drinking tea then; a huge glass of milk, courtesy the garden cows, was in store for us!

We were tired from the lengthy journey and the excitement of travel and went to sleep after an early dinner. The call of crickets was the last sound I registered, before the calls of the boukathakou bird (possibly the Indian cuckoo or Cuculus Micropterus) woke us up at the crack of dawn.

My uncle had two dogs. A German Shepherd called Rex and a tiny pup named Tipu Sultan! I was terrified of dogs at that time and avoided the duo all morning. I was perched on the swing near the gate when my uncle returned from his morning rounds. He disembarked from the jeep and strode purposefully in my direction carrying something. Before I realized his intention, he dumped Tipu on my lap! Frozen with terror on the swing, my feet separated from the sanctuary of terra ferma, it took me a few minutes to realise that the warm bundle nestling on me was looking up with more than a modicum of trust and craving a touch. Guided by my uncle, I tentatively touched the little head. The tail wagged a wee bit, encouraging and fostering what has turned out to be a lifetime of canine adoration!

That night, high on the accomplishment of my foray into the animal world, we went to sleep. Only to be jolted awake a little later with a thundering sound. There was the unified chorus of a herd of wild elephants trumpeting at the bungalow doorstep. The rooms shook and rattled. As we cowered in fear on our beds, the sounds were compounded by shrieks and shouts of the garden workers, beating on metal and holding burning torches to drive away the jumbo family.

The chaos continued with Rex and Tipu Sultan barking inexorably, adding to the cacophony. Finally, after what seemed like ages, the sounds subsided and the herd possibly moved off. But not before leaving their mark on the vegetable patch and devastating my aunt’s prized flower garden.

We were on tenterhooks every night for the rest of our brief stay, but other than seeing mashaal (burning torches) in the distance, we were spared other close encounters with the pachyderms. Years later, I learnt that Udalguri was an elephant corridor and can now applaud the efforts being undertaken for their conservation in the tea garden zone and elsewhere in this Assam district.

Meet the writer:

 Sudipta is a career journalist who joined The Telegraph in Kolkata as a trainee in 1985 and retired at the end of August as Resident Editor (Northeast). She moved to Shillong in 1992 after her husband was transferred to Meghalaya on a three-year posting and continued to report for The Telegraph from there. She travelled to the United States on a Fulbright Research Fellowship in 2004-5 and returned to base thereafter. Her tryst with tea gardens began as a four-year-old to Kakajan in Upper Assam, where her uncle, Sukumar (Dhruba) Sengupta was posted. She and her family visited him in Majuli Tea Estate in Assam in 1970 and 1973 and by herself in December 1975 to the Dooars, when he was posted at Damdim Tea Estate. She has visited gardens in Darjeeling (where a tea tasting session was hosted for her), the Nilgiris and Munnar, Sri Lanka and hopes to share her experiences through this blog, of which she is an avid follower.

Sudipta is now adjunct professor of media science and journalism at Brainware University. 

Here is the link to all the stories Sudipta has written for this blog: http://teastorytellers.blogspot.com/search/label/Sudipta%20Bhattacharjee

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/

A Taste of Honey

 by Gayathri Ramachandran

Hello again, dear readers! I am most happy to bring you another piece by Gayathri, who loves her cup of tea and everything to do with it. Read on to see how she makes a most interesting connection between tea and honey. - Gowri

When I went to a workshop titled 'Ghats Honey- Wild Honey Hunters'…little did I know that I would be tasting, squeezing the combs, chewing a little bit of the comb with the honey and wax still intact !!

Honey is a brown, sticky, sugar-saturated solution made by bees. Honey bees or forage bees collect nectar from flowers and add some enzymes to the nectar. Voila! Pure honey! The similarities between tea and honey are mind boggling. 

What is the connect between tea and honey? Tea plantations have highly skilled workers at various levels. Apiculture has specialized skill in people who locate, harvest, taste and recommend honey that we are looking for. We know how sommeliers explain with such elan how different types of tea, coffee, wine or honey challenge your taste buds and you are left with a lingering memory such as ‘Wah Taj’, ‘Want a Cupa’ or ‘Hi Honey’. For example, the Stingless bee honey leaves a fruity and lemony taste first and leaves a sweet taste on the second helping.

Honey differs in aroma, taste and feel on the tongue and these are specific to the region. So also with tea, and it is this quality that makes some prefer one type of tea or honey over the other!!

As in tea plantations, the specialists - in this case apiarists - know the terrain, the season and the location, furthermore how nimbly you can take out honey with just hands without any machinery to harvest it. The hills, the forests, the thick growth are easily accessed by the hill people and hill tribes. They have special skills to locate, and then to climb the daunting terrain and get to the beehive. The tea plantations don't have such challenging terrain to harvest tea leaves! Note from editor: I know planters will disagree!

The benefits of both are innumerable. Have you ever tasted the best tea served with brown sugar, karupatti (palm candy) or honey ? 

In the one-liner 'Coffee, Tea, or Me' I would love to replace 'me' with 'honey'. Pure honey without going through the factory regimen, stays completely pure and unadulterated. The health benefits of tea and honey combinations are numerous.

Bee keeping or apiculture is an awesome industry. Technology helps to develop and extract honey as a cottage industry. In the Western Ghats the apiculturists strive hard to get unadulterated medicinal honey. They call it Ghat wild honey.

The expert in the 'sensory attributes of honey', or honey sommelier, is an authority in the way honeys taste, smell and feel in the mouth. They assist people in understanding the differences and subtleties that arise from different regions, flora and seasons, so they can gain a much deeper appreciation for honey. So also expert tea tasters.

Similar to tea, the health benefits of a spoonful of honey everyday include diabetes management, healing bones and joints, cancer management and better heart health. By adding a teaspoonful of honey to tea, we can enjoy a plethora of metabolic boosters.

Meet the writer:

Gayathri Ramachandran

 

 

My grandfather Mr TS Mani Iyer and his younger brother Natesan Iyer had a transport Company in Pollachi which transported chests of tea from Valparai to various places. My grandmother, clad in the traditional nine yards sari, would entertain her British guests - the 'dorasanis' - to tea with impeccable taste. 

 

However, I was brought up on a diet of coffee till I moved to New Delhi after marriage. There Tea became 'the word' gaining all importance. Living among the Punjabis, this exotic beverage became a centre point in socialising during wintry afternoons. I was introduced to kadak chai, adhrak chai, masala chai, cardamom chai, green chai and white chai. 

 

'Chai ho jaye!' is familiar sweet music welcomed with cheer while you play cards or just have some plain 'gup shup'. Oh! my taste for tea grew and the bitter 'after taste' of coffee was replaced with the milder invigorating drink. I enjoy tea in various forms, white, green or golden, with or with out milk, sweet or just black!!!  

 

Read more by Gayathri here: http://teastorytellers.blogspot.com/search/label/Gayathri%20Ramachandran

 

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 in 2018 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!

 

Back in the Day - Part XII

 by Shipra Castledine

Hello again, dear readers! I'm delighted to bring you the latest from Shipra Castledine: Part XII of 'Back in the Day', the engaging account of her childhood in the tea gardens. Thank you Shipra! - Gowri

The other day I was talking to a friend who is a keen Bridge player. For those who are not familiar with it, Bridge is a card game played with four players. There are two types of Bridge games, one is Contract and the other is Auction. In the tea plantations indoor card games became a part of tea life alongside Mahjong. It stands to reason that this happened as there were not many social distractions in tea life that a city might offer.

As a child growing up in the tea gardens a Bridge table became a familiar sight. I have talked about the club days we would have on Wednesdays and Saturdays at the nearest tea club, mainly the Western Dooars Club in my lifetime in tea. With many getting their outdoor sports of tennis and golf in, there were others who did not partake and card tables would be set up inside the club. Good numbers would make up the four needed for a Bridge table and a number of tables would be active. This was serious stuff. Often a married couple would be ‘partners’ for a Bridge table and believe you me a few games of Bridge and the journey home could almost result in a marriage break up, the conflict was so fierce about how a partner had played!! Not to mention that many trips to the generous bar fuelled one’s emotions!

 

All images sourced from the internet by the author

My parents used to play Bridge too but they hardly ever partnered each other at the same Bridge table. Very sensible! Not so with my to be in laws. They always partnered each other when they were available for a Bridge table together. Oh my!! I have witnessed the arguments that ensued after a session! One of them could be positively virulent accusing the other of ruining the opportunity to come out on top as it was a points game. Sometimes there would be competitions going on so the points mattered.

I know of married couples leaving a Bridge session separately and going home as the conflict heated up that much! And that’s not an easy thing to do as going home was often vast kilometres away 😆 Hence my relief that my parents were never Bridge partners. I learnt how to play Bridge from my father. He was a cool man and played an intelligent game. But he never got into Bridge to the point he was consumed with the moves of the game almost all the time like some others were. He and I would practice playing Bridge with each of us playing two ‘hands’ meaning playing the part of another player. And Dad would go over what I could have done better so I could sharpen up my game.

Right around tea, meaning whether the Dooars, Darjeeling or Terai which were most of the tea districts in North Bengal, Bridge competitions would be held between the various tea clubs. These created opportunities for tea planters and their families to meet others and grow the team community. And as always they were occasions for hospitality to shine, with healthy rivalry amongst tea families as to who was doing a good job 👏🏻 🥪🫔

As I mentioned earlier my childhood in tea was in tea estates that had Western Dooars Club as our district club. My parents Sudhin and Gouri Bose would take me every Wednesday and Saturday to the club. My mother was not into outdoor sports. Dad would go off for a round of golf followed by a game of tennis. Mum would join other ladies after seeing to the tea items she would have brought from our bungalow. The ladies would either sit around and chat or arrange a card table where they played either Rummy or Canasta. I will mention here that my trips to the club would have been before I went to boarding school at age four and a half or otherwise when I was home for a school holiday.

Dad, who was not much of a drinker would often join a bridge table after the very lavish tea set out on long tables in the club. The card tables had an area of their own in Western Dooars Club, giving the players some quiet. As I narrate these memories the images come clear in my mind. Children playing outside as well inside on the wooden floors that acted as indoor badminton courts when there were players. Little ones would go to sleep in the cloakrooms, their ayahs in attendance and forming their own little social circle.

Mahjong was very popular too but it was more the ladies who played Mahjong. I would be fascinated by the sets that many homes owned. Some of the Mahjong sets were made of ivory! My mother owned a set and I can still see it in my minds eye. I did learn how to play and I would watch over my Mum’s shoulder as she would sit at a table of 4 again and pass a very pleasant few hours usually in the morning with another 3 ladies in our bungalow. Delicious morning tea, called elevenses in our world, would be served by our bearers. Thinking about these images now makes me appreciate what a privileged life I lead in my childhood.

Individual families would regularly have friends over to set up Bridge tables. A Bridge morning amongst the ladies was popular but there were many evenings whiled away to late hours where very serious Bridge would be played. Drinks and dinner were very much a part of these social get togethers. Children would play separately, have their dinner separately much earlier than their parents and at their own children’s table. We would often go to sleep at the host’s bungalow and have to be carried by our parents when it was time to go home.

Tea plantation life evolved from the time tea planters first started that lifestyle and I would credit these indoor games along with the contests and competitions as an occupation that contributed to the sanity and mental health of the tea population.

 Meet the writer: 'My name is Shipra Castledine nee Shipra Bose (Bunty). My parents were Sudhin and Gouri Bose. I am a tea 'baba' of the 1950-s era. I spent a part of my life growing up in the Dooars and another large part of my life married to a tea planter's son the Late KK Roy son of PK and Geeta Roy of Rungamuttee TE in the Dooars. I continued to be in the tea industry for many years as KK was a tea broker till he passed away in 1998.' Shipra recounts her childhood in the Dooars and her school days in Darjeeling in a series called 'Back in the Day' of which Part VII went up in August. Read all Shipra's posts here: https://teastorytellers.blogspot.com/search/label/Shipra%20Castledine. 

 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 in 2018 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!