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/