Unrequited Love

Roma Circar

Circa 1980

Provenance: Golaghat Sub-district

‘Club night’ was a misnomer for Saturday nights at Goriajan Club, smack in the centre of Koomtai Tea Estate in Assam. Members converged on it from 3 o’clock on a Saturday afternoon for a spot of tennis and wound their way home at the crack of dawn on Sunday, a good 12 hours later. Dawn was yet to break, but the roosters were all a-stir to announce reveille that particular Sunday morning, the one of which I speak. In the car, K as usual had unscrewed her earrings and stuffed them in her bag as M drove steadily through the humps and bumps that led to their estate, an hour away near the town of Golaghat. Whatever the sundry ambitions they harboured at other times on other days of the week, the only objective set for early on Sunday morning was to hit the sack as swiftly as possible.

Sleepily tumbling out of their car – a Fiat, if memory serves – they entered the bungalow to behold a drawing room in utter disarray. Completely ransacked, the family silver had vanished; the majestic chamois silk cushions propped up on their prehistoric sofas had done the disappearing act; and a spotless 7x12 rectangular patch on the ground bore testimony to the carpet that had graced it not a dozen hours earlier. On the wooden bar, like alcoholic sentinels, stood a medley of opened bottles of booze, crystal glasses, coasters and scattered pipe-cleaners.

It dawned on K, exactly at the time the golden orb lifted off the horizon, that they had been robbed. Made of sterner stuff in times of less consternation, K, like a Georgette Heyer heroine, prepared to swoon. Scarcely had her lashes coalesced into a single semicircular fringe on either side of her nasal bridge, when a shout from M prised them apart at once.

Like a De Beer’s diamond, a planter radiates multiple facets. He is the original Superman, identified not by a swirling red cape, but rather a prosaic pair of shorts. Under duress, he can also function as a sleuth. Through the simple expedient of using his little grey cells, Sir M had actually nailed the culprit. Two strides later he was behind the bar yanking up the sleeping criminal who burped, gently opened his eyes, and then purposefully sprang to attention. Tsk, tsk! It was the bungalow chowkidaar, who had looted what he was deputed to guard.

K turned accusatory. “I have never trusted this man,” she announced with a degree of pomposity. “How many times have I complained about him? Does anyone ever listen to the memsahibs in this estate? And now he’s made a clean sweep of the bungalow!”

But where were the spoils? You didn’t need a magnifying glass to see they weren’t there.

Senior Assistant M lodged a case against the man at the estate office, but he proved a tough nut to crack. He insisted that armed burglars had broken into the bungalow and for a time he had valiantly held them at bay. Overpowered at last, he had collapsed into stupor, waking only after the lags had fled. To drown his sorrows, he had turned to the wine in M’s bar. It explained his position at the scene of the crime.

However, when his tribe, ashamed at his behaviour, turned against him, he capitulated and confessed. After the heist, for which he was solely responsible, he had carted the booty over to his quarters in the lines and returned to his duty. Remorse at his heinous act overtook him sometime between midnight and the false dawn, and he was forced to take recourse to bacchanalian remedies to assuage his conscience.

“I am very sorry, Sahib. I will return everything. Please forgive me,” he pleaded, genuinely sorry now, not for his grave misdeed, but for the loss of his stature among his tribesmen.

True to his word, and watched balefully by the members of his community, he returned every bit of what he had stolen – down to the last toothpick. Bric-a-brac restored, apology accepted, the matter came to an amicable close.

But had he truly returned everything?

Many months later, a junior Assistant Manager, on inspection of all the workers’ quarters in the lines to update the census register, found himself locking astounded eyeballs with a sepia-tinted snapshot of a jaunty figure, on a wall in the errant chowkidaar’s home.

It transpired that while the wily worker had indeed returned every article of value purloined from the bungalow of the Senior Assistant, there was one inexpensive item that he had kept for himself, that no one had missed – a goggled and bell-bottomed photograph of his detractor, K.

It is entirely possible that, for the ready reference of her boss, Perry Mason, Della Street may have classified this episode as under:

‘The Case of Unrequited Love’.

Meet the writer: Roma Circar

Says Roma, "At a fairly tender age, in 1979, I traipsed into the magical wonderland of Camellia Sinensis and shade trees.It was in this exquisite space that I began to give vent to my feelings, albeit in miniscule doses. A number of my short stories found their way into Eve's Weekly, the Telegraph,and The Statesman.

My experience with work in the organized sector, once we moved to Kolkata after three decades out in the sticks, was with e-learning in the corporate sphere. However, the long hours of slavery were not exactly my cup of tea. I now work from home. In addition to books, I am now turning more and more to reading what is churned out in this blog. It transports me to a slice of life that is already on its way to becoming an anachronism. Let us endeavour to record it for posterity."

 Click here to read all Roma's stories on this blog

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, long, or short, impossible, scary, funny or exciting but never dull.
 
Happy reading! Cheers to the spirit of Indian Tea!
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Jumbos for Company

by Madhumita Neog

A life in tea entailed some extraordinary wildlife experiences. We had frequent (and precious) sightings of snakes, peacocks, deer, wild boar, bison, hare, leopards, tigers and the biggest of them all, the elephant. Often on our way back from the club, we would see these creatures ambling across the narrow stretch of tarmac to reach the other side of the forest. The image of a long, winding road, snaking its way through the heart of the forests was quite an impressive one.

Each sighting was a special one; whether it was the big cat stopping right in the middle of the road to stare back at the headlights with those unforgettable eyes, a glimpse of his striped tail making a statement in the tea bushes, or an unperturbed herd of elephants flapping its ears in nonchalance while we contemplated on either of the two options- to give them the right of way or reverse our vehicle with the single minded pursuit of safety!

More often than not, tea garden settlements fall in the elephant corridor. It is believed that an elephant never forgets or changes its tracks...in which case, human trespassers were left to defend themselves from the occasional wrath of the rogue elephants and mammoth tuskers.

Wild elephants frequented the estates especially during the harvest season as they came in search of crops like maize and paddy and loved indulging in the rice beer that was brewed by the workers! There still are numerous incidents of elephants going on a rampage in workers' colonies and pulverizing tea garden property, until they are herded back to the woods by the forest officials or the garden workers.

Every tea garden office had an elephant squad that patrolled the estates on a tractor, with a monstrous torch called, ' Haathi Batti ' some brave hearts, a few tom-toms and several boxes of firecrackers. The usual drill consisted of a display of pyrotechnics, some screaming and shouting and a vigorous beating of the tom-tom drums, until the elephant, disgusted with the mad song and dance of the humans, strode back to the calmer forest.

Elephants coming into the bungalow compounds was not a rarity either. They loved feasting on corn, jack fruit and bananas from our 'maalibari'!!Contrary to what most people may think, the elephant has great speed and only gifted humans have the ability to escape a chase!

Some 'Close Encounters': 
My father recounted a personal experience. When he was chased by an unpredictable rogue elephant, he ran with all his fuel and leaped over a huge drain as if with some divine intervention. The image of the charging beast halting abruptly near the large drain and trumpeting furiously at my father, will always be an unnerving one.

One evening when my parents and I were returning from the neighboring estate, our jeep halted as the headlights landed on a jumbo waving its large ears and almost piercing us with its vision. The jeep's engine failed to start and the elephant took a step forward. God was kind yet again and the vehicle started just in time for my father to reverse steadily with the headlights focused on the magnificent creature with huge tusks, till we were at a safe distance.

On another occasion, we were heading to the nearest town for some provisions and it was just after sun down. While crossing a forested area, we saw a man lying helplessly on the road; his legs were mutilated as they had been trampled upon by an elephant. It was a test of conscience; we did not have the heart to leave the man there to be torn into shreds by the elephant again. My father decided to get the man some medical help, but for that, he would have to get off the vehicle himself and lift him up into the rear part of Gypsy.

While we prayed fervently and the elephant trumpeted somewhere in the vicinity, my father summoned courage to do the needful. The traumatized man was put into the vehicle and driven to the nearest primary health center. His leg had to be amputated but his life was saved by good fortune and my father's large heartedness. It was a risk taken to save a stranger's life but it gave me a valuable perspective into the dignity of human life.

Meet the writer:

 A tea planter’s daughter, I have spent my childhood in Assam , Dooars and Terai. Am a keen blogger and an adventure buff . A celebrity nutritionist and wellness mentor by profession.
More of Madhumita's writings here : http://madz4ever.blogspot.com/

Is this your first visit here? Welcome to Indian Chai Stories!
You will meet many storytellers here at Indian Chai Stories, and they are almost all from the world of tea gardens: planters, memsaabs, baby and baba log. Each of our contributors has a really good story to tell - don't lose any time before you start reading them!

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, long, or 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!

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, long, or 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/Indian Chai Stories    

The 'Dastoor' called 'Acting'

Sarita Dasgupta 

One ‘dastoor’ that I disliked in Tea was the one called ‘Acting’ when the Acting Manager and his family had to move into the Burra Bungalow for the period that the ‘Permanent’ Manager was away on annual leave, which was usually for six weeks. It was inconvenient for all concerned – an intrusion into the home of the Burra Sahab and Memsahab and a real headache for the ‘Acting’ Memsahab (more like a ‘Chowkidar’ Memsahab, I always thought) who had to temporarily run someone else’s home and looking after someone else’s animals and belongings. It was a great responsibility and a daunting prospect.

Where I was concerned, Murphy’s Law was especially true of ‘Actings’. For those who aren’t familiar with it, Murphy’s Law says, “Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong!” Anything marked ‘unbreakable’ or which had adorned the same niche for months on end and been dusted by the same servants, would be broken during an ‘Acting’. How that happened is one of Life’s mysteries.

A beloved pet would fall critically ill, or die during an ‘Acting’, leaving the Acting Manager and his wife feeling distinctly guilty, even though they knew it was not their fault, and that they had done all they could for the animal.

I have had the most surreal experiences, involving conversations with poker-faced ‘bagaals’ and extremely dignified Burra Bearers, all related to cows, and specifically their breeding problems. Of course, cows had to come on heat during an ‘Acting’, and the ominous words, “Goroo garam ho gaya,” would be uttered on the very day that no transport was available to take the cow to the bull. If transport was somehow organized, and the animal sent, the well-deserved sigh of relief was cut short by the report that the ‘deed’ hadn’t been done! Either the cow was acting coy for some reason, or the bull was plain uninterested! Try telling your poor, harassed husband that it had all been in vain! Worse, try asking for transport again!

What should have been!

During another ‘Acting’, I had this most confused conversation with a bagaal who said that the driver should be sent to the ‘cement bank’ to get ‘cement’ as … you guessed it… “Goroo garam ho gaya”!! I was totally at sea, trying to connect the cow and the cement when suddenly, the penny dropped. Yes, you’ve guessed again, the conversation was about artificial insemination!

Incidentally, during one ‘Acting’ none of the cows got ‘enceinte’, but the ayah did! (Now, that’s another story!)

I’ve had cows going off their food, cows falling sick just when the vet is unavailable, cows dying for no apparent reason and cows calving at odd hours. I have even played mid-wife to a cow! The glow of satisfaction after this achievement dimmed somewhat when I saw my spotted face in the mirror. Transfixed, I realized I had been royally bitten by midges and mosquitoes during the delivery. 

Bitten!

Any guesses as to what came next? Yes, a visitor was expected for breakfast! I slapped on the Calamine lotion, then washed it off and camouflaged the spots as best as I could. The guest left in rather a hurry. I thought he had a plane to catch, but my husband said the poor man must have escaped to avoid catching what he thought was some infectious disease!

Some Burra Bungalow servants seemed to think that ‘Acting’ time was ‘Acting Up’ time! I have been on tenterhooks on many occasions, because the Burra Bearer would be drunk while serving the meal. Just twenty minutes back, he had been all right, but in the interim, he had nipped across to his quarters just behind the bungalow, and taken a mighty swig!

 His dignified demeanour would be in total contrast to the dangerous angle of the tray, ready to drop everything into the guest’s lap, or the symphony played by the crockery and cutlery as his hands shook with the DTs or whatever! I soon realized that he chewed some kind of strong smelling ‘paan masala’ to mask the reek of the country liquor, so thereafter, whenever that overpowering smell wafted towards me, I was forewarned!

Apart from the usual excuse of family members dying (then coming back to life and dying again!) the reasons the servants thought up for being absent would give a creative writer an inferiority complex! (If only I had noted some of those stories down, I might have been a bestselling author by now!!)

During one ‘Acting’, I had to count the chickens each evening once they returned to the coop, because the cook was in the habit of helping himself whenever he had ‘gotia’. At the rate chickens disappeared, he obviously had an extremely busy social life! Braving the prima donna’s outrage and assurance that his Memsahab wouldn’t mind, I made sure he replaced the chickens.

Then there was the ‘bagaal’ who drank up half the milk and added water to make up the difference. I knew Jersey cows’ milk was thin, but this was ridiculous!

Cow and 'bagaal '

One Burra Bungalow just off the highway had an exceptionally beautiful compound. Early one morning, even before my morning ‘cuppa’, I was aghast to find a group of six strangers, armed with cameras, strolling around and taking photographs, proudly escorted by the mali. One young couple was even posing for rather ‘filmy’ pictures, which was a bit much to take on an empty stomach! (This was before the advent of the ATPSF.) I sent the Bearer to find out what was going on. Apparently, they had been travelling by bus on the highway, when they happened to notice this beautiful garden and decided to break journey to take a closer look!

When I was chased by a gaggle of geese on one occasion, I thanked my lucky stars that I had trained at sprinting in school! I think I even jumped a hurdle or two trying to escape their outstretched necks and open beaks… not to mention their cacophonic honking!

After six years of ‘Actings’, I heaved a sigh of relief when my husband got his billet. After a few years, the Company discontinued the ‘dastoor’ of the Acting Manager moving into the Burra Bungalow, much, I’m sure, to the relief of everyone concerned.

Time gives experiences a different perspective, so several decades later I can look back at those incidents with a sense of humour and share them with a smile…
Meet the writer: Sarita Dasgupta

"As a ‘chai ka baby’ (and grandbaby!) and then a ‘chai ka memsahab’, I sometimes wonder if I have tea running through my veins! 

I have been writing for as long as can remember – not only my reminiscences about life in ‘tea’ but also skits, plays, and short stories. My plays and musicals have been performed by school children in Guwahati, Kolkata and Pune, and my first collection of short stories for children, called Feathered Friends, was published by Amazing Reads (India Book Distributors) in 2016. My Rainbow Reader series of English text books and work books have been selected as the prescribed text for Classes I to IV by the Meghalaya Board of School Education for the 2018-2019 academic session, and I have now started writing another series for the same publisher.

Read more bySarita here:  https://teastorytellers.blogspot.com/search/label/Sarita%20Dasgupta

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, long, or 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/Indian Chai Stories

The Wrong Car

Ipsita Sengupta 

One of my most vivid memories is of Fagu Tea Estate. Undulating roads leading up to an enchanting  bungalow high up on a hill with rooms full of books in crates ready for a bookworm like me. One such trip to meet Aunty Shobhi and Uncle Avinash led to quite an adventure.

With my arms filled with a dozen unread books I settled inside the back of our mint green ambassador and promptly started on the first book. The afternoon sun playing with tea bushes creating interesting shapes passed us by as we chugged along pleasantly. We were on our way home and I would only raise my head to count the number of bumps on the road. I might have missed a few counts with a highway robber in the book I was currently reading  occupying all my attention. After the count of five and an unexpectedly large bump, the car came to a halt. Suddenly a group of men surrounded the car. For a moment I thought the story I was reading had come alive!

There were five men in total completely surrounding the car. They had khukris and guns. They were mostly teenagers, maybe a little older than me. One particular man stood out as he was holding a gun pointed at Bapi through the window and his hands wouldn't stop shaking. He looked even more terrified than we did. Mamma turned around and held my hand and told me to be very quiet. The only sound we heard was our hearts hammering.

"Get out of the car right now!" shouted the young man with the gun pointed at Bapi.

He stepped out of the car, repeatedly chanting, "Take what you want but let us go". The men suddenly opened all the car doors including the trunk of the car desperately searching for something.

They tossed aside my precious books to the ground looking desperately. We looked at them bewildered as they didn't seem interested in our watches or jewellery or even Bapi's wallet. The man with the gun suddenly stood back and ordered us to get back in the car and drive off right away. The entire incident lasted five minutes though it felt like forever. We drove away thanking God we were all unharmed.
" I wonder what they were looking for" Bapi said.

"What does it matter, as long as we are safe," Mamma cried.

"Wait, isn't it a Friday today"? Bapi asked and then he suddenly accelerating and reaching home in less than half an hour.
As soon as we reached home Bapi rushed up the winding stairs and started started dialing, and no, in the early 90's we didn't have cell phones. He came away looking very worried.

"I was too late", Bapi cried.

"Too late for what, Bapi?” I exclaimed.

"I was too late to stop those men from robbing the jeep on the way to the Fagu!! That was right behind us, carrying money to pay the workers,” he said, putting his head in his hands and sighing.