Memsaabs

By Mamlu Chatterjee

It was midweek and the entire garden was abuzz with the news about the Dhillons moving into Beech Bungalow. I wondered what it would be like to have a new family move in; apparently they were quite a couple, Roshni & Surinder.  He, a robust, larger than life man, with hazel eyes, twirling moustache, and a penchant for ghazals (that he quite irreverently often did the slow bhangra to) and she, chubby, charming, outrageous and flirtatious in her Patiala salwars.

Their reputation preceded them and as soon as their transfer had been finalised, hundreds of stories about them flew about, causing many a spat between even the staidest of couples! Quietly, unobtrusively, all the memsaabs began planning day long trips to Jorhat, which boasted the one and only beauty parlour, not that their husbands even noticed their newly colored hair or pearly nails! Suddenly, plans were being made for a week long welcome fest ~ the Bawarchi were summoned and coerced to outdo themselves with their puff pastry, trifles, moussaka, masala dosas et al! 

I was possibly the only person who hadn't met them yet and my head positively swam with all the information that was shared with me. I was intimidated, to say the least, and grew uncharacteristically jittery about the welcome dinner at my place that was still a fortnight away!

What a welcome fest it was!

As was customary, for the first couple of weeks, the newcomers didn't have a single dinner at home...despite the fact that the crowd was the same and the working hours still ridiculous, it was party time like never before, continuously, till everyone had had them over! 

I was delighted to meet Roshni, and even though she flirted unabashedly with my husband, I thoroughly enjoyed her company. She was intelligent, attractive and had a wicked sense of humor! We grew to be good friends and spent quite a lot of time together during the day over coffee, or on club days after tennis. Club teas after tennis were never enough and invariably led to poor old Joroo having to rustle up ‘anda bhurji’ and ‘parathas’, while we stayed long past our deadlines, chatting and singing and generally being boisterous.

 Often R & S would have one of their quicksilver quarrels that took us by surprise no matter how many times they happened; she would then flirt even more outrageously with anyone at all, hoping he would be jealous enough to pick a fight with the poor beleaguered chap at the receiving end of her affections, while he, equally contrary, would ignore it completely and turn his attention to the billiard cue at the pool table!

The wariness continued though, and most of the ladies got a little antsy when she hung around their husbands for longer than normal, and called out to her to join them by the window seats or their card game; she however, preferred being on the tennis courts as long as she could, and then she’d prop up the Bar along with the men! She could talk at length about the ‘mali bari’ or the new cows she had bought recently with equal gusto and endeared herself to the women as well, with her outrageous jokes and generous tips on fashion, beauty & cookery. Quite a remarkable business head she had too, and turned those newly transported jersey cows into a pretty lucrative business, supplying fresh milk to all the bungalows and to the sweet shops in town.

Before long she had turned into the general consultant for hairstyles and new clothes for all the younger lot and no shopping expedition was complete without her. Invariably, five or six of us would pile into the Gypsy, armed with sandwiches, coffee,  aloo tikkis and nimbu paani and make an amazing ‘day’ of it. I wondered if the other husbands were quite as pleased about these trips as mine was! Smart man, he knew a day out of this kind for a city bred girl like me would make sure I got home in a good mood. I wouldn’t pick on him or mope around the house as I was wont to do otherwise. 

One time, on one of these trips, we had all ventured out to help Roopa buy her curtains since as the newest ‘memsaab’; she was on a refurbishing spree. As always, we sang and munched through the two hour drive into town and proceeded to pull out every single roll of fabric at the solitary furnishings store in Tinsukia, and turned up our combined noses at most of them. 
 

Buying furnishings is hungry work so we then proceeded to look for a restaurant good enough for ‘memsaabs’ to have a meal. I still cannot remember what we ate and where, but I do remember we had a very, very, very long lunch! A few of us enjoyed our post lunch ciggies and felt most urbane and languid, like we had just stepped out of ‘The Great Gatsby’, and  as a result, instead of heading back home by three o’clock, we were still in Tinsukia town at five thirty.

Priti, being one of the more responsible wives among us, had tried to keep us on track but had thrown up her hands in despair when we behaved like schoolgirls out of boarding school! By the time we headed back, it was dark already and the long two hour drive didn’t seem nearly as exciting as it had in the morning. With no bright city lights on the way, the road looked long and endless. Trucks loaded with tea chests and other produce lumbered by and cyclists from nearby villages whizzed by as it grew darker and darker. Driving past endless tea gardens with fencing posts and shade trees gave us the feeling that we weren’t moving at all and were stuck in one place, and our singing gave way to restlessness and impatience with poor Tuni driver! Somehow, the five of us had put on weight during the day and were now squashed against each other.

At a railway crossing we had to stop to let the train go by and Saadia smelt fresh bread and made the mistake of saying this aloud; before we knew what was happening, Roshni had jumped out and marched towards the bakers shack behind the level crossing, and returned armed with several loaves of warm freshly baked bread! At least we wouldn’t go hungry! To this day, I have not had bread as good as that, anywhere, here or abroad.

A little further along, as we turned along the road, the car came to an abrupt standstill. Peering out in the dark we saw the large shapes of elephants crossing the road to get to the forest on the other side ~ there must have been about 20 of them, including the little ones, with their trunks curled on to their mother’s tails. Quietly, and in the most disciplined manner ever, these huge creatures moved across the road – unhurried, unperturbed by the car. None of us had a camera and that was just as well, since the flash could have startled them and caused a stampede! 

Tuni Driver seemed nervous and stayed still even after the pachyderms had disappeared till Priti barked at him to move; one by one we fell silent after the initial attempts at levity; it was pitch dark and getting nippy. We wanted to go home, shower and get into bed. Even the dirty jokes seemed lame now and no one wanted to sing any longer. Peering at the signboards on the fencing posts we tried to figure out where we were and realised we were still at least a good two hours and fifteen minutes away from home. 

Roopa, the most recently wed, started sniffling and tried to mask it by blowing her nose into her hanky; Priti, the most practical, rattled off the names of the other gardens that we would cross next, in a vain attempt to think where we could stop overnight and perhaps call up the husband-men to say we were alive and well; I chanted vigorously, asking for divine intervention; Saadia yawned and fidgeted and drove us mad; and Roshni? Roshni hummed to herself and seemed completely unperturbed. “He’ll come looking for me”, she said, “don’t worry girls; he always comes looking for me”. None of us quite knew how to react to that. Should we be sceptical, hopeful or just plain jealous?

“He is perpetually afraid that I am going to run off with someone!” she continued, “And I like it that way; keeps him on his toes; besides, the making up is fantastic!”

Saadia was ready to faint out of shock at this declaration, while the rest of us giggled skittishly. Priti belted out orders in Assamese and poor old Tuni Driver accelerated the car in terror and in the process, ran bang smack into the speed breakers before the bridge, tossing us wildly inside the car, leading to shrieks that could have scared away any good hyenas within a five km distance!

Once we had righted ourselves and crossed the little bridge, maybe just out of sheer relief, (I’m being polite, it was plain hysterics) I started giggling and couldn’t stop, despite many thumps on my back, and many sips of lukewarm, leftover coffee. Remember, adventure stories make delicious reading, when you’re safely ensconced on a divan at home, but it’s quite something else living it, especially during those pre cell phone days, crossing leopard country in a Gypsy, in pitch dark!  I was essentially a city girl after all!

Swearing never to stay out so late ever again, but  giggling hysterically, chuckling, snorting and hiccupping, we were a fine lot of ‘memsaabs’ ~ unapologetic about our fun day and ready to retract any foolish promises we may have made a few moments earlier! Some of the hysteria must have rubbed off on Tuni Driver because he yelled out loud and suddenly threw his hands in the air, causing the Gypsy to swerve like a drunk on skates! Us screeching women must have unnerved him and he shot forward and braked to a halt muttering “Shaab shaab!”

What? Now we had snakes to contend with? Why had I ever come to this jungle!!!!!

Up ahead, we could see the headlights of a long row of vehicles – probably trucks carrying Tea; they didn’t seem to be in any hurry and we counted six vehicles;  oddly enough, with their headlights all at different levels; and as they drew close, we saw a tractor, a Jeep, a Gypsy, an Ambassador and two Marutis. Wait, so they weren’t trucks carrying tea? Oh my god, were they…? Could they be…?

Tuni Driver jumped out and gabbled incoherently waving his arms about; the vehicles stopped and a large flashlight shone into our Gypsy from the tractor. That was Surinder! In a trice, Roshni was out of the car and flinging herself at him, yelling, “I knew it, I knew you would come looking for me! I told the girls you would!”

Ashok’s loud guffawing followed, much to my chagrin, but all was forgotten when he came up to ruffle my hair. Anil & Priti had a quick discussion in Assamese and Roopa and Saadia sniffled sheepishly and apologized to Raghu and Prem.

Would we ever live this one down? I wondered. But it sure made a fun story to tell the kids!

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!

 

Meet the writer:

This is Mamlu Chatterjee, and here's what she has to say : 'Mamlu is a Mum, an editor, an avid reader, loves dogs and baby elephants and lives in a red cottage on a hill, in the tea plantations of Malaysia. 
Discovering new things is a favorite pastime, whether it’s a favourite fruit (dragon fruit and mangosteen currently😉) or a new artist or a new gadget. She's been writing ever since I can remember! Currently going slowly bonkers trying to prepare for her son's wedding by remote control!'

About Comments

Good Morning!! We'll have a new post from a new writer soon, to start off the new week!! But before that, to readers who are posting comments, I am very sorry for all the trouble you have been facing. You don't see your comment on the blog as soon as you post it because all the comments are 'approved' before they are published.

There are reasons for keeping this filter in place; first, undesirable comments are eliminated, and second, advertisements disguised as comments can go where they belong - in the bin. 

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Cheers to the spirit of Indian tea!

Back in the Day – Part IV

by Shipra Castledine 
I am going to ramble a bit in this chapter. Recollections are swirling around in my mind since I began to write my stories.

When I was a child in tea the phone lines were manual. Meaning that you had to ask an operator at a central exchange, which might have been in Mal Bazaar in those days, to get you the number you wanted. 

The phone would ring and Mum would pick up the phone and the operator would tell her for instance ‘Sylee T.E. calling’. Jake Murray, a Scottish planter would be on the line, someone Mum knew as a friend but did she understand what he was saying - noooooo! 

She would say to Jake, ‘Just a minute, Jake’.  She would then call out, ‘Bunty, come here. Please listen to what Jake is saying.’ And I would understand quite clearly the broad Scots accent conversation and relay it to Mum!! 

Mum, later in life when telling me about our days in tea, told me about the ayahs I had as a child. They ranged from young, new bride Nepali ayahs to Santhali women. I remember she told me that the last ayah I had to the age I needed one was named Har Ka Maya and that she was an excellent carer. Mum said that Har Ka Maya was a class above and that she would teach me manners and behaviour apart from caring for me physically. 

Then there was another Nepali ayah who was our bearer Singbir’s wife and she was my ayah as a new bride. Mum was very very fond of her and whilst Kanchi took care of me, Mum took care of Kanchi! Kanchi was almost a child herself and I can still recall her pretty face. Then she got pregnant and started her own family of one terribly cute child after another so she stopped working for us. 

I remember the dining room in Baintgoorie where we would have most of our meals. As I have said in a previous chapter, in the summer months we would use the downstairs drawing room and there was a dining table there too. In the upstairs dining room I remember Dad, Mum, myself and some guests sitting down to dinner ( I was older then. Had I been a smaller child I would have been fed earlier at a smaller children’s table with either Mum in attendance or my ayah and I would be in my bedroom well before the guests arrived ). Singbir would come with a tray full of serving dishes which would have been transported by the paaniwallas (yes, in the burra bungalow there was more than one paaniwalla) from the baburchikhana down a covered walkway to the pantry and then set up on a tray. 

The tray would be brought up by Singbir who carried it up a flight of stairs to the dining room. Singbir would solemnly stand beside the guests first as they served themselves from the delicious array of food that Mum would have ordered and organised in the morning. As Singbir came around the table and stopped beside Mum, his face still poker straight, his stomach rumbled loudly. Mum had a great sense of humour and she was dying to laugh, as were we, but it was a formal set up and she couldn’t!!  Singbir continued his rounds of serving without missing a beat. Shades of a butler you would say!! Later on after the guests left Mum regaled us with a funny recall of the incident and had us in splits! And how many of us remember scrambled eggs as ‘rumble tumble’ and sausage as ‘saasit’. Ham was ‘hum’.

The Santhal labour and our help in the bungalows had names that a lot of the time followed the days of the week. That was how they were named, by the day they were born. So someone born on a Sunday  would be called ‘Etwa’, born on a Monday, ‘Somra’, born on a Tuesday ‘Mongra’, born on a Wednesday ‘ Budhu’ or ‘Budhwa’, born on a Thursday ‘Beeph..’ (can’t quite remember what a Thursday born individual was named), born on a Friday ‘Sukhwa’, born on a Saturday ... can’t remember.

Jake Murray was a good friend of Dad and Mum. He was single all the time we knew him as a planter. I remember him clearly even today. He was jolly and had a good sense of humour and an infectious laugh. Face to face Mum would follow his accent and I remember times of fun and laughter. Jake gave me my first puppy. It was a tiny Pekinese dog from a litter that his dog had. I named it Rintintin. 

A scene comes to mind of Dad, Mum and me in the lovely Baintgoorie drawing room. We had this comfortable deep sofa set that Mum had covered in thick white cambric slip covers which would come off when we had guests. There was a beautiful, thick carpet across almost the entire large drawing room which was cream with pastel flowers around the borders. There was Rintintin, almost invisible in the thick pile of the carpet as he was so small. His tiny dark brown face with black around the nose and mouth looking up at me as I lay on the carpet beside him. Dad on the carpet too and tapping his hands on the carpet and calling to Rintintin. With little barks the puppy would crawl on his stomach and inch forward to Dad. Two steps forward and one step back in play and yipping all the while. Sadly I did not have Rintintin for long. A jackal grabbed him on one of the occasions he went out on the lawn and that was the end of my little pup.

Western Dooars Club. How much I remember of this club. For a few years we would go to the old club beside the river. And then a new club was built, a bit farther from the river. A scene comes to mind at the old club that has remained with me all these years. It was New Year’s Eve. Celebrations were held by default for Christmas and New Year. Alcoholic revelry was part and parcel of tea life. My Dad was never a drinker. He would nurse a couple of drinks through an evening but get in there with all the raucous revellers, muss up his hair and appear as merry! The scene in my mind sees a number of planters, Big Mac (Donald Mackenzie) one of them, with linked arms and dancing around the club hall like the Santhals. Uncle Donald as I knew him, roared out ‘Sudhin come on in here’. I was standing at the bottom of the stairs to the club outside, with Mum. I watched as Dad went back in to the club to join the drunken revelry and I was petrified thinking that my father was drunk. Thankfully I learnt soon that he never was. Mum took me home knowing that the night would be long.

And I remember the club days with all of us as children when we were on school holidays from our boarding schools. While the grownups played tennis and golf we would tear around the grounds playing our own games whilst the ayahs sat around and gossiped. At tea time the children had a separate table to sit at. The ayahs minded us. And then I think of the glorious decorations put up for Christmas and New Year. 

This beautiful photograph of the Chel river is taken by Sayan and is from the website 'TrekEarth'

There was this beautiful lady, so artistic I wonder if she gained recognition after she left tea. Her name was Sheila Rana and her husband was Frankie Rana. She would decorate the ‘stage’ area we had in the club in the most creative, magnificent tableaus. I can’t even begin to describe how wonderful these decorations were. Every year was different. And the Christmas parties with one of the uncles dressed as Santa Claus. We totally believed it was Santa. One year Santa arrived on elephant back with his big old sack of presents. Another year he arrived in a helicopter!( courtesy our army friends!) What excitement for everyone. The spread of food over Christmas and New Year could rival the best of the best! Hogmanay (New Year’s Eve) was as big an event because of the British planters. The decorations remained till a week after New Year.

We watched movies at the club too. The hall would be turned into a cinema with chairs arranged like a theatre. There was a large screen in the stage area and the projector was in a little room at the back of the hall. You can imagine in such an informal setting there would be comments and laughter and disruptions through the movie. And of course you could go to the bar and get a drink. Movies over and the night carried on for many.

My father’s younger brother, my Sejokaku, Sunny Bose, joined tea too as I mentioned before. He was posted to Meenglas T.E. as the factory engineer.  
Meenglas was not far from Baintgoorie TE. It was good to have relatives near. My father and Sejokaku were very close to each other. Sunny Bose was more of a flamboyant, colourful character than my Dad. I can remember his love of music. The jazz LP-s and the rock and roll. I would never have taken to jazz had I not listened to Sejokaku’s music. 

And his love of cars too. One time Sejokaku went to Saugaon T.E. to meet a Jamair flight and pick up another uncle who was the youngest of the brothers. My dearest Chotokaku. They were driving to Meenglas and Chotokaku was commenting to Sejokaku that one hears such tall stories of wild life in the tea gardens and pooh poohing:  were they true at all?! Well, as they drove into the garden, very propitiously a beautiful leopard leapt over the bonnet of the car and disappeared into the tea bushes. 

Ha ha, Chotokaku says ‘I’d better wind up my window.’ Yes, you’d better!!

That’s it for today folks!  Next instalment soon...!

Editor's Note: 
T.E. - Tea Estate
Paaniwalla - the cook's helper (or as one of our visitors labelled him, the sous chef)
Baburchikhana or Bawarchikhana - the kitchen
Baburchi/Bawarchi - the cook
Western Dooars Club - Shipra mentions the old club, which was known as the Chel Club. If anyone has photographs of the club, old or new, would you care to share them here? Please write to indianchaistories@gmail.com. Thank you.

 

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.' Read mo0re stories by Shipra 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 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

Comic Timing!

by Shalini Mehra 

 

"It is a fact that till air travel improved and the broad gauge was installed, no one - I repeat no one - from outside Assam reached us on a personal visit without a hitch", wrote Shalini Mehra in 'Train of Thought: A Comedy of Errors'. Read more:

Another incident that I recollect with amusement now was not amusing at all when it happened.

My brother Pradeep decided to visit us after his first year engineering exams. This time we had received the message in advance and the Supt. Manager Mr. Sanjoy Ray very kindly not only gave us three days leave to receive him, but also an excuse, literally on a platter, to visit Shillong; to collect an exclusive cold cut platter for his VIP guests who were to visit the garden the following week.

Since the arrival time of the train was five a.m., we decided to reach Guwahati (Gauhati then) the night before and book ourselves into a hotel. All our efforts to reconfirm the arrival time before leaving Salonah were rendered futile. Those days one needed to book trunk calls that rarely came through. There was a telephone exchange in Salonah but the operator informed us that the lines were down.

Once in Guwahati we checked into the hotel, freshened up and were about to go out, when,on a hunch, Rajan rang up the railway inquiry to be told that the train starting from Delhi on the 12^th had already arrived at five a.m. that morning. What followed was utter confusion. We never got to know who had erred – us, or the railway inquiry; whether it was a miscalculation on our part or wrong information from the inquiry. There was no time to waste on such speculations. It was seven p.m. We reached the station to find it deserted. I was close to tears. My brother was on his own in a city that he knew nothing about, and by then 14 hours had elapsed since the train’s arrival. Where was he? Just the thought filled me with apprehension.

We desperately tried to book a call to the garden to inform our friend K.R Bhagat, popularly and universally called Kaka by his friends and colleagues in the plantations, about the situation; but the telephone lines were still down. The next exercise, though futile from its onset, was to inquire around from the porters and the taxi drivers but to no avail. There was nothing we could do, except go to the bus stand and check the buses for Nowgong. After wasting an hour we tried to check up on all the hotels near the station but got no lead from anywhere. Instead of being any help, I was on the verge of hysteria: “How the hell would he reach Salonah?” Well, that was it. We realized that he might have waited at the platform and not finding us, left for the garden. That logical reasoning made up our mind to return to the garden, hoping for the best.

Well, this is only one side of the story. The other side is more thrilling and full of adventure!

After peering up and down Guwahati railway platform, Pradeep tried to contact us but could not get through. He waited for a long time, then, presuming that his telegram had not reached us, decided to reach Salonah on his own. The first leg of the journey till Nowgong was comfortable and without any hazard. Now was the difficult part, as he was clueless about the location and the distance of the garden from the town. With the postal address in hand he inquired at the bus station. Someone pointed to a bus parked nearby and said, ‘This will go to Salonah’. Excited to have got the right vehicle for the commute so soon, he walked up to the driver.

'The Village Bus' by Mario Miranda, 1964

‘Ye bus Salonah garden jata hai?' he asked, and in answer got a big nod of affirmation. One look at the rickety old bus filled him with doubt but beggars cannot be choosers. And thus started a journey he would never forget in his entire life.

Thus goes his story:

“There was this dilapidated bus; however, the driver spoke Hindi quite legibly and looked very confident about the whereabouts of Salonah. This facilitated my decision to board it. Very soon I discerned a curiosity among the crowd that had gathered and when the driver started to probe, I evaded the queries. Trying to hide my nervousness and ignorance I discreetly elected to remain silent.

No sooner had I made myself comfortable, as comfortable as one could on a tattered seat with poking nails, when the bus started swarming with people. The journey began. Weary and sleepy I soon dozed off but not for long as a loud screech abruptly jolted me out of my reverie. For a second I thought the bus had collided with another vehicle. But no! It was a big pothole that we had just sailed through and to my utter dismay the bus had digressed from the highway onto a country road with literally no surface. From then on after every ten minutes it stopped; the passengers mounted and dismounted at their will, some with livestock – chickens stuffed in cane baskets.

Thus we trundled on for an hour, making all manners of minor detours. After what seemed ages the bus came to a halt for cha paani. I too got up and without any effort on my part was propelled out of the bus. Once outside in fresher air I walked up to a small shop and inquired about ‘Salonah.’ The news was very heartening – ‘barely six kilometers from here’. Soon we were back in the bus but it would not start. The self-starter had packed up. The driver, cursing with the choicest of expletives, took out the crank handle. It seemed to have worked as the bus started, moved a little further, then stalled again.

By now the cacophony of sounds and the overpowering smell of dust and sweat were getting to me. I decided that if it did not start I would walk the rest of the distance. This time even the handle was rendered useless, so all of us got down to give the bus a push. Puffing and panting after innumerable stops and restarts it finally made it to Salonah by six p.m. The signboard brought a surge of relief. The place was teeming with people; the fortnightly pay day local bazaar was on, as I came to know later. I asked about the whereabouts of my brother-in-law from one of the estate workers, who promptly answered,

“Mistri sahib bungla factory ka peeche hai.”

 I repeated, “Mistri sahib nahi, Mehra Sahib”

“Jee …jeee.. Mehra Sahib - Mistri Sahib.”

I didn’t know that after acquiring an engineering degree the designation one got in the estates was ‘Mistry Sahib’! Very discouraging for a Mechanical Engineering student indeed!

As I walked further I found someone who introduced himself as Kirani Babu and very kindly arranged a young boy to carry my luggage and guide me to the factory.

‘Finally I am home’, I told myself and just the thought relaxed me. Sore all over with fatigue but excited to meet my sister and brother-in-law I struggled hard to keep pace with the quick strides of the young boy.

Well that was not the end of the story. There was more to come. At the factory gate I was told –

“Mistri Sahib toh Shillong gaya hai.”

“Shillong??” I was sure I had heard wrong.

 “Kab tak ayega?”

“Teen din baad”

Well, some welcome this was! After a three day train journey, three hours on a rickety bus and a further two hours of roughing up on a kuccha road, here I was - still on my own - alone .

Before the bad news could sink in, a voice boomed, “You … Pradeep, how come you’re here?”  That was the most welcoming voice I had heard since I started my journey and the familiar face of Kaka Bhagat appeared from somewhere. I had met him at my sister’s wedding.

The story unfolded. Kaka took me to his bungalow and from then on it was a red carpet welcome all through my stay in the manner that only tea planters can extend.  It was Saturday evening. Kaka took me to the club and in no time everyone made me feel at home as if they had known me for years. I got my first glimpse into the life of tea planters and found them warm, friendly and fun loving.  What I enjoyed the most were the wild life encounter stories, and I was warned that I might see some on the way back to the garden. Later, fast asleep in Kaka’s guest room I woke up to see the door rumbling. Fearing it to be an elephant attack I panicked and broke into a sweat. The rumbling turned out to be the most welcoming banging when I opened the door to find my sister beaming at me.”

As for us, with frustration and nervousness mounting we reached the garden and heaved a sigh of relief. Our visitor had made it to Salonah. When we reached Kaka’s bungalow Pradeep was fast asleep. A happy ending to a total fiasco! What further turns it into a comedy of errors is that on his next visit to Assam, this time with his family, he landed at Dibrugarh Airport and once again I almost missed him, as the telegram arrived just that morning.  

The last episode for now but not the least interesting one - the year was 1974.

It was midday and I was sitting on the verandah of our Chung bungalow at Borghat division of Salonah, which has a long driveway. From a distance I saw a bicycle turning onto the garden road leading to our bungalow. This could not be Rajan as he had taken his car that day. The main gate opened and someone walked in. From his pugri I knew the visitor was a Sikh. I was still wondering who it could be when he waved. Recognition dawned and I almost fell while running down the staircase.

‘Battu’ I shouted in disbelief.

Our little son just a year old started crying. He had never seen a Sardar before.

It was my younger brother’s friend Amarpal Singh Bindra, lovingly called Battu by all of us. Having just completed his NDA course, he had received a posting in the North East and decided to visit us without any prior information. From Nowgong he had boarded a bus and the driver dropped him at a junction on the highway where there was a signboard indicating ‘Salonah Tea Estate.’ It was only after the bus trundled away that he read the fine print on the signboard - “Six kilometres”!

He walked six kilometres to reach Salonah and thanks to the electrician in the factory he covered a further one kilometre inside the garden perched on the back seat of a cycle. Rigorous Army training had toughened up the young man and thank God he was not carrying any parcel of mangoes, just a small overnight bag.

Today I log on to the internet to find my family and friends just a mouse click away. I often wonder how we lived in those days, when life moved at a snail’s pace! Our dear ones remained literally light years away. It could be months before we heard their voices and got news of their well-being. Telegrams often reached after the arrival of the guest, trunk calls hardly ever came through – all of this often leading to the kind of muddled up situations mentioned above. Feelings of disappointment related to such incidents were short-lived, and all of us, discovering the funny side, learnt to take these in our stride. Now, looking back, I know it was the nonexistence of the basic amenities, especially of communication and commuting that made tea life then what it is best known for --- uniquely different, unpredictable and full of adventure.

Fiascos of the sort stated above very soon turned into comedies of errors that would be told umpteen times with laughter and amusement at every tea gathering.

Editor's note: 
Kirani Babu - Head clerk of the tea garden
Mistri Saab - the Assistant Manager in charge of the factory is called Mistri Saab in the Assam tea gardens. The word 'mistri' in the rest of country is used to mean artisan/craftsman, or workmen like carpenters and masons. 

Meet the writer: Shalini Mehra

I can neither boast of any career, nor of great feats; yes, a tag of gypsy is befitting, as all through my life I have been wandering from one interest to another, returning home to one, then moving to new pastures. To use the cliché, I have been ‘Jack of all and Master of none’. The best part is that I have enjoyed the freedom of expressing myself through different mediums, be it music, dance, cooking, gardening, flower arranging or making dry flower frames, reading and writing. The last was always a moody muse till The Camellia happened.

During my wanderings I stumbled upon an idea when the new age of internet dawned upon the backwoods of the tea plantations. Life in tea has been unusual, very often bordering to inconceivable, and those real-life stories, so often almost fictional, needed to be told. The idea took a shape and thus the first ever Tea Planters’ Interclub magazine ‘The Camellia’, ‘for the planters, by the planters, of the planters’ was born in the sanctum sanctorum of my study. Thus, began the journey with pangs and pleasures of the birth and rearing up of my brainchild. If that can be called a milestone, it was surely one for me.

It makes me so proud that during this journey I made a lot of friends who shared my passion and extended their help. And Gowri Mohanakrishnan, moving with the times, took a step further and created ‘Indian Chai Stories’ - the tea stories blog. I extend my wholehearted support and best wishes to her.

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!