by Minoo Avari
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| Riding bareback, Ging, 1967 |
This is a story
about the transition of a Darjeeling Planter to South India (Spellings of places as they were then)
'Shankeran managed to give us the history of Singampatti in one breath'
The south-west
monsoon set in early that summer of ’70.
There was no sign of it though at Tinnevelli Junction, where the late
May sun relentlessly roasted the already baked earth and left us sweating, as
porters loaded baggage into the boot and overhead rack of the company
Ambassador. Shehzarin was already a few
months pregnant with our first born but it was Pancho, our Boxer dog, who
showed signs of morning sickness. The
fault lay entirely with Xavier, the Singampatti group driver, who exhibited a
style of driving I found uniquely disquieting; flooring the accelerator for a
few seconds, then completely taking his foot off the pedal, he repeated this
process with alarming consistency. As a
result we see-sawed past Chernmadevi, rocked back and forth past Karumbai and
found ourselves quite seasick by the time we got to Natesan Agency at
Kallaidaikurichi.
Shankeran was there
to welcome us with his enormous brother, Harihara Krishnan, taking up much of
the background. Inhaling deeply,
Shankeran managed to give us the history of Singampatti in one breath. Then gulping another huge quantity of air, he
informed us that there was a lot of work to be done on Manimuttar and that the
Muthanna’s would be off shortly on six weeks leave to the UK and that John Bland’s
son and daughter would be coming from the UK to spend their holidays on
Manjolai. He paused to inhale once
again, even as the aroma of sumptuous coffee assailed our nostrils. Shankeran was not finished though and, before
the completion of yet another long sentence, which left him breathless once
again, he plunged on as we finished our first cup of coffee.
Past the level
crossing Xavier steadied his epileptic foot.
The drive was scenic and Xavier pointed out the Manimuttar Dam, which
had filled to the brim, with a cryptic “Dam full!” There was no traffic at all
and the narrow road snaked through rocky outcrops of scrub before starting the
climb to Manjolai. I chuckled seeing the
quaint board informing us that we were now negotiating an awkward hairpin bend!
Dappled sunlight bathed Manjolai estate and John Bland had us sit out on the
open veranda to sample tea and scoff a few biscuits. With that we exchanged vehicles and set off
with ‘our Michaels’, the Manimuttar driver, for the Muthanna residence.
It got steadily
darker as we approached the top of the hill.
Fog prevented us from seeing much of the surrounding forest and by the
time Michael pronounced ‘Kakachi golf course’ we were in the maws of the
monsoon. It was blinding stuff. The wipers were inadequate and appeared to
work in slow motion. Undeterred, Michael
drove on while giving us a crash course in Tamil. Moon, he said, was Nilavoo. It resounded with a timbre reminiscent of
Louis Armstrong after a few bourbons.
Coming to think of it, Michael did resemble Satchmo!
We turned left and
just as suddenly saw the outline of a building looming in front. A stout balding person, standing under the
porch, was very nearly run over by Michael who was in a hurry to get the car
parked and out of the lashing rain. We
introduced ourselves. The man called
himself George, leading me to believe the little that I had heard about
Coorgs. It did turn out though that
George wasn’t a pseudonym for Ricky and that he was, in fact, Ricky’s
cousin. After that we called him Cousin
George.
A short while later
Ricky appeared followed by his wife Prema, who had been preening herself to
look presentable in front of Shehzarin.
She had heard my wife was with Air-India and this was sufficient to
frighten her into putting on makeup… but when she saw my simple and pragmatic
wife she beamed with delight and they were to become lifelong friends.
There was a sudden
break in the rain and George just as suddenly came to life.
“Would you like to
play tennis?”
Ricky must have seen the incredulous look on
my face and assured me the court would be playable. “The ground here dries almost instantly”, he
said. Pulling suitcases from the car and
fishing out my tennis racket, George and I did take to the court. He was a crafty player and played to
win. We had just stepped back into the
warmth of the sitting room when the rain came crashing down again. Ricky and Prema accompanied us to Oothu Bungalow,
leaving a dispirited cousin George to lick his wounds and fuss over the menu
for dinner.
The bungalow hadn’t
been lived in for some time. After the
Muthannas left, we had for company our bungalow servant Waidyanayagam, who
hovered about solicitously. Watching all
this was Thomas the gardener who appraised us with a jaundiced eye. He amused himself with our apparent loss to
adjust to a cyclical Cooper generator and having to make do with Aladdin
lanterns, after the generator ran its course and packed up within the hour. It was difficult and I went to bed
perplexed. Shehzarin was upbeat and took
an immediate liking to the seemingly impermeable loneliness, the opaque fog and
the drumming rain.
The days rolled
into weeks and in that time Ricky taught me to ride a motorbike. Later, with nephew Subbu in tow, he taught us
golf. In turn we showed him that one
didn’t have to stand motionless over the ball.
By taking three steps back one could run up and whack it like they do in
hockey. This must have suitably
impressed him because he abruptly stopped further lessons.
A break in the
weather allowed me to take stock of the terrain. I hadn’t realised till then that there was a
big hill in front of the Oothu Bungalow.
It turned out to be field number twenty-five, directly opposite the
small Oothu office from where I operated.
I checked daily on the little nursery by the stream and admired the
hundred acres of tea on the property, which had been planted in part by David
Hughes and later completed by Roy Machia.
The view from the lookout, which signalled the last of the hundred acres
of tea planted at that time, is magnificent:
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| Mighty Agastiyamalai - all pix by author |
It overlooks the
impressive Papanasam dam, snuggled below in the heart of the Mundanthurai game
sanctuary; where thick forests stretch to the left and culminate just short of
towering Mount Augusta. Locally known as
Augustyamalai, this volcano shaped peak is more often than not enshrouded in
mist. It has for company, five smaller
jagged peaks known as the Ionthullies, or five peaks.
'As far as I’m
concerned, you can plant from here to Bombay.
I’ve been hearing about plans for new planting but nothing ever
happens!'
Toward the middle
of June, Angus McNaughton, the Managing Director, paid an official visit. I had met him and his wife Sally during my
interview, at the Bombay office, and was already an admirer of Angus’ zest for
life and his spirit of adventure. The
next day we walked through the fields.
With Angus, John Bland and Ricky in front, I remained a few discreet
steps behind.
“Oothu can never
become a full-fledged estate with just a hundred acres of tea!” Angus suddenly
exclaimed.
John looked up at
the sky, sucking on a peppermint sweet the while. Ricky wasn’t deterred and asked Angus how
much he wanted us to plant.
“As far as I’m
concerned, you can plant from here to Bombay.
I’ve been hearing about plans for new planting but nothing ever
happens!”
Turning to me Ricky
asked if I was game. I shrivelled in the
sudden spotlight but Ricky had that mischievous, irresistible grin, almost
daring me to say yes. So I said yes!
“I’ll be leaving
for England in a few days,” Ricky told Angus “but Minoo can start the nurseries
and begin clearing. I’ll be back to help
him with the planting.”
And so it was. Ricky and Prema left and I got down to
planning the extension of both nurseries at Manimuttar and Oothu. Mr. Sylvester was the staff member in charge
of Oothu and worked directly under me.
Mention must be made here of his service to the Corporation: on the
verge of dismissal for insubordination, it was decided that Oothu would be
suitable for him to dwell on his misdeeds.
I was asked if I would like another IC in his place but I had already
begun to interact with him and was impressed with his sagacity. We got on well. I certainly wouldn’t have been able to get
everything working, with such clockwork precision, on my own.
The days were long
and oft times brutal. Tamil lessons at
4:30 am (for all the good it did me), then Oothu office for planning out the
day with Sylvester; Manimuttar office and factory and overseeing the plucking
there, along with checking sundry cultivation works. Clearing forest and using a dumpy spirit level
to measure out roads, thirty feet at a time, to make sure the gradient remained
constant, also helped with speedy removal of trees and scrub that had been
cleared.
'What’s
Singampatti doing sending us Darjeeling tea?'
Ricky had earmarked
some fields where blocks of clonal tea had been left un-plucked. A2 was a plant selected by Dr. Mathew and then
there was a small leafed chinarey plant, with the simple nomenclature ‘Hybrid’,
which someone in the past had also selected.
When the un-plucked stalks achieved pencil thickness, they were cut with
a slant and each one stuck into an eighteen inch sleeve that sported a four
inch diameter. These sleeves, stacked
ten abreast, continued in length for as long as the lie of the land would
allow. Over these we bent large bamboo staves,
at approximately three foot intervals.
These were then interlaced with longer bamboo poles to support the
weight of the two hundred gauge polythene sheet that would cover each bed.
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| Riding Murphy on Ging T.E. in Darjeeling |
I had done much
smaller nurseries in Darjeeling, while working there with the Darjeeling
Company, and knew that spraying the top of the stacked bags with Tefazine, a
pre-emergent weedicide, would prevent weeds from taking over. After the chemical spray each stem, with two
to three leaves, was pushed into the mud-filled bags before polythene sheeting
was draped over each bed. After that the
overhanging sides were sealed with mud.
In essence it was a
mini hothouse. John, never having seen
the like, balked at this procedure and repeatedly questioned my wisdom with the
admonition, “You’re putting all your eggs in one basket!” Well he did have a
point there but I just had too many eggs on my plate at that time to argue the
case. We erected an enormous pandal,
with stakes ten feet above the ground and framed a lattice on top over which we
tied kidagu sheets. Even so, the direct
sun did find little gaps and managed to burn some clonal material. Ricky was back by then and suggested we apply
mud paste over the polythene. This was a
huge success. We planted passion fruit
creepers, which replaced the kidagu and became the permanent overhead shade.
Meanwhile the
clearing in some fields was complete and Sylvester organised the pits to be
dug, as per Angus’ desires, at four by two by two and a half feet. This made it around seven thousand plants an
acre. We were able to plant one hundred
acres within a nine month period, after supplying Manjolai with clonal material
to plant fifty acres there.
Ricky and I got on
famously. Both Sagittarians, we had
similar interests. He left me strictly
alone to get on with work but we got together as soon as the day was done. As families we did pretty much everything
together. Tennis, golf and swimming by
the beaches of Kovalam on an occasional Sunday; at other times watching bathers,
huddled in groups, being bludgeoned under the waterfalls at Manimuttar and
Courtallam. There were movies too at the
group office in Manjolai and at the Ambassamudram club, where we frequented the
swimming pool.
Another year passed
and the Directors were pleased with our progress. Singampatti tea prices were historically lower
than those fetched by our Mudis group.
John approached me to see if there was anything I could do, to rectify
this bugbear that so obviously haunted him.
Ricky was away again but I was certain that my experience, with
manufacturing Darjeeling tea, would do the trick. Dev Mukerjee of Carrit Moran, our
tea-brokers, was flabbergasted. “What’s
Singampatti doing sending us Darjeeling tea?” he queried.
Be that as it may,
it caught the immediate attention of certain West German buyers and Willie
D’Cruze, the tea-maker of the Manimuttar factory, came back from the auction at
Cochin beaming with delight.
“Those big sweaty
German buggers want more tea. I told
them we could give them as much as they want.”
I was taken
aback. We had just sent ten chests as a
trial but John’s triumphant demeanour, at the unexpectedly high price, sealed
my fate. We continued making as much
‘Darjeeling’ tea as we could, even as a team of Japanese arrived to put up a
green tea factory on Oothu.
A New Arrival - and lights!
The seasons
changed. In the autumn of ’70 Shehzarin
gave birth to our baby daughter at the Catherine Booth Salvation Army hospital
in Nagercoil. It was the nearest
hospital, a little less than two hundred kilometres away, run by dedicated American
and British doctors. Winter brought with
it another new addition: I had gone to Coimbatore with John Bland to purchase a
vehicle with the nineteen thousand rupee car loan sanctioned by the
Corporation. We settled on a 1954
Plymouth Savoy in spanking condition.
Though John signed the cheque enthusiastically, it raised the hackles of
the group manager in Mudis and caused quite a furore. The group vehicle there was a Plymouth Savoy!
By the summer of
the following year the green tea factory was up and running. It brought with it electricity for our
bungalow. We were finally able to listen
to our collection of records and enjoy an occasional cold beer from the new
refrigerator, which replaced the old dysfunctional kerosene contraption. Now we had lights that could be switched on
at any time through the night! Angus had retired by then and was replaced by
David Rosser, a retired commander from the Royal Navy, who now headed the
Bombay office as Managing Director.
 |
| A recent pic of the G6 lookout at Oothu estate |
More new planting,
learning the mechanics of green tea production, harvesting cardamom and picking
the little coffee we had on Kutheravetti, kept me busy. Often, under candlelight, the Oothu office
(still not electrified) would see Mr. Sylvester and I pouring over field maps:
planning new roads and deciding which plants from either the Manimuttar or
Oothu nursery would go where. We were
still supplying Manjolai plants from our nurseries for their annual fifty acre
extensions.
Of grave concern
were rocks and stones. They had to be
removed from the new clearings, so that the roots of young tea plants wouldn’t
come in contact with anything other than soil.
We insisted on the workers digging two feet deep, before turning over
the earth, to remove these impediments lurking beneath. I was adamant that excavated boulders and rocks
not be rolled down the slopes to block streams and waterways. At a loss to find a way around, it was
Sylvester who came up with the solution.
Digging large craters on the newly cut roads, he suggested we bury
them. This strengthened the roads and took
care of our problems of disposal at the same time.
We struck gold!
There was another
problem though which required divine intervention. Digging was not something the workers
relished. Everyday workmen designated to
dig would report sick. We were losing
time. Then to make matters worse
Manjolai decided to go on strike. Not
content with striking on their own property, rumour had it that they were
planning to march up to Manimuttar and Oothu to disrupt work here. Neither Sylvester nor I had an answer to this
and, that morning, only a skittish handful of Oothu workers showed up at the
new clearing. Sylvester and I stood in
the field, forsaking lunch, digging valiantly alongside the workers.
By evening the
workers from Manjolai had assembled below the field we were on. Shouting injunctions and gesticulating, they
pumped their fists, as they began to trudge uphill toward us. They were no more than thirty yards away when
one of the Oothu workers, gazing steadfastly at the ground yelled. “Aaayooe! Aa-yi-yooe!”
Catching the
evening sun a stream of yellow oozed from the freshly dug earth. A light drizzle had started, turning the
yellow lava into tiny rainbows.
Unmindful of getting wet and the fact that it was time to go home, the
militant Manjolai workforce started tearing at the ground with bare hands. Then using stakes, staves and other
implements, which they had brought along to intimidate us, they went into a
frenzy turning the earth over to seek for treasure. I looked across at Sylvester who, with a wry
smile, said, “I think we won’t have any more problems finding people for
digging.”
Gold coins, with
Tippu Sultan’s emblem emblazoned on both sides, spilled from the damp
earth. Amber and mother-of-pearl
ornaments too were being unearthed around us.
Soon hurricane lanterns and large sugar gunnysacks appeared and the
field began resembling something from out of a fairy-tale. Workers in bandages descended from
dispensaries. Others in lungis rushed
from their homes and many came from as far away as Kutheravetti, the remote
outer division of Oothu. Later
politicians and bureaucrats insisted that anything under the ground belonged to
the Government of India. The workers
averred. They said these blessings fell
from the sky and, with encouragement from Sylvester, touched my feet. It was as though I was responsible for their
windfall!
 |
| Forested hills around Oothu |
'What are you going
to name the little rascal?'
The south west
monsoon gave way to the north east. It
rained like something coming out of a bucket.
With Shehzarin pregnant once again, it gave rise to a great deal of
concern. How would we be able to take
her to Nagercoil in time for the delivery? Ricky and Prema suggested we leave
immediately but each day, during that dreary December of ’71, seemed to bring
more rain with it. We finally decided we
just had to go. It had already rained
eighty inches that week and the only vehicle we could trust in that lashing
rain, compounded with gale force winds, was our heavy Plymouth. We made it to the hospital just in time, with
Hazel Scott, the doctor who had delivered our daughter Mishez, saying, “Wait
son, wait son”, even as we walked into the hospital. Later she told us that boys were always
impatient, whereas Mishez had kept us waiting an extra two weeks!
“What are you going
to name the little rascal?” She enquired.
Shehzarin and I had
already thought about it. With all that
rain, lighting, thunder and wind what else could we have named him but Zeus?
Hazel clapped her hands in glee and approved heartily.
While all this was
happening, Ricky returned from leave to tell us that he would be leaving
Manimuttar for the Mudis. I didn’t take
this news well. We were a good
team. We understood one another and I
had no idea who would come in his place.
About the same time Willie D’Cruze was poached by an agency house in
another district: they thought he was God to produce such tea in South India!
N. M. Sreedharan
came to Manimuttar as Ricky’s replacement.
He was not into sports but was great company and not only left me to
work on my own but, to my chagrin, also asked me to put down another two
hundred acres of tea on Manimuttar’s North Division. John Bland had gone on furlough, leaving him
to manage the entire group and therefore unable to find time to do any
planting. He also said that we were to
stop manufacturing ‘Darjeeling’ tea.
It
had been just a little over three years since our arrival and yet it felt like
an eternity
The higher prices
realised by making ‘Darjeeling tea’, had pulled our average prices up by the
socks and we had leapfrogged Mudis for the first time. The Directors in Bombay, with no
understanding of tea, had been badgering the Mudis, wondering why their prices
weren’t keeping pace with the market.
With no answer other than to get Manimuttar prices back in perspective,
Sree was ordered to stop the nonsense going on at the Manimuttar factory. For me, a valuable lesson in the intricacies
of corporate chicanery.
Shree and Saby
became close friends as were Prithvi and Rani Jothikumar, the acting manager on
Manjolai and Kenny Shresta his assistant.
The group doctor, also on Manjolai, Dr. Krishnamoorty and the new
assistant on Manimuttar, Rammohan, were all part of our extended family. When news came that I was to be transferred
to the Mudis group, a pall hung over Singampatti. Even Mr. Shankeran, down in Kallaidaikurichi
was appalled. That evening I sat up late
on the veranda puffing on my pipe. It
had been just a little over three years since our arrival and yet it felt like
an eternity. Shehzarin joined me there
after the children were asleep.
“Upset?” She asked.
“I don’t know. Oothu feels like it’s a part of me.”
“You’ve finished your work here,” she said and
then surprised me with her astute observation: “Over nine hundred acres of new
planting; helping setup and run the green tea factory, making changes at the
Manimuttar factory. Running two estates
almost alone, finding time to play games and…”
I reached out for
her hand and together we enjoyed the darkness; listening to the sound of bears
whistling in the distance, the sawing of a leopard and the grunt of a tiger
close by.
“I couldn’t have
done it without you.” I whispered.
This is Minoo Avari's first story for Indian Chai Stories.
In his own words: I
was born in Calcutta on November the 26th 1945 though we were a
Darjeeling based family. I studied at North Point (St. Josephs College -
Darjeeling) and then went on to do my College in St. Xavier's College,
Calcutta. I played a lot of tennis at this point, travelling around the
Country playing in just about all the tournaments then.
 |
| Minoo at a tennis tournament |
Later
I joined the tea plantations in Darjeeling and was
on Ging and Tukdah Tea Estates till 1970 when I switched companies and
joined The Bombay Burmah Trading Corporation. I had got married earlier
in the year and my wife and I were posted to Oothu Estate in
Tirunelvelli District of Tamil Nadu. This is the story of stint there
for a little over three years.
Now
I lead a retired life - writing, playing tennis and enjoying riding my
motorcycle. I am currently the President of the local Farmers
Association and also the United Citizens Council of Kodaikanal. I am
also a member of the London Tea History Association.
Is this your first visit here? Welcome to Indian Chai Stories!
If you've ever visited a tea garden or lived in one, or if you have a good friend who did, you would have heard some absolutely improbable 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!
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, or long, short, impossible, scary, funny or exciting but never dull.
Do you have a chai story of your own to share?
Send it to me here, please : indianchaistories@gmail.com.
The blog is updated every two to three days. You will find yourself transported into another world!
Happy reading! Cheers to the spirit of Indian Tea!
Is this your first visit here? Welcome to Indian Chai Stories!
If you've ever visited a tea garden or lived in one, or if you have a good friend who did, you would have heard some absolutely improbable 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!
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, or long, short, impossible, scary, funny or exciting but never dull.
Do you have a chai story of your own to share?
Send it to me here, please : indianchaistories@gmail.com.
The blog is updated every two to three days. You will find yourself transported into another world!
Happy reading! Cheers to the spirit of Indian Tea!
