Margaret’s Hope - A Darjeeling Legend

 Hello again, dear readers! Today, I'm delighted to welcome another new writer to Indian Chai Stories. Thank you, Aditi, for telling us this lovely story of how a Darjeeling tea garden got its name. -Gowri

by Aditi Chakraborty

J.G.D. Cruickshank was the manager of Bara Ringtong Tea Estate in Darjeeling, between 1896-1927. His English family was awestruck by its picturesque setting amidst the Himalayas, little hills carpeted with tea shrubs and abundantly endowed with a variety of lichens and orchids.

His young daughter Margaret loved to walk through the tea gardens and spend her days outdoors. There was a little lake mirroring the blue sky. She loved to rest by it and watch the floating clouds and the fog descending on its waters, and she wrote her little diary.

Margaret fell in love with the estate and when she left for home in England, she left her heart in the hills and promised to return soon. The little girl died of a tropical disease on ship. Soon after, Cruickshank thought he had a vision of Margaret on the estate grounds. In memory of his daughter, he renamed the estate Margaret’s Hope.

Another version of the story that is popular with the locals goes like this. Margaret had a lung condition which worsened and she never recovered from it. One day her father told her that there was talk of laying a railway track on the hills and she requested him to make sure it would go by the estate. When she was very ill and couldn’t step outside, she would lie on her bed and look out of the large French windows hoping for the toy train to go whistling by. But she died soon after. The track ran close to the garden and the toy train did whistle by but her hope to ride a train in Darjeeling remained unfulfilled.

The other story narrated by the tea pickers is that Mr. Cruickshank had once said that he felt his dear daughter’s presence in the garden and eventually a couple of staff claimed to have seen her apparition. And the legend was born.

Today, Margaret’s Hope is owned by Goodricke group and is a much sought after tourist site. I enjoyed the trip to the plantation and like most days, when a film of mist covered the gardens, I thought of this young English girl’s spirit that haunts the green hills. I see her in my mind, sleeping, waking and walking her endless journey in the hope of finding her little dream, with passage of time forgetting the purpose of her wandering. She is like the mist on the hills, mysterious and much fabled.

Meet the writer:

 Aditi Chakraborty is a storyteller who remarkably paints a captivating narrative. Coupled with her undying passion to travel and meet new personalities, her journey of life has collectively shaped her thoughts that are often expressed vividly in her writing. Chakraborty has worked in the media, lifestyle and education industries across various cities in India and abroad. She holds a degree from FORE School of Management and Nottingham Trent University.

 

 Is this your first visit here? Welcome to Indian Chai Stories! Do you have a chai story of your own to share? Send it to me here, please : indianchaistories@gmail.com.

My name is Gowri Mohanakrishnan and I'm a tea planter's wife. I started this blog in 2018 because one of the things that I wouldn't want us to lose in a fast changing world is the tea story - a story always told with great seriousness, no matter how funny - always true (always) - maybe a tall tale, maybe long, short, impossible, scary, funny or exciting but never dull. You will find yourself transported to another world!

This is the link to all the stories on this blog: https://teastorytellers.blogspot.com/ Be sure to add it to your list of favourites! Happy reading!! Cheers to the spirit of Indian tea!

Bungalows that became homes

Hello again, dear readers!

Delighted to welcome you all to take a Sunday evening ramble with Gumi Malhotra. When I read this lovely little tale by Gumi, I was transported to another time and place …as I’m sure you will be. Don’t lose any time before you start reading, because you do want to be back in time for that cup of tea!! Cheers! - Gowri

by Gumi Malhotra

Transfers in tea meant a change or tweak in work environment for the husband, a different club for games, a new set of friends for us but most importantly for me, a new home. There was excitement and trepidation in equal measure about the new abode. I’m saying new but the bungalows we moved into had seen a multitude of families and bachelors make these handsome and somewhat weathered rooms into households.

The thrill of seeing an antique writing table, a new refrigerator and a well landscaped garden fully compensated for a rusted bathtub or a gloomy kitchen, the latter of which I luckily never saw much of!

Each family left something of themselves in these homes. Nails on the walls, which were dealt ferociously with pliers and paint, but occasionally one spotted sweet reminders of past inhabitants in the form of tiny marks on the wall marking the height progression of growing children. In tradition, one enjoyed a favorite dish of the previous family taught to the cook by the lady of the house.

There will always be a special house for all of us, for me it was the Chota bungalow in Nahortoli TE. It was a small cottage with the most charming garden which transformed from shades of green in summer to a blaze of colour in winter. This was Imaan’s first home where he had his first chaotic birthday party and like every hapless kid in tea, adults far outnumbered the children and alcohol flowed more freely than orange squash!

We spent three idyllic years in this bungalow and I would like to believe that it will always be a bit of mine.

Meet the writer: Gumi Malhotra

Hello chai people, here’s another attempt to pen down one of the million memories I carry with me. We came away twelve years ago with our hearts full ( not so much the pocket) of such nuggets. We live in Bangalore now and what started as a hobby in the gardens has become my calling. I paint pet portraits. The happiest days spent in tea were in the Jali kamra with my paints, the boys occupied with make believe cars and a steady stream of tea flowing from the kitchen. Cheers!

Is this your first visit here? Welcome to Indian Chai Stories! Do you have a chai story of your own to share? Send it to me here, please : indianchaistories@gmail.com.

 My name is Gowri Mohanakrishnan and I'm a tea planter's wife. I started this blog in 2018 because one of the things that I wouldn't want us to lose in a fast changing world is the tea story - a story always told with great seriousness, no matter how funny - always true (always) - maybe a tall tale, maybe long, short, impossible, scary, funny or exciting but never dull.

You will find yourself transported to another world! This is the link to all the stories on this blog: https://teastorytellers.blogspot.com/ Be sure to add it to your list of favourites! Happyreading!! Cheers to the spirit of Indian tea!

A Coffee Lover’s take on Tea!

Hello again, dear friends! Please welcome Rajan Mani to Indian Chai Stories. Thank you, Rajan, for sharing your thoughts with all of us. Goes to show there’s a world of stories in every cup of tea! Cheers! - Gowri 

by Rajan Mani

At the outset, this title sticks out like a sore thumb, doesn’t it? After all, what is coffee doing in a collection of tales full of chai ka bagan and chai? My defence is that it is an attempt to give a different perspective.

I grew  up in Delhi, but in a pakka TamBram family – so it was pretty much in line that coffee would be the beverage that would kick-start the day. Not just coffee, but filter kaapi made from roasting coffee seeds just so, then powdering the seeds in a contraption called a coffee grinder and then creating a decoction which when mixed with milk and sugar in my mother’s own formula would generate a heady elixir.

My parents belonged to an era where instant coffee was just entering India and Nescafe and the like were not just recognized by them. In fact there is a story in our extended family circle, probably apocryphal, that a prospective marriage alliance got grounded because one of the parties served (hold your breath!) cups of instant coffee rather than filter coffee. During my graduation, my love affair with coffee continued, but a two year stint in Jamshedpur for my PG in management introduced me to tea and varieties of it. We had a small tea stall just outside the hostel and Fazal, the guy who ran it spiced up especially our winter afternoons with his elaichi chai and adhrak chai. It definitely made me take a relook at chai.

Corporate life gave me a totally new view of how tea divided and how it categorized! My first assignment was in a company with British partnership which made bicycles and my stint at the factory helped me understand how the cup in which it was served made a difference. Workers on the shopfloor would be given their cuppa in small steel tumblers, their supervisors would get the same brew in mugs with handles, officers and managers would get cups on saucers with their tea and for the top brass, tea would be served by a liveried waiter with the ingredients separate and mixed to taste in front of each big man.

The stint in sales which followed was a different learning experience and I found that tea was a more palatable drink than the ‘Nescoffee’ latte which many dealer friends wanted to give me, because ‘aap South se hain’! Our biggest dealer in Pune, I found, had a pecking order using tea for the sales people who called on him.

The starting level was chai – ordinary tea from the neighbouring tea stall in the stall’s cups, not particularly clean and maybe even with a crack or two. People who were more useful to Popatbhai would get ‘chai, special cup me’ – he had given a set of his crockery to the tea shop! The next promotion was to ‘special chai, special cup me’ – special chai meant more sugar and some spices in the brew. The ultimate level was Popatlal Seth calling someone home for a sumptuous Marwari meal!

I have realized from all this experience that tea is not just tea. There is a huge difference between tea from different locations and between dust tea, leaf tea and tea from tea bags, but though I have a prominent sweet tooth, I draw a line at the ‘khadi chamach’ chai of some areas in Maharashtra. The brew is so thick and has so much sugar in it that a spoon can literally stand vertically in the cup. It just isn’t, well, my cup of tea!

Starting from being just a kaapi drinker, I am now equally comfortable with either tea or coffee though I must confess that my day starts only when filter kaapi courses through my veins! For me, as somebody said, it is still ‘Coffee is a beverage, but kaapi is an emotion’.

Meet the writer:

Rajan Mani

Rajan Mani is a Dilli wala Madrasi who is now settled in Chennai. His management degree took him to a sales career, but halfway through,  he got off the bus and became a Prof in a B-school. He uses his retirement usefully by pretending to help his wife, whistling old Hindi songs and composing bad limericks.

Is this your first visit here? Welcome to Indian Chai Stories! Do you have a chai story of your own to share? Send it to me here, please : indianchaistories@gmail.com.

My name is Gowri Mohanakrishnan and I'm a tea planter's wife. I started this blog in 2018 because one of the things that I wouldn't want us to lose in a fast changing world is the tea story - a story always told with great seriousness, no matter how funny - always true (always) - maybe a tall tale, maybe long, short, impossible, scary, funny or exciting but never dull. You will find yourself transported to another world!

This is the link to all the stories on this blog: https://teastorytellers.blogspot.com/ Be sure to add it to your list of favourites! Happy reading!! Cheers to the spirit of Indian tea!

“Chai Pe Charcha” : My thoughts on tea

Hello friends! Here is Story #3 to mark “Birthday month” at Indian Chai Stories! A hearty welcome to Gayathri Ramachandran. “To a South Indian brahmin, coffee is intrinsic to life, but tea was anathema….In the land of tea from the Nilgiris, Munnar and Valparai, how could they feel this way?” asks Gayathri. Thank you for sharing your lovely memories, Gayathri!! You took me back to another time and place with the beautiful photograph of your grandmother. 😀 - Gowri

by  Gayathri Ramachandran

Friends promised to drop in for 'high tea' on Saturday and my thoughts turned to what I had been reading recently - interesting accounts of life during the British era in the various tea gardens of India.

Then I dwelt in my mind on what life was like during my grandfather's time in Valparai and Pollachi. I have heard that my grandfather Mr TS Mani Iyer and his younger brother Natesan Iyer had a transport Company in Pollachi which transported chests of tea from Valparai to various places.  There is a street named after my grandfather : 'Mani Iyer Street' ( now called Mani Street), running parallel to the Railway Station at Pollachi.  Natesan Company still has its outpost in Kallidai Kurichi in Tamil Nadu.  My father narrated anecdotes of Naachimuthu Kaunder ( father of Sri Mahalingam) who worked for my grandfather.

I had my early childhood in the sprawling house of my grandfather Mr Mani Iyer in Pollachi. At times we used to accompany him to Top Slip. Mr elder brother Suresh and I would spend our play time sliding down on the grass and watch gleefully as the 'Touch me Not' closed to our touch!!

My grandmother Janaki, who served tea to 'Doraisanis' of Valparai!

One of my aunts, Balammma, would give me interesting accounts of how my grandmother, clad in the traditional nine yards sari, would entertain her British guests - the 'dorasanis' - to tea with impeccable taste and grace both Valparai and Pollachi houses! The tea, I am sure, is the Valparai tea. To a South Indian brahmin, coffee is intrinsic to life but tea was anathema for a very long time. In the land of tea from the Nilgiris, Munnar and Valparai, how could they feel this way?

Valparai

Traditionally, coffe is served in brass / stainless steel or pure silver tumblers and dawara, wheareas tea has the dubious distinction of being served in glass tumblers or porcelain cups. It is believed that tea tastes better when served in porcelain. There should be a 'Tea Ceremony' in the households that serve tea. The golden brew deserves a good treatment!! 

I was brought up on a diet of coffee till I moved to New Delhi after marriage. Tea became the 'word' gaining all importance. Living among the Punjabis, this exotic beverage became a centre point in socialising during wintry afternoons. I was introduced to kadak chai, adhrak chai, masala chai, cardomom chai, green chai and white chai.White tea is costlier than the other vareities of tea. This amazing fact dawned on me when my daughter in law Ruchi presented me with a packet of white tea. In Ooty there is a government run facility which entertains and educates the visitors on the process of how the deftly picked tea leaves become the final product..from procuring the tea leaves to its journey of becoming a magic drink. There they even treat you to a 'cuppa' as you leave the factory.

Whenever I visit Valparai, I wonder if there is any such facility there! Tea brewing is a special art…you can boil tea leaves in water and milk and make it really sweet with fair amount of sugar and sometimes a few bits of ginger to alleviate headache, cold or that bone chilling winter weather! Chai Pe Charcha, with friends, also taught me how to make that delectable beverage for the morning or afternoon in the true British style. In boiling water just sprinkle a teaspoon of tea and close it with a lid. After a few seconds, strain the golden coloured brew and have it with milk/honey/ sugar!! Voila!! There's the 'delightful cuppa' that you can have with tea biscuits or tea cake as the British planters did it in Valparai. 

With Meenu Nair who so efficiently manage Valparai Sinna Dorai Bungalow. We had an awesome stay and tasted the best brewed tea!

‘Chai hojaye!' is a familiar sweet music welcomed with cheer while you play cards or just have some plain 'gup shup'. Oh! my taste for tea grew and the bitter 'after taste' of coffee was replaced with the milder invigorating drink. Tea finally arrived in my life. I enjoy tea in various forms, white, green or golden, with or with out milk, sweet or just black!!! Living in Delhi, the plethora of brands of tea made my head dizzy! Darjeeling, Ananda, Chai Chun, Tetleys, Nilgiri or Kannan Devan but after coming to our own land of tea gardens in the Western Ghats, I became a connoisseur of tea from Ooty and Valparai. I delight in sending packages of tea to my family in Delhi and Mumbai. For friends, nothing can be better than a gift of Nilgiri tea with a note on how to prepare it!!!

Meet the writer

Gayathri in Coimbatore

Is this your first visit here? Welcome to Indian Chai Stories! Do you have a chai story of your own to share? Send it to me here, please : indianchaistories@gmail.com. 

My name is Gowri Mohanakrishnan and I'm a tea planter's wife. I started this blog in 2018 because one of the things that I wouldn't want us to lose in a fast changing world is the tea story - a story always told with great seriousness, no matter how funny - always true (always) - maybe a tall tale, maybe long, short, impossible, scary, funny or exciting but never dull. You will find yourself transported to another world! 

This is the link to all the stories on this blog: https://teastorytellers.blogspot.com/ 
Be sure to add it to your list of favourites! Happy reading!! Cheers to the spirit of Indian tea!

The Louis Mandelli Saga – Continued!

Hello again, dear friends! 

Here’s the second of the three stories I promised you this birthday month! Two years ago, Sarita Dasgupta told us the story of Louis Mandelli, the nineteenth century Italian tea planter and ornithologist from Darjeeling. Today she tells us more about the Mandelli family…in another era!!

Thank you, Sarita😀!!

by Sarita Dasgupta

 
When I wrote my story about Louis Mandelli, little did I dream the amount of interest it would arouse and what it would lead to!

I decided to write about Louis Mandelli because firstly, I was intrigued by the fact that he was the only Italian tea planter I had heard of, and secondly, being a bird-lover myself, I was impressed by the fact that as an amateur but enthusiastic ornithologist, he had discovered hitherto undocumented Himalayan bird species which were subsequently named after him. And now, what the article led to…

Firstly…

Louis’ great-great-grandson, Jason Mendelli, based in Japan, came across my story while researching his lineage. He emailed Gowri, our editor, who forwarded his email to me, and I replied. This led to a further exchange of information, which, with his permission, I am now sharing with the readers.

Louis Mandelli and his wife, Ann, had two sons and three daughters. One of the sons, Louis Hildebrand Robert, joined the Railways as a travelling ticket collector, and rose to become Station Master in Darjeeling. He and his wife, Alice, had a son in August 1893, and christened him Louis Herbert Francis.

Not much is known about Louis Herbert Francis, except that he was a Commercial Traveller (travelling salesman) and lived in Kolkata during the latter part of his life. There, he had a relationship with a lady called Nora, and a son was born to them on 3 October 1923. He was baptized Norman Melville Louis Mandellie on 5 January 1924 at the Church of the Sacred Heart, Dharmatala, Kolkata.

Jason with his father Norman

Norman grew up in Kolkata and went to school in Lucknow. He joined the police force as an officer, and was stationed with a group of Gorkhas in an outpost on the northern border of India. Norman told Jason about being attacked by around a hundred horse-riding marauders wielding knives. Fortunately, he survived but was haunted by the memories of this traumatic event for the rest of his life.

Norman left India for the USA in the early 1950s and lived there for some years before moving to London. He worked for an aeronautical company in his earlier years, and then managed a psychiatric hospital. He married a lovely lady called Yvette, and they had seven children, Jason being one of them.

Jason grew up in London, and worked in the film industry. He then moved to Japan with his wife, Yoko, and daughter, Emma, and is currently writing his first book.

Jason, Emma and Yoko

Secondly…

The Consul-General of Italy in Kolkata, Dr Gianluca Rubagotti, was researching Italians who had contributed in some way, or made a mark in the eastern states of India that come under the Consulate-General of Italy in Kolkata. He read my article and was interested in knowing more about Louis Mandelli. This led to an event held in Kurseong on 3 November 2021, to honour the 19th century tea planter’s contribution to the region. The event was organized by the Italian Consulate-General in partnership with the Kolkata-based NGO, FREED (Force for Rural Empowerment and Economic Development).

Mr Adya and Mr Pyne of FREED, Sarita Dasgupta, Dr Rubagotti, Dr Spadoni

 I was invited to be part of the panel comprising Dr Rubagotti, Dr Massimo Spadoni (Scientific Officer at the Italian Embassy in New Delhi, and avid bird-watcher) and myself, and asked to acquaint the local populace with Mandelli’s life as a tea planter and naturalist, which I did through a visual presentation. I also played them an audio-visual message from Jason Mendelli.

The next day, we drove to Darjeeling and paid our respects at Louis Mandelli’s grave at the Catholic Singtom Cemetery.

Louis Mandelli’s grave at the Catholic Singtom Cemetery

It is true that one can never foresee the consequences of one’s actions. I can only be glad that my ‘action’ of writing Louis Mandelli’s story led to my acquaintance with Jason Mandelli and Dr Rubagotti, and to a renewed interest in, and recognition of, Louis Mandelli’s contribution to the tea industry and the natural history of the region in which he chose to spend his life.

Meet the writer: Sarita Dasgupta

Sarita enjoying a warm cup of Kawakawa tea in New Zealand.  

Read about it here

"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.

More stories by Sarita 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 in 2018 because one of the things that I wouldn't want us to lose in a fast changing world is the tea story - a story always told with great seriousness, no matter how funny - always true (always) - maybe a tall tale, maybe long, short, impossible, scary, funny or exciting but never dull. You will find yourself transported to another world! 

This is the link to all the stories on this blog: https://teastorytellers.blogspot.com/ 
Be sure to add it to your list of favourites! Happy reading!! Cheers to the spirit of Indian tea!

Jolly Jalopy

 Thank you, Nandita, for chronicling Rita’s reminiscences for all of us. Thanks to Rita for sharing this story…it will surely put a smile on your face, dear reader! - Gowri

by Nandita Tiwari

She was rudely awakened by the loud sound of what seemed to be a damaged silencer pipe of a vehicle. It was way past midnight and she could sense the vehicle going at top speed around their bungalow. She covered her ears and looked at her husband Kuldip, only to find him rejoicing gleefully. He exclaimed, “They have arrived! Come meet my buddies from Rydak – across the river.”

“Who? At this unearthly hour?”

“Nothing unusual about it, they always enter through the botol khana,” stated Kuldip.

It had been a little over a week when on a freezing night in the first week of February 1975, Rita, the new bride, had alighted at the Alipurduar platform. The two-hour long, dusty and bumpy drive to the No. 16 bungalow was soon tucked away in the folds of her memory and she began settling down to the “candle-lit” lifestyle, as the chhotta bungalows would get electricity only when the factory was running; a far contrast from the bright and vibrant Delhi life that she was accustomed to.

No. 16 bungalow - Sankos Tea Estate

That particular night, she awoke to the whirr of the engine. Rita heard a voice blasting in with a thunderous “Koi hai?”

She now stood in the gol kamra with a warm smile while her husband introduced the bachelors as his friends – Prem Singh and Rustomfram.

“Oh yes, haven’t we met at the Jainti Sankos club?” she asked.

“Of course Rita,” said Prem in his deep drawl, “and now you will see us more often.”

“That’s great,” replied Rita asking if they would like to have something. “A cup of tea perhaps?”

“Oh! We have already done justice to a brimful dekchi of milk from your fridge today,” they replied as laughter echoed in the drawing room of the Sankos bungalow.

“There’s plenty more to have,” said Rita mentally rummaging through the contents of the Electrolux kerosene fridge. “We’re good to go,” the friends replied and made themselves comfortable on the sofa. Rita’s eyes met two shy but well-behaved youngsters dressed in shorts and hunter boots. They stood up to greet her and Rustomfram introduced them as new recruits who had just been inducted at Rydak Tea Estate.

The jokes, banter and the inane but hilarious repartee carried on into the night. Then, as abruptly as they had arrived, Prem clapped his hands and said, “Okay boys, time to go.” Obediently, they stood up and made their way out. Prem and Rustomfram said their back-slapping goodbyes as the couple stood in the verandah to see them off.

Rita and Bawa Kuldip Singh

In front of the bungalow, an old retired Army jeep, which had not seen a coat of paint for decades, was parked. The jeep had no hood and only two seats in the front. So starry nights, torrential rains and winter chills had equal charm. Prem beckoned the chowkidaar and it seemed that it was another familiar drill as the chowkidaar came with the jerry cans. Using a half-broken bottle as a funnel, the jeep was made to drink up half a can of petrol.

Rita was bewildered as a ludicrous scene unfolded before her eyes. The boys stood behind the jeep jogging on the spot. Prem started the ignition as Rustomfram sat next to him. “Prem’s khatara has its own rules for starting up,” said Rustomfram in friendly banter.

On Prem’s cue, the new recruits began shuffling and pushing the jeep forward. Soon, it coughed and gurgled and with a jerk, it came to life. As it inched forward, the two new boys ran and jumped in the back, into the comfort of cotton quilts.

Rita looked at her husband, feeling somewhat sorry at the silent discomfort of the boys. But Kuldip stated as a matter-of-fact, “Inki training ho rahi hai.” (They are being trained.)

Soon, into the darkness, they sped away on the narrow desolate roads. The only sound that pierced the silence of the estates was that of the jalopy. They felt the cool breeze on their faces as well as the warmth of the spirits radiating from within them.

The jeep made its way on the dry shore amongst the boulders and crossed the fair-weather bamboo bridge spanning across the larger stream of Rydak river. They had barely covered a mile when the engine began to sputter and gradually died. It seemed that the landscape had acquired a hyper-realism lit by the moon and the twinkling stars. The fields stretched endlessly, broader and flatter than during the daylight hours. The sky looked inkier and the river glassier. The night was edging towards dawn, though still devoid of birdsongs. They heard a growl.

“The leopards are on the prowl,” warned the seniors.

The boys looked at each other, taking a moment to soak in the vastness of their surroundings a wee bit nervous and then repeated the routine of push, shove and jump as they drove on. Prem proudly beamed and stated, “in spite of many odds, this Jalopy has a ‘carry-home-instinct’ and we have lived many adventures, always managing to find our way back home.”

L - R - Bawa Kuldip Singh, Sarosh Rustomfram,| Prem Singh, Vijay Singh Mann, Bawa Kuldip Singh, B Narayan 

Glossary:

Botol khana: Pantry

Chhotta bungalow: Assistant manager's bungalow 

Gol kamra: Drawing room

Dekchi: Metal pot used for heating

Chowkidaar: Night sentinel

Khatara: Jalopy (an old car in a dilapidated condition)

Meet the writer: Nandita Tiwari

Nandita joined the tea fraternity in 1991 when she arrived in Danguajhar in the Dooars. She and her husband Akhil were in various gardens in the Dooars for over 30 years, and also in Amgoorie (Assam) for a brief period of time. They are now settled in Siliguri.

In 2019, Nandita decided to start penning down some of the unique experiences that came her way.

 You can read her stories on her own blog, here: https://nanditat6.wixsite.com/rosee-t

Is this your first visit here? Welcome to Indian Chai Stories! Do you have a chai story of your own to share? Send it to me here, please : indianchaistories@gmail.com. 

My name is Gowri Mohanakrishnan and I'm a tea planter's wife. I started this blog because one of the things that I wouldn't want us to lose in a fast changing world is the tea story - a story always told with great seriousness, no matter how funny - always true (always) - maybe a tall tale, maybe long, short, impossible, scary, funny or exciting but never dull. You will find yourself transported to another world! 

This is the link to all the stories on this blog: https://teastorytellers.blogspot.com/ 
Be sure to add it to your list of favourites! Happy reading!! Cheers to the spirit of Indian tea!

A ‘slight’ Mishap

Happy New Year to all of you, dear readers! Many thanks to Indi Khanna for sending us another entertaining story from the High Ranges. Happy reading! Oh, and if you've been waiting to tell us a story of your own, don't lose any time - do write to me.  Cheers! 

Prefaced with an advance apology to Johnny. 

Have taken some literary licence.

Absolutely no offence meant!

This was probably in 1978 while I was the SD (Sena Dorai = Assistant Superintendent) on Panniar. Abid had been transferred to Wallardie Estate in Vandiperiyar and had handed over the estate to John Mathew, who had been moved to the High Ranges from Mooply, a low country rubber property. 

 Ahead of my job with Malayalam’s having been formalised and as a preamble to that, having been sent for my extension interview (Diving headfirst into my calling – a yarn which I have already spun) to Mooply where Johnny was the Superintendent, I had already ‘experienced’ the new PD first hand, albeit in a rather perfunctory way. 

Which experience, bearing in mind that at that point of time my interaction with Johnny was with me being an interviewee, is all it could have been. Post my appointment as an Assistant in Malayalam Plantations, whenever a couple of SDs got together, more often than not the conversation would veer towards the fault lines of each other’s PDs (not that this is in any way different from any other industry, it being a well established and universally accepted fact that regardless of who he/she may be, the boss simply can NEVER be right).

And so, over many a drink, each of those 26 gentlemen who lorded over the tea and rubber properties of Malayalam Plantations as well as all of us underlings, would naturally end up under a microscope with their peculiarities magnified many times over and their personalities being rather gleefully shredded to bits. For whatever be the reasons, at every such session, my new PD always got very special treatment. The upshot being that long before he had moved to Panniar, Johnny’s reputation had preceded him.

Not just amongst the SDs, but across all sections of executive of Malayalam Plantations, it was a known and established fact that Mr Mathew was an extremely fastidious gentleman, his demeanour accepted as being an extreme and acute case of incurable OCD. On which one point, after Johnny had taken over the property, I was constantly being ribbed by my colleagues on the other Malalyam Estates in the High Ranges (Surianalle & Lockhart). Despite all the leg pulling I was subjected to, with me being the lone assistant on Panniar, regardless of his idiosyncrasies, the fact was that my PD and I shared a good relationship and got along rather well with each other.

While that has obviously and most unfortunately, as is happening all over in our country, changed on account of what is nowadays touted as being ‘development’, back in the day the High Range district had only two venerated institutions.

 One being the High Range Club which was the focal point of the social activity of every planter in the district, while the other was the Masonic Lodge (Lodge Heather) which was the preserve of the upper crust planting society and from which we hoi polloi were excluded. Freemasons being a VERY secretive lot and since Lodge Heather was totally bereft of any windows which one could peep in thorough, all that us lowly lot knew about that establishment was that this airtight, box-like building was the meeting place of the gentlemen who would gather in the Lodge at regular intervals all decked up in their bow ties, frills and dinner jackets – for a session of serious binge drinking. Need it be added that John Mathew Esq. was very much a member of that select and secretive society.

One day mid week at morning muster my Conductor, the formidable Mr. Balia who always had his ear to the ground and knew EVERYTHING that ever happened on Panniar, after looking this way and that to make sure no one else was within earshot, bends down and in a very conspiratorial manner whispers in my ear “Sir, last night PD came back very late, almost at five o’clock”. Not getting what he had expected to be the desired reaction he repeated the statement, this time stressing on the VERY. Waits a minute to let that headline news sink in and then tops it up with the icing on the cake, “He came back in a taxi”. Seeing that this last statement had made me prick up my ears he drops in the best one yet – “Sir, the taxi has not gone back to Munnar, it’s still standing at PD's bungalow.” That had me wondering.

While I was still analysing Mr Balia’s rather interesting breaking news, our tapal (mail) boy, breathless with not just the sprint down from the main office but also evidently in a state of extreme excitement, comes rushing down to the muster to tell me that the PD wants to see me. URGENTLY.

Walking into his office I was greeted with a rather jolly ‘Good morning’ and then am asked to have a seat. This came as a bit of a surprise because Johnny had never, till that day, asked me to pull up a chair in his office. With me seated across from him, there was some inconsequential chit-chat about some innocuous stuff following which I am told, “Last evening there was a meeting at the Masonic Lodge”. There being no reaction from the assistant, this was followed up with “I’d gone for the Lodge meeting”.  My “You had mentioned this to me yesterday” was responded to with words which sounded almost as though he was rather reluctantly letting the cat out of the bag.

“I came back in a taxi”. Which interesting statement, since I was not supposed to be aware of this, obviously had to be reacted to. My curiosity was dismissed in a cursory manner, leading to me being advised that the taxi was parked at his bungalow and had been held back because Johnny wanted me to go to Munnar to bring back his car which he said he had to leave behind since he’d had a “slight mishap”.

This pronouncement was followed by a string of instructions that:

~I should immediately head off to Munnar in the cab.

~I should take along 4 workers as they would be required to push start his car.

~The I’d find the car somewhere along the road to the High Range Club.

~And that I should now go up to his bungalow where Ramani (Mrs. Mathew) would give me a couple of   old towels to take along. “Towels – what for?”

In response, the cherry on top of the icing on the cake, “when the workers push the car, please have them keep a towel between their hands and the car so that the cars paintwork doesn’t get scratched!”

With me swallowing hard, keeping a straight face, having the most difficult time trying to control my emotions and holding back on blurting out what I would have really wanted to say, the final request (instruction) followed – That this entire episode was a highly confidential matter to be kept strictly between the two of us and that I obviously should not be discussing or sharing this with anyone else, especially not with any other Malayalam’s executive.

Arranged four workers, duly collected the towels from Ramani, hopped into the cab which had been kept back to transport me and the retrieval party and headed off to Munnar.

Since I had no idea where exactly the car had been abandoned, after crossing the bridge into Munnar and heading towards the High Range Club, all the members of the retrieval platoon kept looking left and right but none of us could see any sign of the abandoned vehicle. In the process having reached the club I asked the staff there whether anyone knew where the Panniar PD's car was. The only information I could glean from them was what had been passed on to the day staff by the night watchman which was that, late at night the car was driven out of the club premises at great speed and screeching of tyres. Nothing beyond that. So back we headed towards the exit towards Panniar from Munnar.

For those who know the lay of the land in Munnar you’d be aware that the road between the High Range Club and Lodge Heather has a very sharp bend, almost like a U-turn, with the lower side of the road dropping off sharply to end in a swamp. And there she was! 

Happily wallowing in the bog like a wild boar, with the slush having crept almost halfway up to the height of the doors of the car. It was beyond not just mine but anyone’s imagination or comprehension as to how one was supposed to have the vehicle pushed out from that muck with the joint effort of those four workers who had accompanied me, each one well armed with towels loaned to us to ensure ‘no scratch on the paintwork’ by Ramani. Having honed in one the target and having let go off the cab, I walked up to one of the staff houses on the non-swamp side of the road to seek help.

Having knocked on the door of the first house, I explained to the lady who answered the knock who I was and what it was that I needed to do, to which the response was for the lady wanting to know who was the owner of the car which had found its way into the swamp. Told that it was the Panniar PDs Ambassador, the lady in a most concerned voice says “first tell me please how badly injured is the gentleman?” 

On being told that the gentleman in question was alive and kicking and sans so much as even a scratch, rather disbelievingly and becoming goggle-eyed the lady informs me that late at night they had heard this car come hurtling down the road, had heard the tyres screeching and then had seen the vehicle literally fly off the road to plonk itself in the swamp! The flight of the Ambassador having taken place in the wee hours of the morning, it was obvious that neither she nor anyone could have actually witnessed the take-off and that what she was sharing with me had to be conjecture and had to be assumed as being the only possibility.

Borrowing a cycle from the lady I pedalled up to the Chokhonad Estate office (the High Range Club and the Lodge are both located on that KDHP property) where I requested the manager (Mr Asad Mohsin) for assistance. 

After he had absorbed what I must have simply blurted out, and taking the crazy situation in his stride (planters had this uncanny knack and ability of ALWAYS being able to take any and everything in their stride) Asad explained to me, as he would to an idiot child, that the assistance I was seeking of a few more helping hands would simply not work. Following which advice I was sent back, seated on a tractor, equipped with a towing cable. Accompanying me on the trailer behind the tractor was a whole gang of workers who were all, obviously, having a good laugh at my expense. I leave it to the readers' imagination to try and figure out how we got that poor half submerged Ambassador back on to the road. And horror of horrors, not one of the gang of workers used those towels! In the process, with all of us having descended into the bog to lend a helping hand while the tractor did its job, each one of us was generously spattered with stinking and cloying mud from from head to toe - but that was another matter altogether.

The Ambassador having been hauled back on to terra firma (those vehicles, while stodgy in looks were accepted and known to be very hardy and robust) and having been checked to make sure no bits or pieces of the vehicle had been left behind in the swamp to keep the resident boars company, the engine actually kicked into life with one turn of the self starter. Took the messed up vehicle across to the High Range Club where we hosed it down, after which I got the mud-spattered retrieval party squad of four to pile into the back seat for the drive drive back to Panniar. 

Arriving at the estate, I drove straight up to the PDs bungalow where, since it was by now lunch time, I had expected to find the PD. Having heard the car coming up the bungalow driveway, Johnny who had likely been waiting on edge, came rushing out, threw a rather perfunctory, ‘Thank you’ my way and then got busy with a through 360 degree inspection of the vehicle, looking for damage and any scratches on the paintwork! I still vividly remember him as being rather upset (a literal and the colloquial translation of that would read as – he was pissed off as hell) by the fact that the white seat covers of his beloved Ambassador were caked with a thick layer of muck and mud and that the inside of the car was smelling about as pleasant as a well used pig-pen!

The bottom line being that back in the day while planting was always loads of hard work, the balancing factor and compensation was provided by bucketloads of comic relief.

Loved every minute of it! 

-Indi Khanna

Meet the writer:

Indi Khanna with Xerox

With an industry experience and a tea knowledge base of four and a half decades and counting, I literally live and breathe tea. 

Starting my career in 1975 as an Assistant Superintendent with Malayalam Plantations Ltd, rolling up my sleeves by 'dirtying' my hands at the grassroots level and having literally 'grown' in the business, my experiences have matured me into a ‘one of a kind’ unique entity in the industry.

My journey which literally starts from the tea nursery and stretches all the way up to the consumer shelf, is in many ways unique. Regularly roaming the tea world, delving into the most remote areas wherever tea is grown or consumed, constantly interacting with Tea folk, I have always been learning and innovating. The invaluable experiences along this very interesting route have culminated into a unique new venture, a one-of-a-kind specialty tea manufacturing facility unit in the Nilgiris - www.teastudio.info.

My life has been and continues to be blessed.

Thankfully this very interesting Tea journey continues as an ongoing learning experience.

Read more by Indi Khanna here: https://teastorytellers.blogspot.com/search/label/Indi%20Khanna 

Is this your first visit here? Welcome to Indian Chai Stories! Do you have a chai story of your own to share? Send it to me here, please : indianchaistories@gmail.com. 

My name is Gowri Mohanakrishnan and I'm a tea planter's wife. I started this blog because one of the things that I wouldn't want us to lose in a fast changing world is the tea story - a story always told with great seriousness, no matter how funny - always true (always) - maybe a tall tale, maybe long, short, impossible, scary, funny or exciting but never dull. You will find yourself transported to another world! 

This is the link to all the stories on this blog: https://teastorytellers.blogspot.com/
Be sure to add it to your list of favourites! Happy reading!! Cheers to the spirit of Indian tea!

In Memory of David Air

 

Thank you for weaving us all into the web on Koi-Hai, David!

David Air passed away on the 22nd December, before I posted my Christmas greetings to him. 

David was the founder and editor of  Koi-Hai.com, a webpage that brought together people all over the world who had worked in the tea gardens of Assam, Dooars and Darjeeling. He launched the website in 1999, and it became a virtual club for thousands of planters and their families. They sent in stories and photographs, and they sought and found old connections, friends and family roots. No easy task setting up a service like this some two decades before the era of WhatsApp groups.

David included me in his list of correspondents and gave me a page on Koi-Hai some fifteen years ago. Seeing my posts up there gave me the encouragement I needed to keep writing about the Dooars and our life in the tea gardens there.

Two days ago I sat and re-read all our old emails, and found these lines I'd sent him:

"I'd never have written ...(as much as I did ) if it hadn't been for you and Shalini Mehra. I remain indebted to Shalini and to Ali Zaman for introducing me to Koi-Hai and to you. I always admired the way you'd take out time to acknowledge every story that I sent, and you would give it a fine introduction as well (whether it was deserving or not! )"

David left India in 1962 - the year I was born. His interest in India and the tea gardens went beyond any nostalgic longing for days past. He was always delighted to get my little 'reports' of some quirky occurrence in the bagan - like the one on (the failed) Doomsday in 2008, when dozens of workers in our garden stayed home, slaughtering all their poultry and livestock in preparation for one last grand chicken and mutton lunch.

David was a wonderful editor. He was patient and encouraging without being patronising. He would acknowledge emails promptly. When he'd posted anything I'd sent him, I'd find a courteous note in my inbox, asking me to take a look at the 'What's New' page on Koi-Hai, to see whether I "approved" of the introduction he'd written and the way he'd presented the story.

Koi-Hai was my inspiration for Indian Chai Stories, but I had never edited so much as a school magazine until I started working on it. There were many things to worry about - how much to leave out in a longish story, how much to alter, and so on. And then I would think of David's way of doing things - he welcomed everything anyone sent him, and valued the effort they'd made. Each one of the contributors mattered to him. Koi-Hai was about people, at the end of the day.

I'd once written to David introducing a friend who was too shy to send him anything herself, and his response was characteristically generous: "Any friend of yours, Gowri", he wrote, "is a friend of mine." David was kind - he was indulgent, really, and there was much humour in his emails. He often addressed me as 'young lady' which did wonders for my ego!

No one could have been as selfless or self-effacing while working single handed on a web page with so much traffic, and which was, I imagine, a sort of "India Abroad" for so many. To those of us in India who still live in the tea plantations, it became a virtual bridge across time and space, connecting us to people all over the world who had also lived and loved this life.

I'm happy to re-post below a piece on David by Ali Zaman which appeared in Shalini Mehra's Camellia several years ago. Many thanks to Alan Lane who sent me the digital copy.

- Gowri Mohanakrishnan

 

THE KOI HAI OF DOT COM

by Ali Zaman

David Air, the author of website http.//www.koi-hai.com, has enabled personnel who served in the tea industry, now scattered across the globe, to keep in touch with one another and narrate those tales of a unique life style they had lead in India. The life style, from the days of the British pioneers has not totally faded away, in spite of the changes of time. Many traditions and customs prevail and the age old summon, ‘koi hai’, which activates personnel on a tea estate, can at times, still be heard.

David, who qualified as an engineer, flew with the Fleet Air Arm of the Royal Navy. One day, the First Sea Lord, Mountbatten of Burma, was reviewing the officers, who were all Sub Lieuttenans (Air) in the aircraft carrier HMS Theseus, he stopped in front of David and enquired of his name. “Sub Lieut Air Sir”,

Lord Mountbatten quipped, “I don’t want your b----- rank I want your name”. When the Squadron Commanding Officer explained that his name was indeed ‘Air’ Mountbatten exclaimed, “Good God” and moved on. 

On his release from service, a family friend in the tea trade arranged an interview for David with George Williamson in London. The Company recruited him as a mistri sahib and sent him to Assam. It was work from the day he joined Mijicajan, in 1954, with no respite, even when he fell through the factory roof!

The Sterling Companies, after WW II and India’s independence, studied the future of Indian tea before investing in their properties. The scenario appeared encouraging and companies commenced developing their fields and factories. A change over from orthodox manufacture to CTC was made. David was soon an authority on CTC’s and at the same time fitting into plantation life.

David mentions the veteran planter Doug Meston, of Borpukhuri, a confirmed bachelor, a great shikari, and a good host, who held on to his guests. Meston had his living room furniture arranged in a manner where the bearers never stepped in front of the guests to refill the glasses. The trained bungalow personnel kept topping the drinks from the back without the visitors’ knowledge. Dinner was always served late and the cook would be summoned and reprimanded for serving cold soup. The soup removed for reheating was an excuse for the host to lead the guests back to the gol kamra for more rounds. Meston served what he hunted; the steaks could be anything from elephant, tiger or python meat! 

The Company Air Scheme, under the charge of the Superintendent at Pertabghur, was operated by an eccentric pilot. The pilot, never on good terms with the Superintendent, regularly complained of technical defects of the aircraft. David was asked by the Superintendent to give an opinion on the plane’s air worthiness. This was done and reported that he could find no fault. The plane was then flown back to Majulighur by the pilot with David accompanying him in the passenger seat. Shortly after take off, to David’s great embarrassment the planes engine cut out –point made by company pilot deliberate or otherwise.

At Borgang he had encounters with the unnatural and natural. He describes his dinner disappearing in front of his eyes from the tray held by the bearer. Queries revealed of eerie happenings in that residence. Another night the house shook and it was not an earthquake. It was a herd of elephants scratching their backs on the bungalow’s walls. 

It was at Borgang that his fiancée Christine joined him and they were married on the estate. For their honeymoon the couple drove to Shillong in a Standard Vanguard estate car, which had indicators between the doors that lit up and flipped out to show directions. The honeymooners had difficulty driving to Shillong as wedding guests had reversed the connections between the horn and signal. Applying the horn had the indicators flipping out and the horn blew relentlessly when the signals were operated. The frustrated groom, in desperation, yanked off the wires to the horn.

Christine and David settled down to tea life. The children arrived, the first born a pair of twins, boy and girl. With the second birth, another set of twins, two boys, the Superintendent quipped, “David, you must realise that you are paid to produce teas”!! At Mijicajan an elephant, adored by the children, became the family pet. The owner, John Batten, who reared the animal from a calf, was posted to Africa for eighteen months. A dilemma was encountered when the pachyderm, prescribed pills for an ailment, refused to swallow them even when the tablets were camouflaged in papayas. The fruits were relished but the elephant spat out the capsules. Finally the medicines were fed wrapped in molasses.

Posted to the south bank, David served on Sangsua and Gootonga. In between he acted at Boroi and installed the manufacture of CTC teas.

David informs that from his youth he belonged to the church of golf, a game he plays well till today. For his golfing skills he was regularly invited to play with the Bara sahibs, including the veterans Bill Gawthropp and Bath (Ghusal) Brown, Superintendents of Jorehaute Tea Company. David was requested to join a foursome which included a Major General. The Army brass was accompanied by two ADCs, one carrying a bag of golf balls and the other Ben Hogan’s Book on Golf. Some shots the General played, where the ball hardly moved or flew in the wrong direction, the ADC had to refer to the book and read out the error made!

David talks of the days when he and the other Service Veterans, in dinner jackets displaying their campaign medals, would gather at Digboi for the ‘Trafalgar Day’ dinner. He fondly recalls his tea days in Assam which he decided to leave in 1962.

David joined North British Rubber Company in UK. The children settled down to the changed life style and schooling. Penny, their daughter, for a class essay on pets wrote about the elephant. The teacher summoned Christine and informed that her daughter was a bright child but her imagination was running riot. While the other children described their cats and dogs the girl wrote about an elephant as a pet! The teacher was amazed to learn from Christine that they had indeed had a pet elephant.

David in 1970 was asked to join Dunlop and the family moved to the Midlands. Life was pleasant for the Airs when tragedy struck. Christine was diagnosed with cancer in 1976 and passed away in 1980. The older twins had already left the nest but the younger pair was still there. After a few years the younger pair progressed to further education. David was visiting the USA in 1988 where he met a wonderful lady, Cynthia, and they married in 1991. He then retired and moved to live in Florida. It took him a little time to adapt to the American way of life.

 David still retains a Directorship of Engineering Company in Florida, Gencor, which is deeply involved in supplying Equipment for Road building. Cynthia and David live in a beautiful house in Florida where visitors, especially from tea, are made to feel at home. Cynthia, who has never seen a tea garden, has developed an interest for that unique life style from the tea tales which fascinates her. She and David regularly visit UK and have attended the planters’ reunions in Aberdeen and Eastbourne. Cynthia was recovering from a knee operation, when I visited them, but ensured that David showed me around Florida. He drove me to Cape Canaveral in his beautiful Cadillac where I dozed off. Planters and their lie backs!!

The creation of the website occurred when good friends from the Assam days, Jimmy and Wendy Knight, visited the Airs. Talk, as it always happens with planters, centred on the wonderful days of tea. The Knights suggested that the stories should be preserved and David, having trained himself in computer application, was the right person to do so. David designed and created the koi-hai web site* which brings so much pleasure to the chaiwallahs scattered across the world.

Thank you David.

  - Ali Zaman