A Pepper Tiger

Pepper's my favourtie spice. We never had to buy any in the fifteen years we spent in Moraghat Tea Estate, where it grew in abundance. We planted some vines in Bhatkawa T.E. and some here in Thanai, too. The photographs above, however, are of the peppercorns we bought in Tinsukia town yesterday. Our vines haven't fruited yet.

We bought one kilo of black and half a kilo of green for just R.120. What a steal!

Green peppercorns are popped into boiling water for a couple of minutes, when they turn black and are ready to be dried in the sun for storage. The black ones that we found in the bazaar yesterday had already been boiled and were damp, so we gave them another good boil at home.

I plan to use the green ones for another couple of days before boiling them up.

The veggie bazaar at Tinsukia is one of the most colourful I've seen, and if I hadn't been on a pepper chase, I'd have stopped to take pictures!!

Marvel of Peru

I have always had a running battle with my malis about the merits of local flowers.

Our mali in Moraghat, Mithoo, was a terrible snob who always pooh-poohed all the 'local' flowers that I loved to propagate. Cannas and hibiscus were 'common' in the gardens of labour houses and they were not fit to be grown in Burra Bungalow, he would say. We did battle for a good fifteen years, and like all people who disagree, we have a strong bond and a healthy respect for each other. 

        Mithoo in 2008
 
When we moved from Moraghat he made it a point to visit us every year just before the cold weather planting began. He'd bring seeds and seedlings of hollyhocks and cineraria, dianthus and asters. After his visit, I would hear how he'd been saying that I'd had taught him everything he knew about flowers. That was good of him, and it was not entirely true.

Mithoo regrets that we have moved to Assam and that too to Dibrugarh district, which is 'so far away' from the Dooars. When he last called, he said it would take him a day and a half to reach us and another day and a half to return. How would he ever get enough chhutti to 'pugaao' (reach) all the plants to me? He's promised to try and get away, though.

Thank goodness none of my friends was as stuck up as any of these gardeners who scoffed at any plant that didn't have an English name or lineage.

While we were in Moraghat, we'd see a lot of pretty yellow and magenta flowers which opened only in the evening. My mother knew the Tamil name, it was the 'Naalu Mani Poo' or 'Four o'clock flower'. I remember seeing some outside the homeopath's clinic in Mal Bazar. When I asked Dr. Sarkar, he was most happy to let me take some rooted cuttings.

Last year, when we came to Assam, we met many people, some for the first time, and some after a gap of over two decades. Mrs Bagai - Ashima, she hates formality - was someone I met after over 25 years, and it was as if those years in between had never been. It was wonderful to 'talk plants' together, among other things. It was thanks to Ashima that I got to know that one of the fruit trees in our compound was actually a fig tree!!

One evening last cold weather, I spent a few happy hours with Ashima in her garden. I came home with lots of cuttings and seeds, and among them there were two packets which her malis had packed and marked 'Red' and 'Yelo'. I was touched that they had taken the trouble to write in English. These were 'Naalu Mani Poo' seeds. I wanted to learn what the English name was, and Google came up with 'Four o'clock flower' when I entered 'Naalu Mani Poo'! I was delighted. This was so wonderfully accurate!! And what's more, the Tamil name had been 'recognised' without a hitch.

The seeds sprouted and the seedling plants grew quickly. I'd never seen so many colours among these flowers. I was in for another surprise; a single plant bore blooms of different colours!

Some flowers were speckled and some...well, pied ( I have never forgotten Jacob and Laban and the sheep from The Merchant of Venice). I love the way the flowers mirror the colours of what we call 'kite paper'! Nothing like Indian flowers, my jingositic inner voice kept repeating to itself.

That voice fell silent today. I googled 'Four o'clock Flower' and got 'Mirabilis Jalapa' or 'Marvel of Peru'. Peru! How remote, how exotic, and how - well, marvellous.

Plum Crazy!!

Plum Crazy! That's what the husband called me when I lopped several branches off a couple of plum trees that were blocking the sunlight from a bed of cold weather blooms last January.

These trees were growing plumb (forgive me, I can't resist) in the middle of a bed of gerberas and nasturtiums, a vivid visual cocktail that was still in the getting-ready-to-hit-you stage. No flower lover could blame me, surely, for wanting to give them their due?? And after all, there were three other plum trees growing in a line nearby with branches reaching up high enough to threaten to bring down all our electric wiring.

As for the fruit, well, here's when things begin to get sour. The plum trees are quite lovely to see. Hands up all those who remember 'Lemon Tree' playing on the radio when you were young. You get it?
When we'd just moved to Assam and to this garden, I'd spent many happy hours photographing the trees with new foliage, then later on with blooms and finally, laden with jewels of fruit.

 The blossoms, above, against the blue cold weather sky

 Harvest! Plum heart with peach border

There were enough fruit to set me off on a frenzy of jelly making. We couldn't eat them just as they were. Our local expert made us a bottle of pickle with a new and unusual flavour, and a bottle of syrup as well. The jelly was much more tart than we'd expected it to be in spite of the amounts of sugar and the number of sweet Assam lemons we'd used up in it.
Whenever I'd made plum jelly in Moraghat in the Dooars, the fruit flavour would begin to 'awaken' after about a month or so and it kept getting better and better over time.  So I took some bottles to family in Delhi - only to find they'd left them in their fridges, months later, almost untouched. The jelly just seemed to be getting more and more sour over time, they said.

My husband didn't exactly say  I was unleashing my anger on the trees when I axed them, but the words seemed to hang in the air alright.

I reminded him of our Moraghat plum tree and how, after one of the April storms that we call 'Kaal Baisakhi' had attacked it we got fruits that were large and juicy. He went away mumbling about forces of nature and madness being two different things.

July is almost here, and the fruit's coming in now. The trees that were left untouched yield plenty of plums everyday- small, hard and sour, but I'm not buying sacks of sugar again! The trees that I, shall I say, treated, have fewer fruit: naturally, because they have fewer branches. But quantity is just not the same as quality.

See the picture!! Guess which ones came off which trees!

Joy in the Morning!

Flooded!

We had a tragic reminder of the intensity of monsoon rains in the Dooars recently. A trainee assistant from Chengmari Tea Estate got swept away by a flooded rivulet. He was on his way to the bungalow from the office on his motorcycle, and there were a few other people making their way home along the same route. All of them crossed the flooded stream just minutes before Debashis attempted it. His body and his motorcycle were found in the tea area several hundred metres away.

Dooars is full of rain-fed rivers that look deceptively small most of the year. Visitors to the area are quite naturally tempted to go in for a little paddle. People who live here maintain that you should only enter a river between the months of December and February. One year, a student from my daughters' school drowned in a river at Puja time in the month of October. There may not be too much water in the a river at that time, but the currents are strong, and the stones on the river bed are slippery with slime. A fall is enough to knock anyone senseless and the currents do the rest.

 
The tea area of 'NG' in the background.

These pictures were taken this morning after a night of rain. They were all taken from inside the jeep as it was still raining. The swollen flood you see here is not a river. It is the overflow from a storm drain that carries rain water down from the Bhutan hills.

Flooded section of the road to Samtse, Bhutan, and close-up, below.

Flooded paddy field to the left of the picture; drain to the right. Taken from the bridge across the drain.

This is all Moraghat Tea Estate: it is the division called 'NG' or New Garden. 'NG' is separated from the main division by the broad gauge railway track. On either side of the railway track there are roads - one is the National Highway 31 C that goes to Guwahati, Assam. The other is the road that connects us to Samtse, Bhutan. It is only used by Samtse residents and by the people living in the tea gardens that lie in that direction. The land between the tracks and the roads on either side is used for paddy, maize and mustard cultivation. It is under paddy at this time of year, but it's completely under water in these pictures. The drain, or the 'Haati Nala' as it is known, flows west (at that point)of the Bhutan road.

Since it had rained all night, the pluckers who'd been assigned to the flooded area were given work in the other division. Some jobs like guatemala* planting were held up, and people who were working on these were laid off for the day.

We saw a few of the planting men walking down the rail track. My husband called out to them and asked them to stay away from the flooded area. They said they'd only come to take a look since they had nothing else to do today. One of them smiled and said, 'Dhoop aaney se ek din dono bela kaam kar ke make up kar dega.' ('We can make up with a double shift one day when it's sunny !') Completely unperturbed - you have to like his attitude.

*A kind of grass, planted in areas where tea has been uprooted. It regenrates the soil before new tea is planted there.

The Fruits of Labour!

These plums are the fruits of labour. Pick them, and you are committing yourself to some hard labour!

The plum tree in the compound didn't fruit at all last year because of the terrible drought. It was a loss - there was no plum jelly on the table.

This year the tree has put out its best. You'd hardly think this little guy was up to it, looking at the size and shape. It's in a dark corner of the garden, leaning on the garage wall.



The first time the tree fruited, we thought we could eat the plums as they were. They were small, but looked rich and luscious. One bite was enough to put us off. They werent just sour, they were bitter.

Those days the old Bawarchi (cook) Lakshman Singh Pradhan - but we never called him that; he liked the title Bawarchi - was alive. He was the last of the old-timers: a man who could cook several kinds of cuisine and could bake beautifully as well. I asked Bawarchi if we could make jam with the plums since they were so sour, and he said it wouldn't be possible.

Before I could argue, he said we could make jelly but not jam. I realised that he was a man of superior knowledge. He explained that he would stew the fruit whole, then strain the liquid into a cloth bag and collect the slow drippings. He would then take an equal weight of sugar, and boil it with the liquid till it reached setting point. So our first batch of plum jelly - not jam - was made by Bawarchi himself.


Boiling the fruit


In the bag. Govind is securing newspaper around it to keep the ever present 'poka'(insects) away.

In spite of the sweltering weather, we've been pickling and preserving fruits as if they're going out of fashion.


From left: Plum Jelly, Sweet Lime(Mausammi) Marmalade, Marwari Mango Pickle, Avakkai Mango Pickle.

RIP Bagan Babu

I always knew Bagan Babu was very old, but he just didn't look his age. If you met him anywhere in the garden, he'd be on his motorcycle. He'd pull off his cap and greet you with a big and happy smile. His face looked creased with smiling, not with age. Everyone in Moraghat remembers him that way - smiling and happy.

He died on Christmas day, 2009, aged 92.

People who live to a ripe old age pray that they remain active and in full possession of their wits. I wonder how many people visualize themselves working full time after the age of 75 or so. Not too many, I’ll bet. Our Bagan Babu worked at his post until the end of his life. This was remarkable, considering a bagan babu, or garden clerk, works out in the field and not at a desk.

Krishna Das Sinha was born on Janamastami, the day of Lord Krishna's birth. His parents lived in Cachar, and their roots were in the neighbouring state of Manipur. His son and daughter say they don't know the exact date or month of his birth in the Gregorian calendar.

At 17, Krishna was a good footballer. One day, when he was playing in a football match at Bhubandhar Tea Garden, the Burra Sahib spotted him and asked who he was. The Burra Babu of the garden told him the young man was his nephew. 'Get that boy', said the Burra Sahib, and that's how Bagan Babu started his life in tea.

Bhubandhar was a MacNeill and Barrie garden. In 1965, the Manager, Mr. J.G. Mortimer, was transferred out to one of the company's Dooars properties, Moraghat Tea Estate. He brought his Bagan Babu with him.

Bagan Babu moved into the quarters where he lived for the rest of his life.

Mr. Mortimer was the last British Burra Sahib of this garden. Bagan Babu stayed on to serve under 14 more managers between 1967 and the present time. MacNeill and Barrie sold the garden to HMP group in 1971, and they sold it to the present holders, Binaguri Tea Company, in 1990.

Bagan Babu's wife died in 1990 after a long illness. The couple had nine children. His second son Kanti started working in the garden as a babu himself, and Bagan Babu retired within a year of that. He didn't stay at home after retirement, but took up an assignment at Moiradanga. This was one of the new small holdings that was coming up near Falakata, a town around 30 kilometres south of Moraghat. He planted tea there, and organised the local population along plantation lines, appointing sardars and baidars among people who had never heard these terms before.

Tragedy struck in 1994 when Kanti was killed in a motorcycle accident. There was no one here in the family to take employment in his stead. So Bagan Babu was recalled, and he came back to work. When we moved to Moraghat in 1996, we heard the entire story.

A couple of days before Christmas, Bagan Babu complained of congestion and chest pain. He stayed home - a rare occurrence. In all his years of service, he'd reported sick only a few times. My husband went to see him, and found him working on his leaf chits. On Christmas Eve, Bagan Babu went to Birpara Hospital. He didn't need any help to get into the ambulance. The doctors at Birpara examined him and advised him to go to Siliguri for more tests. He would need a pacemaker, they said.

The following afternoon, Shankar driver picked him up in the ambulance to take him to Siliguri. It was cold and cloudy when they set off. Bagan Babu's breathing was a little laboured, and Shankar said he could hear him from the driver's seat. Shankar called Bagan Babu's old colleague on his cell phone - Kaji Babu, who'd been the second Bagan Babu until he left this garden two years ago. Kaji Babu caught up with the ambulance on his motorbike and greeted his old friend.

Bagan Babu could not speak. He saluted Kaji silently. The end came somewhere near Gairkata Tea Estate, not too far away from home. Shankar said they had been moving very slowly, stopping once or twice to feed him a little water, when suddenly, they couldn't hear the sound of his breathing.

Kaji Babu was inconsolable. 'He was like a father to me, ' he said. 'But he did "Salaam" to me before he died.'

Aurora Surrealis?

Sunset on November 2, 2009
Aurora Surrealis?

This was the biggest and the grandest sunset I ever saw in my life. And no, don’t even bother to ask - I had stepped out without a camera. These pictures are all that my phone (Sony Ericsson) could manage. Not that my camera could have captured the scale or the intensity of the colours in there. About half of the sky was covered by this spectacle. The lit up clouds were dazzling with broken rainbows - something like a petrol slick on a puddle. It’s not a very poetic similie, but I only saw this sunset because I was on the highway!

This was over a large open area to the west of the highway, over the burial ground from which the tea garden gets its name (Moraghat, place of the dead) In the distance there was a small graveyard, with all the graves freshly limewashed for All Souls' Day. In the East, the full moon of Karthik Poornima, birth anniversary of Guru Nanak, was rising.

Overhead, there were fluffy cirrus clouds, looking like tiny lambs. The quality of the light was such that you could sense the distance between the clouds and the sky beyond. Now that's a thought for All Souls Day.

My husband was on his evening round of the division to the East of the highway, and I called him so he could join me, but he was deep inside the garden. The sunset would end by the time he reached me, he said. So the driver, who'd been taking me to the wool shop in Binnaguri, and I, stood and watched.

A few buses rolled past. Two men on a bike stopped and one, like me, took out his phone to capture what he could.




Sunset on November 1, 2009

To quote from Notting Hill, 'Surreal, but nice.'

See skies from around the world at Skywatch Friday.

Big Boy - Shoot at Sight

My husband decided to shoot this visitor as soon as he saw him in the verandah. A rather Bhayanak (scary) moth.






Photographs by Mohan

Goodbye, Friend

Sunrise, 2008

One of the victims of this year's drought and failed monsoon was our Kala Siris, or Albizia Chinensis tree. It was the tallest and grandest tree in our bungalow. My husband loved it like anything. Today, a team of trained workers chopped off all the branches. Tomorrow, the trunk will go and the roots will be dug out too. We'll miss it. So will all the crows - it was their favourite perch. A blue-throated barbet nested in it last cold weather.

Here's an excerpt from an entry made some time in September 2008:
...the splendid creature who dominates our front garden year round is this towering specimen of Albizia Chinensis. We call this tree 'Kala Siris' here. It is a variety of mimosa, and in the months of May and June it produces lovely scented 'shaving brush' flowers which are light green in colour. The species is prone to canker, and a goodish bit of the tree had to be lopped off two years ago. In spite of that, this grand old tree still towers at around 60 ft and hasn't lost its beauty.

The last sign of life the tree showed was in June 2009 when it put out new buds. Within a week, they all died. We'll miss you in the garden.

Waiter, There's An Elephant In My Tea!

Of the herd of elephants that entered Moraghat Tea Estate on Monday night, seven hung around till Tuesday morning, and ended up staying all day. They had moved from the inhabited parts of the garden to the NG Division, which borders the National Highway and the broad gauge railway line.

This made it easy for passersby on the highway to stop and stare, and also made it impossible for the elephants to get out from the tea area and head back to the forest!

Three adults and four calves - they stood in this formation almost all day.


When they got agitated, one of them would charge ahead!

Elephants can cause a lot of damage, and these boys were doing their best to drive them away. It isn't good to be in the path of an elephant when it runs towards you. It can race along at 60km an hour.

Our garden's boys dont fear elephants - they're charging at them to frighten them away.

We went as close as we dared (about 100 feet) to take these pictures. One of the big guys started off in our direction, and we ran into the vehicle, then raced off - under the branches of a tree that you know who had knocked down.

Racing away


By late afternoon, people were arriving in hired cars to stand and stare.
Our visitors went away only after nightfall. Today Mohan looks glum - the damage they did will cost the garden a few lakhs of rupees!

Star Quality

These are starfruit, or kamrak, and like all the goodies of the season, they are golden and juicy. Around eight years ago, a boy came up to our bungalow gate on a bicycle and asked the gardener if he could meet 'Aunty'. He said he had many fruit saplings for sale. Mithhoo made him wait at the gate, and came to ask me if I'd like to take a look. We needed to plant some fruit trees in the compound, so I said I would. Like most salesmen, the boy talked too much and tried my patience. He did have some interesting saplings, including starfruit, chikoo, litchi and hibiscus. He swore they were excellent, all of them. He was quite dramatic, wanting to make a good first impression, and he ended each declaration with 'Aunty!' Mithoo wasn’t very pleased. Once the boy went away, he told me he thought that 'Aunty Wala' talked too much.

We referred to him as 'Aunty' after that. The sales talk turned out to have been justified. All the saplings took root, grew well, and produced what he'd promised they would. 'Aunty' came by to check their progress, and sold me chrysanthemums. We grew exotic hibiscus: yellow, mauve and orange. The chikoo and guava plants did well. The star of the lot was the kamrak.

The little thing grew quite well, and I ignored it, thinking it would be many years before it produced any fruit. It looked quite pretty as a young bush. Within two years of our planting it, we got fruits - and how! Every branch and bough seemed to hang with fruit. My friend Usha called it a 'teenage pregnancy' and asked me to take good care of the plant. The tree - actually hardly that yet - fruited twice a year after that first time. We had to add vertical supports to the boughs. You can see why, in the picture.

Every rainy season, the tree begins to look like a green cave. It is the best garden umbrella you could have. The area under it serves as a rest and recuperation outpost for weary indoor plants. And it's a good hideaway for anyone feeling a bit grumpy.

Mohan agreed to pose under the tree to give you an idea of its height.

Our Cha Bagan Diwali

The first sign of Diwali in the Dooars is the sight of Mt.Kanchenjunga against clear blue skies.
Diwali is a fusion of many elements in the Dooars. The Dooars is like a mini- India, and the political climate is not exactly idyllic these days. Yet, its people have a long-standing history of harmonious coexistence, and that has survived here through turbulent times in past years.
Diwali celebrations in the Dooars are spread out over four to five days. What I find most charming about a tea garden Diwali is the quiet atmosphere in all the bustle of activity, and the total darkness against which Diwali lamps and lights sparkle.
It is customary to clean out and spruce up the house before Diwali lights are lit. Our bungalow gets a small face-lift every year, and every worker in the garden gets some 'choona' - lime - and a day off, to whitewash his house. It is the time when we are in the frenzy of sowing seeds for winter vegetables and flowers as well.
When our children are home for Diwali, we get to see a fine Rangoli like this one, over which they slave for a few hours, and very happily, too.

The rangoli all lit up on Diwali night, and below, in detail.


Diwali night invariably coincides with Kali Puja. The Kali Mandir is filled with worshippers, and often the Puja goes on through the night.
For most people in India, the second day of the new moon is Bhai Dooj. Here, it is celebrated as Bhai Phota by Bengalis and Nepalis. Sisters felicitate their brothers, and put a 'tika' on their foreheads, and pray for their long lives. The traditional Nepali goodie at this time is the 'Sil Roti', which is made from rice paste. If Durga Puja brings Bhog Khichdi to mind, Kali Puja means warm sil roti and spicy chutney on chilly evenings. And this, after we've eaten Diwali sweets and mixture, is a welcome change of taste!
For the Adivasi residents of tea gardens, it is the time for 'Jatra'; a song and dance celebration. Groups of men, women and children go around the garden after nightfall, singing, dancing and playing drums.


The groups traditionally visit the Bara Saab and Chhota Saabs at their bungalows, perform for them and pull them in to dance with them, as they did with us.

Below, a video which our elder daughter took of one of the energetic dances, while we tried to keep pace with the dancers. The drum beats are wonderful!

Durga Puja in the Tea Garden - 3

Thakur Moshai conducting Saptami Puja

At this time of year, three forms of the Goddess are worshipped in Bengal, and at three different phases of the moon. Durga Puja is at the time of the growing moon. Ma Durga is both mother and daughter. On the day of the new moon, Mahalaya, she leaves her husband's home for a visit to her parents, with her four children, Ganesha, Kartikeya, Lakshmi and Saraswati. She arrives on Shashti, the sixth day of the moon, and that is the day when her image is installed. Puja is conducted between the sixth and the tenth day of the growing moon.

This month's full moon is called Sharad Purnima. It is the brightest full moon of the year, and the Goddess is worshipped as Lakshmi, the embodiment of fulfilment and prosperity in every sense.

The dark night of the new moon that follows is the night of Kali Puja. The Goddess takes on her most fearful and powerful form as the destroyer.


The Colourful Puja Pandal - with the inevitable tea garden water tanker parked nearby!
Wishing everyone a very Happy Puja!

Get the Puja atmosphere - watch this video, hear the drum beats!