Birpara : 'Bride and Prejudice'

Ghenwa the Jewel: A Birpara Story

One of the tough examinations I've had to pass in life was the test set by the bungalow servants in my first tea bungalow.

Ghenwa was cook cum head honcho of the world beyond the dining room. He looked like some kind of tribal Amitabh Bachchan: tall, thin, arrogant and unsmiling. He was a handsome man, with thick wavy hair, large brown eyes and lips that could smile when they weren't being curled. He couldn't have been much older than me, but he filled me with nervous fear. 

I, who had quelled classrooms of undergraduate students not four years my junior with one look just weeks before my marriage!

Mohan had been in the Engineers' Bungalow in Birpara for about a year before we got married. Ghenwa was a trusted aide. Mohan left the running of the bungalow to him, and Ghenwa served him with devotion; in fact he quite doted on him. He felt let-down when Mohan produced a bride at the end of one 'chhutti'. From Ghenwa's point of view - I see it now - it meant the end of independence, and a reduction in stature.

Mohan didn't want me to bother with the kitchen for the first few days. I was grateful only because I was too chicken to enter Ghenwa's domain. The bearer Joseph was a cute, smiling chap, quite cowed by Ghenwa, like me. He became an ally. He'd serve our breakfast in smiling silence while Ghenwa, after finishing up the cooking and delegating toast making to some unseen hands, would enter the dining room in state and take up his position at Mohan's right hand. He would stand there and declaim - a sort of daily round-up or news bulletin - in what was a strange lingo to me, and Mohan would reply in the same lingo. If Ghenwa wanted to make me feel left out, he succeeded. This colloquy would continue until Mohan asked him in Hindi what he was going to serve Memsaab for lunch. 

The first time I ventured into Ghenwa's store and pantry, I made a hesitant suggestion about the food. He gave me the full Amitabh Bachchan stare, and said by all means, I was free to issue any commands, but he could not guarantee that his saheb would like what I suggested. I fled.

I was the encroacher in his little kingdom, and I was too ashamed to tell my new husband how inadequate Ghenwa made me feel. His hafta chutti was probably the happiest day of my week. 

Once this tyrant went home at night, the chowkidaar took over as my chief tormentor. Etowah - that was his name -stole everything that wasn't nailed to the floor. Mohan told me how he'd served him tea one chilly morning wearing his - Mohan's - socks. When Mohan bellowed at him, Etowah swore those were the socks that a departing Chhota Saab had presented him many years ago. 

Another time, Mohan surprised him when he had his head in the fridge and several fingers in a bowl of custard! Etowah could also make sugar and milk disappear from bowls without a trace.

I was wretched. What kind of administrator was I, who couldn't even keep house for two without losing potatoes, onions, oil, milk and sugar by the kilo?

Life wasn't all housekeeping, though, and we had a lot of fun. Also, there were others like me, new to tea and with similar tales of woe. We all met regularly at the club or at one another's bungalows. 

There was a tradition of people coming in from the club in the wee hours to torment newly-weds in the district. We had our turn too. It must have been two thirty in the morning, when we woke to the sound of several cars honking outside our gate. We could hear voices yelling, 'Open up! Once the crowd of merry makers was in the bungalow, there was much leg-pulling and ribald laughter, and it was impossible to feel anything but happy. Everyone clamoured for coffee. Of course, coffee! That was the reason they'd all 'dropped in' barely two hours after we'd said goodnight, for an early morning cup of coffee!

I wasn't embarrassed when they'd all pounded on our bedroom door and asked how much time we needed to dress, but now, I was red in the face. By now, I thought, Etowa would have drunk every last drop of milk, copiously sweetened with every grain of sugar in the bungalow. Still, I rang the bell and weakly asked him to bring coffee. Everyone around me continued to shout with laughter and have a good time while I sat and waited for the ground to open and swallow me up. What was Etowa going to serve ? There must have been a dozen people there!

The door swung open and in he sailed, with my best (wedding present) cups on a tray, each filled to the brim with frothy and fragrant coffee. The sugar bowl was full, too. My nightmare was suddenly magicked into a happy dream! Today the man had changed his act: he was making things appear and not vanish!

Some months passed, with one or two more riotous night time invasions. These were no 'intrusions of privacy'. We didn't know what privacy was in those days, and I don't think we'd have cared much for it. What we had instead was community - a family that pulled you into its fold - in a world far away from home. If loss of privacy was the price we paid to belong, we were happy to pay in those days!! 

     'Family' Picnic

Ghenwa continued to dazzle and hold sway, and he must have been satisfied with my state of surrender. I had a brand new mixi and he had skill, and we'd started calling people over to eat. On one Sunday, we asked one of Mohan's oldest bachelor friends to breakfast. He'd - let's just call him B - he'd left Lankapara early in the morning and run into a colleague - T -in Birpara town. When he heard where B was headed, T called him a lucky man and said he felt like eating dosas too, so would he tell Mohan and Gowri that he'd be along soon with whoever was at the club?

 That was B's style. Our club – well, all our tea clubs - were filled with eccentrics, both men and women. I could just visualise T going in to Dalgaon club and standing at the entrance, announcing, 'Everyone's invited to Mohan and Gowri's bungalow for dosas! Chalo!!!' When B told us about this, my jaw dropped in horror. I could provide dosas, chutney, sambar et al for another couple of people, say three more at the outside, but the early morning tennis crowd from Dalgaon Club?? What kind of disastrous life had I let myself in for when I married this happy-go-lucky moustachioed man? 

The man turned out to be as big a crack-pot as any of his nutty friends. He laughed!! He summoned Ghenwa and told him to expect another dozen people and said, 'Tum pugaa do; sab ko khilayega!' (stretch your resources, feed everyone). He looked at me and said, 'Relax! Our man will manage!' What blind faith, I thought.

Ghenwa piped in, 'Hum pugai dega, Memsaab! Aap log pehle kha lega!' ( I will manage! you should all eat first!') at which Mohan and friend B, the invited guest, expressed complete agreement. 

By this time, Burra Sa'ab's jeep had rolled in, and Jusep Driver had unloaded a case of beer. Burra Sa'ab and Mem saab would be along soon, he said, but they wanted us to chill the beer. I was fretting about place settings at the table but the two mad men in my bungalow urged me to eat quickly, and I remember I did eat, even though it choked me to think of what would happen when the crowds arrived.

It was Ghenwa's show all the way. In great good humour, he even treated me with kindness, bringing me my coffee himself with an air of deference. I was in shock, I think. 

The crowds came. Burra Sa'ab and Mem Sa'ab, a few friends, some tennis players I knew only by sight and of course the villainous T. Ghenwa fed them all until they swore they'd had enough. 'Excellent!' 'Brilliant!' 'Genuine South Indian taste!' was what I kept hearing. The ladies wanted their coffee in what they called 'those little south Indian glasses and katories'. They got what they wanted. 

After coffee, beer flowed. Burra Sa'ab and Mem were full of praise and thanks for a wonderful morning. 

Ghenwa had ensured that I didn't enter the kitchen, and I honestly have no idea, to this day, how he managed that show.   

 

Written for Indian Chai Stories

A Little Knitting Yarn

Our  girls are both wearing skirts knitted by their grandmother, my mother Maiji.

My love of knitting is something I've inherited from my mother. She knits round the year and keeps the entire family supplied with sweaters, ponchos and shawls. Knitting keeps the mind alert and the fingers agile. Summer or winter, it’s good to have a little project going. I’m sharing some memories of friends and past associations that come to mind whenever I knit.

When I was at school in Delhi, Miss Saldhana the needlework teacher taught our class how to knit. She took a double period with us on Tuesday afternoons. It was 1972, and it must have been a golden era if girls in Class V were actually allowed time for classes in needlework, art, elocution, singing and dancing.

Many of us found Miss Saldhana scary. Our first project was a pair of baby’s bootees. We had to bring two balls of wool from home. One girl brought black wool. Miss Saldhana called her to the front of the class and shook her shoulder with one hand while wagging the bag of wool at us with the other. 'Black wool! For baby's bootees. Like a sign of death on the baby's feet!'

Miss Saldhana's sharp tongue and good teaching ensured that we all completed the bootees in very little time. We actually enjoyed the work too. In the winter holidays that followed, I'd ask my mother or sisters for a bit of wool and knit useless little patches that could be undone and re-done.

Just one of the dozens of dolls Maiji has knitted!

My mother knitted all my sweaters, as she'd done for my brothers and sisters before me. I'd show off her creations in college. Some of my friends asked if Aunty would be so kind as to knit for them too, and she always obliged. It took her hardly any time to turn out colourful and imaginatively designed pullovers.

More knits by Maiji

I enjoyed going with her to the wool shop in Sarojini Nagar. We would spot a good knitting pattern in the latest issues of the English magazines 'Woman' or 'Woman and Home' from the mobile lending library which the magazine wala carried around on his bicycle. The patterns of those days fuelled the imagination. 'Our model is wearing this sweater in Ash, Rose and Snowflake,' one would say, and it might continue: 'Our knitting editor also recommends Toffee, Russet and Freesia or Navy, Cornflower and Magnolia.' The names were enough to transport me to an unseen land.  

The shop was quite big. It had 'lacchas' or bundles of wool tumbling out of shelves that ranged up to the ceiling. There were cardboard boxes, neatly stacked, which held balls of wool. There was wool in sacks on the floor. The shop was always packed with people buying, and there were many salesmen. One of them assigned himself to my mother, who was a big buyer. His name was Bhagwan Das. He wasn’t very young, but he could hop over the counter and up into the loft if required. He always managed to find just the shade we wanted.

I only felt the need to knit when I became a mother myself. The babies had outgrown what their grandmother had knitted, and she was going to be away that winter. Living in a tea garden was like living in an extended family. I turned to the other ladies on the garden for help.

I first asked Rosie if she could teach me to make warm vests for the babies. Rosie promised to come over and give me a lesson. Two or three days passed. A packet came from her bungalow with a note. It said, 'Sorry I didn't wait to wash them, Gowri. I was in a hurry to give them to you.' There were two pink vests, knitted in just the right sizes for the girls! I went to Rosie’s as soon as I could and thanked her with a big hug. She laughed happily and said she'd had such fun planning the surprise. It was lovely to be   knitting little pink things, she said, being a mother of two boys! That memory is warm, just like the handy vests which the babies wore for years. 

When our elder daughter started school, she needed a V necked sweater. This time Smita took what I had knitted and worked on it. I could only knit the back and the front pieces up to the point where they needed shaping. These pieces were sent off to Smita’s bungalow, where she did all the hard work, shaping the armholes and neck, and making borders for them. 

The next year I started on a sweater for my husband and took my work to the club like an experienced knitter. Western Dooars Club was full of ladies who knitted frantically in preparation for the cold weather. They all became my gurus.

Rafat took one look at what I was doing. 'Not Fisherman's Rib, Gowri,' she said. 'You'll use kilos of wool, and it'll take you ages to finish.' She made me rip out what I’d done, and thanks to her, Mohan got a sweater which was knitted in a sensible pattern - one which I could finish!

The following year, Mridula ripped out whatever I'd knitted of a sweater for my youngest because I'd cast on too many stitches. She sat and supervised while I cast on the correct number and began again.

Cold weather mornings in the club on the days leading up to the Christmas party were the most enjoyable ever. The mothers would be as excited about Christmas as the children were. We all wanted our little ones to be wearing new sweaters, coats or knitted frocks, so when we weren't putting up Christmas decorations we'd be knitting.

This Super Mario sweater pattern was in Woman's Weekly

Those days the good wool shops were all in Siliguri. We'd talk about them for hours at the club. There was 'Vandana Wool Emporium' and 'Bengal Wool House'. You could take your pick from many brands, but Vardhman was the best then as it is now. Later on two well-stocked shops came up in Mal Bazar, both called 'Siddhi Gopal Stores'. There was one in Birpara as well. 

Over the last few years, the unpretentious wool shop in Binnaguri has become the only place where I am able to shop for wool. This is where I find wool not only for my needs, but also for my mother, who can't get good wool in Chennai. When I need a little cheering up, it's the best place to go. The names on the ball bands send me on those little imaginary trips again – Gold Mohair, Feather Glow, Passion, Blossom, Christina - and the varieties, soft or sparkly, speckled or tweedy, suggest endless possibilities. It doesn't cost much to pick up a few balls of wool and start a small project like a muffler or a hat. Some bright wool and a finished product at the end of two or three days is just the cure for that 'Nobody Loves Me' mood.

I love what the wool shop stocks these days!

I asked Deepak, who runs the shop, if he had a lot of customers buying wool. I wondered what kept his shop going in Binnaguri when so many others had closed down. The Birpara shop stopped keeping any wool at all. So did the shop in Banarhat. Deepak told me most of his customers were the ladies who lived in the army cantonment. The jawans’ wives knit a lot. 'Hardly anyone from “civil” knits, ' he added.

The big shops in Siliguri, the ones we used to long to be able to visit frequently, don't look like wool shops any more. Four or five years ago, I found they had hardly any new stocks of wool, even after the cold weather and the knitting season had begun. What's more, the shopkeeper said it was a waste of time to knit when you could buy ready-mades! When he saw the expression on my face, he quickly said the women in his family were lazy and didn’t bother to knit. He got a positively dirty look from me for running down his own women.

I don’t carry my knitting to the club any more, but there are still many of us who knit in tea gardens – and I like to think we are all reasonably ‘civil’. The internet has any number of websites featuring knitting techniques and patterns. There are ace knitters out there who are willing to share their expertise: some for a price, and some for free. I don’t miss that old mobile magazine wala library any more.