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!

A Rescue Mission

Geeta was coming to the bungalow to work this morning when she saw a bird trapped in a fence around the tea area. She sent Jithroo there to rescue the bird. Jithroo has a way with animals. Our pets love him, and the cats think he's playing with them when he goes about his work with a broom. Jithroo freed the bird - it was a peahen - whose neck had got caught in a bit of fencing wire. He put it in the little coop where Salman and Goni used to sleep when they were tiny kittens. (In the picture, above)
Garden people know exactly what to do with wounded animals. They kept it in a place where it couldn't move around too much, and where it was dark, so it would feel comforted. We don't see too many peacocks and peahens in the tea area, but there are plenty in the forest nearby.

Mohan rang up the Wild Life Squad in Binnaguri. Their team came in promptly. The bird looked quite comfortable in their arms.




This is Bittoo, who came along for the ride with his father.

 

The bird was loaded into the vehicle without any fuss. It will be released into the forest now.

Darjeeling : Jaldhaka River

That's Bhutan, on the other side of the river.


The hills to the left of the picture are in Bhutan.


One For the Road - Spring Water!

All's Well That Ends Dry Spell

The first drops of rain we got after a four-month long drought came with a lot of special effects. Strong winds started blowing at around eight in the evening. The verandah was like the set of a disaster-on-board movie. Anyone who wanted to stand straight in there had to cling to a pillar. No standing around however, it was all hands on deck as chairs, tables and flowerpots had to be got out of the wind to safety. There was some rain, which we sensed more by the sound it made on the roof than by sight. The drops disappeared into the dry earth as soon as they fell. My husband spoke to the Company Saab in Kolkata and held the receiver up so that he could hear the raindrops on the roof.

It was over in a few minutes. We went to bed, and after a couple of hours I woke up to a racket. It sounded as if an elephant had entered the labour lines. People were bursting crackers and shouting, and dogs were barking madly. My husband spoke to someone over the cell phone. About two hours later, there was a crash that sounded like the end of the world. There was a flash of green light - now I know what Harry Potter felt like - and then everything went dark. Mohan knows how courageous I am, and how calm I remain in a crisis. So he was already holding both my hands and telling me not to worry. There was a mild burning smell around us. Mohan went out with a torch to check for damages. There didn't seem to be any. Our lights didn't come back for twenty minutes, by which time it had started to rain. The relief of hearing falling rain and the lights coming back were enough to send us back to sleep.

The next morning, Mohan reported that there'd been very little rain. But he was all smiles. The drought was over. What other news, I asked. Plenty. The elephant had crashed its way through the fencing around at least four houses, eating all the bananas planted there. No one in the garden was upset. The elephant was lucky for us all, they said - it had brought rain! One Assistant reported that when the lightning struck, the main switchboard of his bungalow had caught fire. Luckily, he managed to put it out. In our bungalow, the burning smell had been coming from the plug-in adaptor to the cordless phone. It had burst when lightning struck. Oh yes, and the water pump had died in the night.

It was a cheery morning. The sun shone in a sky that was blue for the first time in months. The bungalow was alive with activity. An electrician was fitting a substitute water pump. The Malis - gardeners - were sweeping up leaves which were strewn all over the compound. A boy started washing carpets, something he'd been putting off because of the dust haze in the air. The only sad faces I saw were those of the hollyhocks in the garden - they were all laid down by the storm.

And Pretty Maids All in A Row

My mother says hollyhocks are always Late Latifs. Well look at these, strutting their stuff now,when the rest of the garden is going into a decline. Hollyhocks bring memories of the garden of my childhood home in Delhi.
My sister Viji would walk me around the lawn, and she would would make a 'doll' for me using a flower and a bud. Can you imagine how thrilled a little girl would be to get a doll which looked like a princess with a flowing gown?



This is the first time we've managed to grow hollyhocks like these. It's a joy to share them here.

Dry Days and Fakkar Baba

I wait for my husband to come home from his evening kamjari and say those three little words that mean so much to both of us: 'Let it rain. Let it rain. Let it rain.' It is now 140 days since we had rain in the Dooars. The forests look like they could turn into Australian bushfires. The sky is a sickly dust haze. Days are hot and the nights turn unpleasantly pleasant, ruling out all chances of a cloud build up. 'Coming home looking like a thundercloud every day won’t help', I used to tell Mohan some weeks ago, but I don't have the heart to say it any now.

Garden people have this habit of consoling themselves with saying that the next Puja on the Indian calendar will bring rain. So everyone starts off with cheerful assertions about how it will rain on Saraswati Puja (January). The wise ones don't stay disappointed for long, and they start to say, 'It will rain on Shivratri for sure.' That comes in mid-February. Hmm. 'Fagua' is the next cry that goes up. 'Surely Fagua/Holi will bring rain.' That's mid-March. It just went past. What now?

Fakkar Baba of Oodlabari was well-known all over Dooars. He died of cancer some years ago. Baba was a devotee of Lord Shiva and was said to be a seer. He smoked hard all the time. Whatever he smoked early in the morning had him in a trance, and people said that was the best time to consult him. He was known to predict promotions and transfers of Chhota Saabs and Burra Saabs in the Dooars gardens with some accuracy. If he ever predicted who'd get the sack, they never told. Rain was his area of specialisation. The Baba had devotees who'd invite him to their gardens to conduct special 'Pujas' for rain.

(Also pulished on www.koi-hai.com)

Just Dandy!

 

We bought these lily bulbs when we visited Gangtok last March for the International Flower Show. Mohan planted them, and we had one flowering plant last summer. This one has bloomed earlier than we expected. No one's complaining.

Flowers From My Friend

Manashi's Garden


Antirrhinums: 'Madame Butterfly'

Nothing gives me a bigger kick than other people's gardens. When I look around my own, I see dead leaves somewhere, an unwatered plant somewhere else, weeds, or something to do. Other people's gardens offer a complete break from thought. You just look, enjoy, and absorb.

Manashi's garden was wonderful when it peaked in February with dahlias everywhere. That was more than a month ago. Now that the dahlias are gone, the 'late latifs' are having their day.

Phlox were late in all our bungalows. These pink beauties are like little rosebuds, aren't they?


Carnations brave the Dooars weather! I have never succeeded in growing them!


The drought in the Dooars is alarming now. Manashi told me that she'd heard some crackling sounds coming from the garden yesterday afternoon. When she went to the verandah to check, she saw one of the big bamboos at the edge of the compound had caught fire! (You can see the bamboos in the first picture).
Over 120 days - that is four months - without rain. The husband, poor man, found a forecast by the BBC which said it would rain tomorrow. It's brought him some comfort. The BBC, he tells me, actually records daily temperatures in Siliguri, a place that other major news channels ignore.


Manashi's Bungalow at the DBITA

A Breather in Kolkata

Victoria Memorial, Kolkata

The tea planter and his wife love a quick getaway to the heart of the city. One little whiff of urban life is good for our lungs. It refreshed us before I returned to my station on the verandah and the husband to prepare for the season, and to fight the drought.


...and Queen Victoria's Statue

City walks were good fun, but the pavements in Park Street finished off my 'stout walking sandals'. I sought comfort in Flury's coffee and confections.


Isnt it lovely here? Even the decor is all caramel, coffee and cream! Service comes with a smile. Went back again for breakfast (hash browns, rolls, muffins, and coffee). Mmm.

The window display reflects Park Street. Well, they wouldnt let me photograph it from inside. I loved the old baking tins and moulds on display, and I wonder if the cocoa pods and beans are visible.
So that is my world this week, and do see other people's worlds here.

No One's Safe?

My husband Mohan was a little late back from office today. I heard the horn of his Gypsy near the back gate - he seemed to be pressing it with some urgency. Then I heard raised voices. Oh no, I thought. Holi is still two days away, and someone's wandered into the bungalow compound, drunk out of his senses.

It wasn't an intruder, but someone had blocked Mohan's path into the bungalow. That's why he'd sounded the horn. He needed help, not for himself, but for the poor creature that was making its way across his path in some pain.

It was an injured snake, a 'dhamna' or rat snake. Mohan saw it in time, and stopped his vehicle while the snake crossed slowly to safety. When he took me back there to take a look at it, it lay still. As we began moving away, it started trying to move under cover somewhere. Someone had probably stepped on it, or thrown a stone at it. It's spine was broken, and we could see an open wound.

Mohan called for the Factory Assistant, Kingshuk Chakravorty. Kingshuk is gifted; he has a way with snakes. He picked up the dhamna, and it allowed itself to go limp in his hands. However, he said we couldn't save it. He left it in the tea area, where it could lie unseen until the end.


Kingshuk examines the snake

Sshh! Exams are Here!

When I was in school, there was something called 'Martyrs' Day' on January 30. That was the anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi's death. A siren would sound all over Delhi at 11 a.m., and we'd maintain two minutes silence.

I can't remember when that practice was given up. 'Martyrs' Day' came to mind recently for a reason that has nothing to do with Gandhiji. Our neighbourhood seems to be going through a period of self-imposed 'state mourning'.

In our North Bengal, 'Chakka Jam' (Freeze the Wheels!) is the cry that goes up everytime a political party calls a 'Bandh'(strike) and life grinds to a halt. At this time every year, it is 'EGG-JAM!' that puts an end to all movement. And no, it has nothing to do with avian flu. Do read on.

My husband asked a young couple whom he met in a shop, 'How's life? Where are you, we don’t see you at all these days!' To which both husband and wife pulled long faces, looking almost like cartoon characters in their mock dismay.

The husband answered, 'My daughter's exam is there.' He sounded so tragic, as if something terrible had happened to him. The daughter is a student of Class One. When my husband laughed out loud, he was told, 'You don’t know there is so much competition, it is very tough, very tough.' 'Syllabus is too much' wailed the wife, and went on, 'If we don’t sit with her, she won't study. And if she doesn't study, where will she go tomorrow? There is so much competition in every area! We have to think of her future also.' My husband said 'Goodnight' as soon as he could, and made his escape.

For the last three weeks, one has heard of nothing but exams! Jokes apart, something has to be done about what final exams do to children and their parents in our country.

1. I cannot understand why parents are called to school to take home their children's progress report cards two or three times a year. Invariably, there is a session where the teacher presses for improvement in several areas, and the parent goes away feeling that all spare time should now be directed to supervising the child's study hours.

Suggestion to schools: Call only parents of problematic cases to the school. Do not allow parents to compete over compared report cards, and do not expect every child to score 80s and 90s.

2. Parents, especially mothers, 'teach' their children at home after school, and 'make them do homework.' They end up making life at home a nightmarish extension of school for the poor children.

Suggestion: Schoolteachers should instil a sense of responsibility in a child. The child should know that she/he has to complete the day's homework and bring it in the following day. This can be done if -:
(a) learning exercises are completed in school - e.g., oral question and answer sessions to test understanding, after which (b) only one or two questions are assigned as written homework. In some instances, the oral tradition should be revived, and no written work assigned at all. (For example, learning multiplication tables).

3.Children who are 'forced' into supervised study sessions will never do their own work unless supervised, and will never learn to take the responsibility for any of their actions.

Suggestion : Parents, get a life! Find something else to do with your free time! Rebel against the 'mourning period' and go to a party.

4. Coming first in Class 2,3, 4 and 5 are not going to count in 'today's competitive world'. Do you want your child to burn out early, lose interest in studies and turn rebel?

Suggestion: Exams come every year. Childhood never comes back. So are you going to take your loved one's childhood away?

The Niswarth Story

Niswarth (Hindi word; meaning - unselfish) is the name of the organisation started in Bagracote Tea Garden, Jalpaiguri District, by the Manager Harsh Kumar and his wife, Neelam. The aim of the organisation is 'providing employment and a social standing to the underprivileged in our society.' The focus is on disabled people.

Neelam passed away a year ago, on the 29th of February. A little over two years before that, she had suffered a stroke. Life changed drastically for both Neelam and Harsh. They fought hard against the effects of the stroke, which affected her movements and her speech.


Neelam Kumar
Neelam was a cheerful and lively person, full of fun. All of us who knew her found it tough to reconcile to what had happened. Harsh and Neelam were a devoted couple, and their son and daughter, who live abroad, made frequent trips home, providing help and moral support. Her strong nature and the family's love helped; Neelam improved tremendously.

Harsh learnt and read everything he could about stroke related disabilities. At such a time, the couple's thoughts turned to those who didn't have the means to help themselves. And that was how they started 'Niswarth', in 2007. In May 2007, members of Niswarth started a scheme providing employment to the disabled - the production of incense sticks.

Soon after Neelam passed away, in March 2008, Harsh donated Rs. 4 lakh to Niswarth. Duncans Industries allocated land and a building for the organisation in Bagracote Tea Garden.
Harsh Kumar
In July 2008, Niswarth held a Blood Donation and Disability camp. Identity cards were organised for hundreds of disabled people. At a camp in December 2008, hearing aids, wheelchairs, tricycles, crutches and disability cards were distributed to 176 beneficiaries. In January 2009, an eye camp was organised in collaboration with the Lions Club of Siliguri.
Harsh started talking to his friends in other tea gardens about hosting such camps.

In February, Anandapur T.E*., Kumlai T.E. , Leesh River T.E. and Nowera Nuddy T.E. in Dam Dim Subdistrict, and Moraghat T.E. in Binnaguri Subdistrict organised eye camps.
Early on the morning of the 16th February, a team of doctors, nurses and technicians, headed by Dr. Agarwal of Siliguri, set up camp in the garden hospital in Moraghat. Over 250 people got free eye check ups. Forty were diagnosed as cases for cataract surgery, and were taken to Siliguri the same evening by the team's Lions Club bus. Their stay, surgery, and treatment was all taken care of at the Lions Club Hospital.
'Thank you' from Moraghat Tea Estate to Dr. Agarwal and team


The patients returned to the garden after two days. An optician came in from Birpara town to collect prescriptions and take measurements for spectacles, which were made available at discounted prices. Two children, deaf and mute since birth, were taken to visit the Niswarth centre at Bagracote the next day. They could be sponsored to attend a special school in Gangtok, if their parents wish to send them.

Next up on Niswarth's calendar is a Disability camp at Birpara Tea Garden on 1 March, 2009, for the gardens in Dalgaon Subdistrict. Niswarth will also sponsor deaf and mute children between the ages of 5 and 12 at special schools from March onwards.

Niswarth is a registered charity. If you wish to make a donation, or help in any way, please visit http://niswarth.com/home

*T.E. - Tea Estate

Cheap Thrills

February is the season of film award functions. I watched almost all of the BAFTA awards, and the last (and most exciting) part of the Oscars. The BAFTA ceremony was businesslike and neat. The host's humour was inoffensive and he didn't talk too much. Bollywood's Star Screen Awards were disturbing. The chief host Sajid Khan dressed in drag, and made continual references to the movie Dostana in which John Abraham and Abhishek Bachhan pretend to be gay.

I couldn't understand this obsession with gay sex and how it could be a source of amusement and/or titillation. Where does it fit into a film awards function,of all things?

While flicking channels, I found last year's Filmfare Awards were on. The 'King' Khan Shahrukh and his co-host, Saif Ali Khan, were doing a comic act. The main theme of the show was the supposed humour in a situation where 'macho' guys like them are mistaken for a gay couple in a movie they did a few years ago. So what Shahrukh did last year became a model for a 'lesser Khan' like Sajid to copy this year.

It's bad enough that there are movies that exploit the theme of homosexuality, and get a 'U' certificate from the censor board. Entertainment channels on television are watched by children of all ages. Should sensitive and confusing subjects like sexual orientation be treated as a source of crass humour and titillation? Saif Ali Khan and ShahRukh Khan are both fathers of teen or pre-teen children. Guess we should ask them.

Small Dreams of a Cancerian

(A poem written ten years ago)


On my decision to stop teaching

To revered writer Vikram Seth

Most humbly do I dedicate

My decision to waste no time

(In teaching drama, prose and rhyme

To feckless and ungrateful youth --

I will resign and that's the truth!)

O Master, in your steps I follow

(By penning doggerel so hollow)

If I should give my Muse a twirl

We could do you A Suitable Girl.

Speechless

More like this one here.

Give Me Love, Give Me Peace on Earth

Today, I'm quoting from my own blog. There are two paragraphs from 'The Dooars: A World' below.

1.The Dooars is a world that abounds in natural beauty, with its forests, rivers and mountains. There are more than two hundred tea gardens here. We call them gardens and not estates. It makes the place sound idyllic, maybe like a Garden of Eden, and in some respects that isn’t too far off the mark. Many people who have seen the Dooars have described it as Paradise.

2.North Bengal began to grow into the multi ethnic region it has become today. Most people speak Hindi, Bengali, Nepalese and three or four aadivasi dialects like Oraon, Munda and Saadri with ease. For non linguists, it is enough to know Hindi. Anyone from any part of India can come here to live and soon start feeling at home. The provision shop in the town nearby will start supplying him with a magazine in his language and some foodstuff or other which is a specialty of his region!

There are two truths here about the Dooars. It is a place of great natural beauty, and it is a place of ethnic diversity. I didn’t mention how all the different communities lived together harmoniously when I wrote the above piece. It was a given, it was the way we were.

I'm not pretending that life as a tea planter's wife has been idyllic. There's loneliness, the lack of intelligent occupation, and no chance to build a career. Sometimes they are enough to crush the spirit.

The dangers in this world range from snakes, elephants, storms and floods to highway dacoity, labour agitations, and sometimes physical assaults on tea garden executives. These are the hazards we live with. They may be slightly unfamiliar to city people, who live with an entirely different set of problems and dangers. This is a kind of jungle, while the city, maybe, is another.

This blog has never been a place where I write about our problems, but today, things are different. We are all watching and listening as violence rages between two ethnic groups all over the Dooars. The Dooars was inclusive and welcoming. We used to call it a ‘Mini India’ very proudly. We have caught up with the rest of India. Our small towns have Section 144 imposed on them, and the names Banarhat, Birpara, Mal Bazaar and Nagrakata have made headlines. For all the wrong reasons.

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.

Sometimes in Winter

The afternoon light was perfect, and these images needed no enhancement.
A future memory, already golden.

'I am moved by fancies that are curled
Around these images, and cling'
- T.S.Eliot, 'Preludes'

Three Poems

On Facebook

You read my status
message, and if you respond,
You're jobless, like me.



The Victim

Bitten by kitten!
Goni bit my big toe, he
Punctured my ego.



No Victim

I'm not cowed : dont try
me. Break out, instead, from that
Closed pen of your mind.

Winter's Gold

January is drawing to a close, and we are in a hurry to enjoy what is left of the winter season. When the morning's fog clears, the marigolds in the garden look as if you could drink the sunshine out of them. There are fresh oranges to juice up, and though they get more expensive every year, they taste great.


Home-made Marmalade - No sitting in the sun and making this!

Sweet and golden are the days spent idling in the winter sun. The festival of sun-worship, Sankranti/Pongal, just went past. The Bengali month of Poush finished in mid-January. It is a special month for foodies : a host of traditional sweets are prepared with 'khejur gur', the jaggery made from date palm syrup. Jaggery is a wonderful thing to eat in winter, and far more healthy than refined white sugar. Date palm jaggery has a mature mellowness and booziness which is quite missing in sugar cane jaggery. It is sold in rounds like this one, below.


Khejur gur and Sandesh
When the month of Poush began in mid-December, I started checking with our general store owner in town whether his stock of Khejur gur had arrived yet. He said, 'Abhi kahaan itna thhanda hua hai? Thhanda hone se aayega' (Is it cold these days? the gur will only be ready when it is really cold.) The 'gur' needs sunshine as well as cold to reach the right levels of sweetness.

Golden brown Khejur gur Roshogollah puts regular white Roshogolla in the shade. Khejur gur roshogollah, sandesh, paayesh and kalakand are sold in shops. The best sweets, though, are the ones made at home. Bengali women who are experts in the kitchen make amazing sweets from khejur gur. When my mother is here, she too makes her special 'Thenga Paal Payasam' with Khejur gur. I find myself closing my eyes just thinking about that Payasam.


The 'Paayesh' in this picture was painstakingly prepared by Mrs. Rama Mitra-Majumdar in Moraghat and sent to all the bungalows a couple of days ago. The base is paayesh, thickened milk sweetened with Khejur gur, and the rice flour peetha/dumplings are filled with coconut and jaggery paste. Simply heavenly.

26 January is a favourite date for picnics. We had our garden families' picnic at the Pump House in the "NG" Division, on 25th January. The smiling faces say it all.