Earthquake!

Sunday evening, Biswakarma Puja Day. It was chilly and it had been raining for nearly twenty four hours. My daughter Swati, my husband Mohan and I were sitting with our cups of tea. We were arguing idly about whether we should catch a movie later in the evening. Suddenly Swati said, 'Earthquake!'

I had just felt a little movement, but hadn't identified it.
'Run, Ma!' she said, and already, everything was shaking violently. A loud grinding and rumbling sound started off.

We were shaken and rattled about. The lights went off at once. The noise was frightening. Once we made it outside we stood together holding one another at the door. We knew we should be running down the stairs but we couldn't move. The building was rocking violently. It felt as if everything would come crashing down any second.

We heard people wailing loudly from the direction of Siliguri.
The last time I'd heard that many people shouting was when India won the cricket World Cup.

We stood hugging one another, unable to do anything more than keep our balance. It was pitch dark. We couldn't see the stairs. As soon as the shuddering stopped, the lights came on and we took the stairs down - gingerly, because they were slippery after the rain. Two young girls who live upstairs rushed down, sobbing loudly.

Everyone in the three buildings that make up our apartment complex had come down.
No one was hurt but people were just too scared to go back inside.

We looked up and wondered if the structures would all come down any minute. We saw tall cracks - as high as twelve to fourteen feet - around many of the walls and pillars on the ground.

'We should live in a bungalow again!' I said to Mohan. We've felt a number of mild earthquakes over the years. In a bungalow, it would take a moment to run out on to the front lawn! And those old tea bungalows were built to withstand more than earthquakes.

Ten days ago, Delhi had an earthquake. My brother and I were chatting about it on GMail last week.
"Was it scary?" I asked.
"Nothing serious ... not scary ... but it's a unique feeling ... a wave which passes through your body ... your head stops feeling it by the time your legs start feeling it"
"You make me want an earthquake!!!!" I said ... and he reminded me of these words when I spoke to him later in the evening.
It felt a little eerie to re-read that chat. He'd written, "The feeling reminded me of all of us watching the landslide in Sikkim...it oozes"
Today's quake had its epicentre in Sikkim, less than 60 kilometres from Siliguri.

Time calmed us all down. I stopped holding on to my daughter. We walked around a little freely. We tried to call our elder daughter in Delhi. All the phone lines were jammed with similar panic calls.

My husband walked around inspecting the cracks with some of our neighbours. 'Only the brick work and plaster have cracked,' he said. 'The pillars are unharmed.' Only then did we think of climbing the stairs back up to see what damage had taken place at our flat.

No, the building was not going to collapse for now. Still, all the neighbours pulled their cars out of the ground floor parking lot and parked them out in the open.

In the flat, we grabbed our cooling cups of tea and checked the damage. A broken photo frame, a chipped plate, some books knocked down. My 'puja' in disarray. Nothing too bad. Nothing that couldn't wait till later. We put on floaters so that we could run if required, and went downstairs to wait in case there were aftershocks.

Swati and I sat down in the car, though she and her dad had already decided not to drive out to the wide open spaces like I wanted to. They both said we ought to leave the roads free for people who might need to be rushed to hospital.

We managed to make our phone call to our daughter Parvati, alone in Delhi, frightening and reassuring her in the same breath.

Three young boys from the our building walked by. They were in high spirits.
'We could have died!' one announced happily in a loud voice.
'How many times have we studied earthquakes in class! Who thought we would feel one!'
Swati and I couldn't help laughing when we heard them.

It turned out the boys had been to the movie hall - the one we'd been debating about.
They'd all rushed out when the false ceiling started crumbling down and the hall filled with clouds of dust.

One boy popped his head in at my window. 'You are going to sit the whole night in the car, Aunty?' he asked.
He couldn't be more than eleven years old, and he'd braved the earthquake in the movie hall.
'That will be silly, no?' I asked him. 'Want to sit with us?"
He ran for his life. Again.

This post appeared in The Statesman, Kolkata, on 20 September 2011.

A Trained Eye

When we were children, every time we went on a train journey, we would look out of the window at level crossings and feel sorry for the poor people who lived in the middle of nowhere between the big railway stations.

After I married my tea planter husband almost 25 years ago, I've lived in that world of unimportant level crossings. Our tea garden is just one of the sights that can be seen on the train line between Delhi and Guwahati.

One Diwali/Kali Puja night many years ago at the Kali temple level crossing near our home, the gateman kept the gates closed so he could light candles on the bars.

Those were days when there was less traffic. Every time a vehicle crossed, he'd open the gate and his candles would go flying. When he closed the gate, he would arrange the candles again and light them with great care, apparently undisturbed by the thought that they would only burn until the next vehicle came along.

It was a pleasant surprise to see a small puja pandal near the Chalsa level crossing. It must have been put up for Kali Puja, which was over ten days ago. A pandal's basic function is to provide a platform for placing the image of the goddess. Pandal decoration has become an elaborate and showy affair in the towns here these days.

This structure, however, seemed to be a labour of love - a work of art that came straight from the heart.


The model of the train engine was true to life, and the cabin a perfect replica of the real thing. Hats off to the people who built it. I'm not surprised they didn't want to pull it down.





Above: the 'real' cabin at the crossing. The number is the same as the one on the model.

Now that the festive season is finally over, I'm done with complaining about its drawbacks. Its good to see signs that people everywhere had their share of fun.

In the Moonlight, on a Magic Night

Vikram Seth's A Suitable Boy has a magical passage in which Kabir and Lata, young lovers, take out a boat on the river Ganga on Sharad Purnima night. Reading that passage aroused my interest in the night of Sharad Purnima, the brightest night of the year.

'Purnima' means the full moon, and Sharad is the name of the season that comes after the monsoon rains, marking the beginning of cool weather in most of India.

The Sharad Purnima is the equivalent of the equinoctial moon. During the equinox, the moon moves closest to the earth. So when you have a full moon around that time, it appears larger and brighter than usual. People in the Northern Hemisphere see the brightest full moon of the year around the time of the Autumnal Equinox, September 23rd. And I don't want to offend my friend Uma in Australia - you'll see yours in March.

Sharad Purnima did not coincide with the Equinox this year, but it occurred a month later.

The Sharad season begins in the Indian month of Ashwin (called Ashshin in Bengali, and Aippasi in Tamil). The Indian calendar measures time in terms of the sun as well as the moon, with the year measured in solar time, and the months in lunar cycles. The months in this calendar don't run parallel with the months in the global calendar. When Ashwin coincides to some extent with September, chances are that Sharad Purnima will coincide with the equinoctial moon. If not, it will be the full moon after that one.

The Ashwin moon is especially significant. The new moon or Mahalaya Amavasya marks the beginning of 'Navaratri', nine days and nights of goddess worship. In Bengal, it is the beginning of Durga Puja. The tenth day of the moon is Bijoya Dasami. The night of the full moon is observed as Lakshmi Puja.

Lakshmi is the goddess of prosperity. The moon is a symbol of plenty: a good harvest of course, but much more than simply wealth. The fulness and brightness of the moon on this night stand for fulfilment, the abundance of blessings, peace and well-being.
It is said that any wish made on this night comes true.

Seasons of Splendour by Madhur Jaffrey, a book my daughters read when they were children, is an interesting compilation of the legends and folk tales that surround Indian seasons and festivals. It mentions the tradition of threading a needle 100 times in the moonlight on Sharad Purnima night. The moonlight supposedly contains drops of nectar, which enter the eyes of the person performing this feat.

I love the Bengali tradition of Lakshmi Puja. It is a day of great piety. A religious festival like this one has a simplicity and charm quite untouched by the bustle and commerce of the 'big' festivals. Any festival held in a tea garden is enhanced by the surroundings: by the large open spaces, and the peace and quiet.

Unlike Durga Puja, which is conducted by a community of people, Lakshmi Puja is performed in people's homes. An elaborate feast is prepared. For many years, a Bengali family in our garden has been sending us 'bhog' or 'prasad'. There is luchi (the Bengali Poori), paayesh (kheer/payasam), narkul nadu (coconut laddoos) of two kinds, white and brown, and the delicious bhog khichuri (rice and dal savoury) with the vegetable side dish called labra . It is delicious - like all consecrated food offerings are.

In the Dooars, the moonlight is undiluted by city lights or smog. The Sharad full moon rises over treetops, and the silhouettes of the trees seems to shrink in contrast. The light is silvery all night. I stand and gape at the moon for as long as I can. It is said that standing in the moonlight and absorbing the rays is good for the body. It does your soul good too, I'd say.

Sharad Purnima was two nights ago, on October 22, but it was not the brightest night of the year in the Dooars. The sky was overcast until almost ten o'clock and we couldn't see the moonrise, easily the best part of any full moon night.

Last night, the moon was still almost full, as it was again tonight; a perfect round, and to our delight, perfectly visible when it rose.

Killer on the Tracks

24th September 2010 :

Seven elephants, including babies, were knocked down and killed by a speeding train at Moraghat Tea Estate. We live on the estate, which my husband manages. All of India heard the news over television, and it spread over the world in no time.

At 4.30 a.m., our chowkidar (watchman) Madan told us that an elephant, a large tusker, had entered the bungalow compound about half an hour earlier. It had walked down the half-mile long road from the highway to the bungalow. It shook the large iron gates open. It walked all around the compound.
The two watchmen on duty ran and hid indoors.There was no damage barring a few huge footprints on the lawn. And a gate connecting our bungalow to the deputy manager's bungalow next door was knocked out of shape. That gate was made of iron rods! My husband's phone started ringing before six o'clock. He knew it must be something serious. The caller was Joy, the assistant manager who looks after the NG Division. His news was about elephants as well: the train accident had taken place in his division near the railway line. This news had spread all over the garden as soon as it happened (around midnight), and some workers informed Joy. He told them not to disturb the manager so late at night.

We went to the site, a distance of around one kilometre from the bungalow. Hundreds of people had gathered there. A baby elephant's carcass lay in the wide drain near the track. The mood was gloomy as it was lifted on to a lorry.


Crowds of people from the workers colonies rushed to the spot as soon as they heard about the accident. All but one of the elephants were alive at the time. We heard that they were crying in pain. A little calf was walking around in the broad drain, which was filled with water. As more people gathered, they started calling out to the elephants.

'Ganpati Bappa, Morya!' they shouted, asking the elephants to get up and walk again. People say the elephants would have survived if they had been rescued earlier, and that the forest department should not have waited till daybreak to begin removing them. The poor animals must have suffered terribly.

Elephants kill at least one person every year on this estate, and there isn't a living soul here who doesn't fear them. An elephant is perceived as an enemy. All this was forgotten that night when they lay there dying.

Moraghat Tea Estate falls on the elephant path between two stretches of forest. Every one is aware that elephants begin to move around the area in the evening. A herd had been creating havoc for the past ten nights in the tea area, pulling down shade tree branches, uprooting fencing posts and flattening plants. The wildlife squad in the region must have been aware of their presence here. Perhaps they could have alerted the railways.

It is really strange that the train's engine driver did not see the elephants on a full moon night. People say that he was drunk. Some say he reversed the train at top speed after hitting the first elephant, and that was how so many of them got hit. Everyone asks why the signalman at the level crossing nearby did not alert the engine driver or the stationmaster at the previous station. There was some talk about the 'symbolic arrest' of the train's engine at Alipurduar station.

Train services resumed within hours of the accident, and we now hear a loud whistle when a train goes past. Every time a train anywhere in North Bengal hits an elephant, the whistles begin to blow. Once the outcry dies down, these precautions are forgotten. Reports say 26 elephants have been killed by trains in North Bengal in the last seven years.

Ironically, one man from Moraghat Tea Estate died at the site of the accident that morning. Jaisingh, sometime worker, was a smoker of 'bhang' and was always in a hazy state of mind. A lorry hit and killed him on the spot.

Yesterday, another piece of news came to light. The elephant that walked into the bungalow had not nudged the gate open. That was the work of the chowkidar Dhiraj, who spotted him in the distance and opened the gate to get a good look!

We expect more visits from the herd.

Kings of the Road!

The Teesta, from Sevoke

How lucky I am to live near this river. How much luckier I need to be if I want to reach this spot without being held up by road blocks, natural or man-made. Here's one of the man-made variety, below.




Issuing directions all around

These pictures were taken when we were waved down at a place around 50 kilometres away from Siliguri, and almost the same distance from our garden. The mob blocked the road using a favourite shield in the area-- school students. Their 'demand' was for a new 'request bus stop' on the National Highway. The children had to walk to the regular bus stop from their school because the bus drivers wouldn't stop when they waved them down.

Most of the buses on the highway run long distances, and surely the passengers wouldn't want random additional stops. How long did the children have to walk, my husband asked some chatty looking bystanders. He was told the distance was under one kilometre.

A peculiar feature of these roadblocks is that once the mob stops your vehicle, it doesn't allow you to reverse or retreat. The idea is to cause as much nuisance as possible to members of the public. Once you're in, you park your vehicle and sit quietly.

The mob is quick to feed on the mood and is on a power high. Youngsters - little boys who must be in Class 5 or 6- slap the rumps of vehicles and strut around.

If you ask any questions, it is in a soft and quiet voice because you don't want to inflame the already excited 'dada log' or bosses of the moment. In short, you feel you're trying to appease the people who have broken the law. I feel wretched, but I console myself with the thought that when the authorities turn up they will do the same thing and then proceed to negotiate.

Last weekend we were 'caught' again on the road to Siliguri. This time it was at a small settlement near the hills. The road - the National Highway, of course - was blocked by local residents and the children from two nearby schools. The previous night, a couple of children from the busti had been trampled to death by elephants. What a terrible way to die.

We didn't have to ask when the road block would be lifted. From long practice, we knew that it would remain in place until the 'concerned authority' (as we say here, and with no ironic intent) showed up with promises of a hearing, of compensation or redress. In this case the mob was waiting for the forest department officials to declare compensation for the families of the victims. The law is quite clear that every death caused by an elephant has to be compensated. I wonder why the protest had to be staged. Was it because of some past callousness or lapse? That was not the time or the place to find out.

As soon as two or three Forest Department jeeps arrived, we were waved on our way.


Too close for comfort. I wondered whether I was being foolish, taking pictures with my phone! At the first roadblock, someone screamed 'No Press' when a vehicle with a press sticker inched ahead. I heard another person shout that the press would report the roadblock, but write nothing about how the schoolchildren had to walk all the way to the public bus stop on the highway.


Jam on the Sevoke Road in the hill section
With naturally occuring road blocks like this one above, do we need to create more?

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.

Two in the (Tea) Bush

I used to think only Englishmen dying of malaria in colonial India could hear the brain fever bird. I had no idea that it's a bird we've been hearing for many years and I paid for this knowledge with one night's sleep.

It was a night in March, and the bird shrilled outside my window without a break. There was no way I could sleep. It felt as if the bird was crying inside my head. By morning, I thought I'd gone mad. The bird didn't stop. Morning is supposed to bring great clarity of thought to the human mind. I had my moment - it became clear that the bird was saying, 'Brain fever! Brain fever!'

There are three shrill notes which the bird repeats over and over. Then there's the variation. It breaks off to do a warble of continuous climbing notes that serve as a short introduction to the same old three note cry.

Once you find out what the cry means, you hear it even more clearly and you find yourself waiting for the next one. There's no way you can mistake it for anything else. My brother Bala, who was visiting at the time, thanked me drily one morning for having explained it all to him. He'd lain awake the entire night while the bird went full throttle outside his window. We two were fellow sufferers; my husband slept the dreamless sleep that comes to tea planters!

When we'd finished making plans to eat the bird for breakfast, we read as much as we could about it on the internet. The bird is called the Hawk-cuckoo. It is small - about as big as a mynah - and black in colour. It's Hindi name is 'Papeeha', and it's said to be crying 'Pea Kahaan' (where's my love?) in search of its mate. In Bengali, they say the bird is crying 'Chokh Geilo' (Lost my eyes!)

Vikram Seth's novel A Suitable Boy has a poem called 'The Fever Bird'. I could not find the text anywhere on the web so I've copied it here.

The Fever Bird

The fever bird sang out last night.
I could not sleep, try as I might.

My brain was split, my spirit raw.
I looked into the garden, saw

The shadow of the amaltas
Shake slightly on the moonlit grass.

Unseen, the bird cried out its grief,
Its lunacy, without relief.

Three notes repeated, closer, higher,
Soaring, then sinking down like fire.

Only to breathe the night and soar,
As crazed, as desperate, as before.

I shivered in the midnight heat
And smelt the sweat that soaked my sheet.

And now tonight I hear again,
The call that skewers through my brain,

The call, the brain-sick triple note--
A bone of pain stuck in its throat.

I am so tired I could weep.
Mad bird, for God's sake let me sleep.

Why do you cry like one possessed?
When will you rest? When will you rest?

Why wait each night till all but I
Lie sleeping in the house, then cry?

Why do you scream into my ear
What no one else but I can hear?

(A Suitable Boy; 1993, Viking, pp. 949-950)

I've always admired Vikram Seth's poetry, but this poem is especially meaningful now. The lines I like best are :-
'The call, the brain-sick triple note--
A bone of pain stuck in its throat.'

The mynah, crow and peacock are all sweet-sounding compared to this horror. It kept me awake for hours every night. I filled my time writing my own poems to the tormentor.
These are my two Hawk-cuckoo haikus:

Brain fever bird bores
sleepless mum. Delhi, daughters
dream of birds singing.

"You complain of noise.
We long to hear a bird singing:
Town, bird, a far cry."

The bird's frenzy reduced somewhat by April, but it still goes off like an alarm once every few nights. If you have never heard this bird, you're lucky. If you want to risk it, here it is on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPPzdx0gX8k
**************

We hear another bird now, one that sings sweetly. The Indian cuckoo is called the 'Bou-Ko-Tha-Ko' bird in Bengali. Its song has four notes. The story goes like this. The bird has just brought his bride home. She is a shy girl who doesn't say anything. The bridegroom pleads, 'Bou, kotha kou', meaning, 'Bride, say something.'

In North India, it is said that the bird cries out upon waking and discovering that his bride has run away with her lover. He goes, 'Main sota tha'. (I was sleeping!) through the night. The song has a variation, where the notes move higher up the scale. This is also explained in the legend. The deserted husband makes enquiries everywhere. He hears that the lovers have fled to a town called Champapur. He decides to follow them and changes his cry to a more urgent call, 'Chal Champapur!' (To Champapur!)

Tea planters say the bird is calling, 'Orange Pekoe', 'Broken Pekoe' or 'Make more pekoe'!!
You can hear it here on wikipedia.

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.

When Seen In Perspective...

Location: Monkey Point on the road to Lava and Kalimpong.






Location : Ambiok Tea Estate, also on the road to Lava and Kalimpong.

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.

Gerberas and Saddam Hussein in the Forest

Chalsa forest is one of my favourite places in the Dooars, and when the roads were in better shape, I'd drive into it once a week, just to look around and soak in the atmosphere. One road leads deep into the forest and climbs up to the Jaldhaka settlement in Darjeeling district.

On Sunday last, we went up that way. It is a quiet place, and a drive there offers some lovely views of the Jaldhaka River and the hills. It also gives us a chance to take short walks in the hills. There is hardly any tourist traffic there.


The Sipchu Beat Office
Before we crossed over into Darjeeling district, we passed the Sipchu Beat Forest Office. We saw a small hothouse with flowering plants and stopped. There was a cluster of buildings belonging to the Forest Department and we didn't want to enter without permission. A little boy was the only person in sight. He looked nothing like a forest officer, but he told us we could go in, and then ran off, shouting that he would call the 'Beat Babu'.


The Hothouse
We entered the hothouse and found excellent specimens of gerberas growing there. The 'Beat Babu' -- Beat Officer -- turned up with the little boy. He was a pleasant, soft-spoken man. Probir Choudhary was happy that we liked his flowers. I'd assumed they were part of a tissue culture project, but he told us they were grown from seeds bought in Pune, Maharashtra - the other end of India. We asked if he could sell us any plants, but he said they only sold flowers. He didn't have little seedling plants, or else he would have shared them with us, he said. However, he plucked five beautiful blooms for us - one in each of the colours that grew there. They're still standing tall in a vase in the dining room, a week later.

The little settlement had a Sunday quiet about it. The boy couldn't get over the way we were fussing over him. He was shy and happy all at the same time. We asked him his name and whether he went to school. His name was Saddam Hussein, he said, and he went to the small school which stood among the cluster of buildings.


Mr Choudhary with Saddam

These people lived in the heart of the forest, surrounded by wild animals, including bison, leopards and elephants. There was no market for miles around. I wondered how often they had people they knew visiting them. Mr.Choudhary asked us where we'd come from. When we told him Moraghat Tea Estate, he said he'd always wanted to visit the nearby Gairkata town, where his in-laws live. He said it was too far away for him to make the trip. It isn't over 35 kilometres away from the beat, but that is a remote settlement, and there's probably just one bus a day out of it.

Mr. Choudhary brought out a visitors book for us to sign. A lot of people seemed to have stopped and visited here on their way to Jaldhaka or the Chhapramari Wildlife Reserve, and some were from overseas too. There was something very fine about this man. He seemed to exemplify that courtesy, goodness and dignity which reminded one of an older, unhurried world.


Entry in the Visitors Book made by some overseas visitors on the day of the Total Eclipse, July 2009.'Who knows, maybe we can extend a project with tulips?' they write.


The Jaldhaka River

Close Encounters of the Herd Kind

Last Monday, we went to Bagdogra, a drive that takes about three hours from our garden. At around ten in the morning, we were crossing Damdim in the Western Dooars, and we saw a large crowd and some jeeps on the road ahead. We thought it was a 'jhamela' (trouble) of some kind. Our Dooars residents are volatile and quick to take offence, and they vent their feelings very visibly, so that 'jhamela' is a part of daily life, like 'Bandh' (strike) or potholes on the road.

There were men in uniform there too, and that helped to confirm what we believed. We expected anything from a murder to a road accident to a political demonstration. Since no one stopped our car, we drove ahead.

The cause of all the excitement was a herd of elephants. They were in the tea area off the road about 500m away from the highway, around 30 in all, adults and calves, all standing in a tight group, facing out in different directions.

The crowds had collected there to stare. The uniformed men, who were officials of the Forest Department, couldn't do much to convince them to make way for the elephants to get away. An ice cream seller was doing brisk business, and it looked like the start of a long day - and a long wait for the elephants. They were trapped where they were, not wanting to move because of the growing crowd of people.

The poor elephants were still stranded when we returned down that road around sunset time. The gawping crowds had grown, and now it was like a mela - a fairground - with so many motorbikes, cars, cycles and drifters. We slowed down, but didn't stop to join them.

My husband Mohan said sundown was the time when the elephants would come into their element. But while they waited, which had been all day, they had stood without a sound and without a drink of water, intent on protecting their young. They showed no signs of wanting to harm the crowds of people. There was no shade where they were standing, and they had been hurling mud on their backs to keep cool.

We'd experienced much the same thing in Moraghat T.E. early this year when around seven elephants strayed into the tea area and were forced to stand there all day, while the crowds - some of them coming in hired cars from Birpara, 20 km away - stayed till it was dark.

It was obvious all through that the elephants showed more maturity than human beings! Their behaviour signifies a superior instinct for survival and a superior understanding of coexistence with fellow creatures. They follow all the old rules, while we break them.

And yesterday, on one of our early-start-to the-cold-weather Sunday drives, we just missed running into a herd of around 40 to 50 elephants in the heart of Chalsa forest, between Jaldhaka and Chhapramari. It was sundown -- their time, and the forest -- their beat. Had we dawdled five minutes before setting back from Jaldhaka, we'd have driven into them. I'm glad we didn't disturb each other.

 
This is a picture of a tame elephant that belongs to the Forest Department, probably on its way to give tourists a ride. This was shot near Chhapramari Wildlife Reserve in Chalsa forest by Mohan.

Niswarth and Durga Puja

Puja, the biggest festival of the year, just went past. Nothing could dampen the spirit of celebration in the Dooars gardens - not the drought, and not even the high prices of food and goodies. Niswarth's people celebrated with a musical entertainment show in Bagracote Tea Garden on September 25, 2009. In keeping with the Puja spirit, the show was open to all. There were a number of entertainers from Bagracote, but the Niswarth performers were the highlight of the show. Surjya Oraon's song had everone cheering and clapping loudly. This was the only way they communicate their appreciation to Surjya, who can't see. About half an hour into the show, we heard there were two and a half thousand spectators. Later, even more gathered. It wasnt possible to get the exact number, but it turned out that all the labour lines were 'Khaali' and every resident of the garden was at the show! The show stealer was Deepa, who danced to a lively Hindi film song. This lovely girl has malformed feet; they are twisted and point backwards. The CD took some time to find. Deepa was all ready to dance, and she waited quietly, smiling and excited. When the music began, Deepa danced with terrific energy, mouthing the words of the song and enacting all the emotions expressed by the singer. There were four boys dancing with her. Two of them cannot hear at all, and the other two have very limited mobility. Their team work was remarkable. As they danced, the crowd went wild. There was no way anyone present would think of the hardship or sorrow of such physical afflictions. Emotions ran high. There were some women sitting behind me, clapping with their hands high in the air, smiling and weeping at the same time. Thank you, Deepa, and boys. You showed us that music and dance are for everyone, and that they have the power to fill us with happiness. Deepa became something of a star that night. Representatives of the local press were seen clustered around her for a long time.

Talking Boxes

Tributes paid,
wreaths laid.
Flags half mast:
Relive days past!
Son anointed,
Successor appointed
Madam arrives
son in tow
PM postpones
all to morrow.

Bharat desh,
always mourning
celebrating
always rating,
telly-phoning
phoney telling.

What about Air Force boys?
What about suicides?
What about the failed monsoon?
Price of sugar, over the moon.
Please, put reality on hold
Live funeral should not go cold.

NISWARTH

At Niswarth's Disability camp in Dibrugarh, Assam on August 16, 2009.

Niswarth, a registered charity, is an organisation that works for the welfare of disabled people in the tea gardens of Dooars and Assam. It is run by a tea planter here in the Dooars. Niswarth was started in Bagracote Tea Garden in 2007 by Harsh Kumar and his wife Neelam. Neelam suffered a stroke which left her with some degree of disability. She passed away in 2008, and after this Harsh redoubled his efforts to improve the lot of those who lived - and lived pretty much on the edge - with disabilities.

Surjya Oraon is blind. His life changed considerably once Niswarth became a part of it. At one time Surjya would go to Oodlabari town everyday and beg for a living. He is now fully employed at the incense stick production unit run by the Niswarth Centre in Bagracote. On Founder's Day, April 3 2009, which would have been Neelam's fiftieth birthday, Surjya opened the evening's program with a song.
'Chhoo kar mere man ko, Kiya tu ne kya ishara.' (You reached out to me, you touched my heart.)
'Badla ye mausam, lage pyaara jag saara' (Everything changed, and the world feels like a beautiful place now.)
Surjya's song moved all the people present - it was so melodious, so heartfelt, and so filled with meaning. Surjya's is just one story. There are many people with limited mobility who have received wheelchairs and tricycles, there are deaf-mute children who have been sponsored to attend special schools in Darjeeling, and there are elderly people who have had cataract surgery in Siliguri free of cost.





Many of the disabled residents of Bagracte Tea Garden work at the Niswarth centre, making incense sticks and greeting cards.

The idea of working for the disabled and underprivileged garden residents came to Harsh and Neelam long before she was taken ill. They wanted to keep a living link with the tea world, not just a club membership. It had to be something, thought Harsh, which would be a living connection after retirement, not just with Burra Bungalow and its new occupants, but with the garden and with all its people. Niswarth today has a growing band of workers, volunteers, well-wishers, and of course, beneficiaries.

Niswarth has organised disability camps at Anandapur, Siliguri, Bagrakote and Birpara tea gardens in the Dooars, and in the month of August, 2009, the first such camps took place in Assam. These were held at Panitola Group Hospital and in Dibrugarh town. At the Dibrugarh Disability camp, 205 people were identified as eligible to receive government Disability Cards. Earlier, only 15 people in the area had cards. At the Panitola Camp, 359 people were identified. In the Dooars, 539 people have already been issued government Disability Cards. Card holders are entitled to free rail travel and free bus rides. They are also entitled to free disability aids and appliances. In the Dooars, 291 people have received appliances like wheelchairs, tricycles, crutches and hearing aids. The distribution of these appliances was organised by Niswarth members.

Niswarth was in Assam again to conduct a Disability Camp at Moran Tea Garden on August 30. The camp covered 14 tea gardens from Sibsabar and Dibrugarh districts.

Funding is a constant and growing need as we expand our scope of activities. It would be wonderful if more people could give a thought to making some contribution towards Niswarth.
Our homepage is http://www.niswarth.com/home. Please read about our latest activities here on koi hai - http://www.koi-hai.com/niswarth.html

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.