Haiku : Death in the Hollyhock

March of death : heat and insects.

New heads bloom with rainfall - on broken necks.

Sweet Golden Memories

(published in the Hindu, 3/01/2017)

Karthigai has always been one of my favourite festival days. It is celebrated on a full moon night, and this year it was on Tuesday, 13^th December. Sisters light lamps and candles and pray for their brothers, who express their love and thanks with gifts.  When my daughters were little, they too lit lamps and candles with me in our tea garden home in North Bengal just as I'd done with my mother and sisters when I was growing up in Delhi.

Most of the goodies offered up with prayers on Karthigai are made with jaggery, which is called Vellam (VELL-um) in Tamil and ‘gur’ (rhymes with ‘good’) in a number of other Indian languages. On Karthigai my mother would make Vella Dosai, Appam (little deep fried dumplings) and pori undai (puffed rice laddoos in golden vellam syrup) in large numbers.

I remember that Vellam was always sold in rounds about ten inches in diameter with slightly raised centres – around three inches high. Vellam has a grainy texture, and it is firm, but soft enough to break into chunks. We ate small chunks of it with dosai and adai at home, at 'tiffin time', that traditional South Indian meal eaten somewhere between three and five in the evening. Most children who grew up at the same time as I did thought tiffin was the best meal of the day. You got traditional fast food    (though we didn't have that phrase those days) like dosai and adai, uppuma, pakoras (called Bajji) poori-masala and idli (not a favourite with most children). These were actually good for you, in addition to being delicious. There are brown and white versions of many traditional Indian eats and the brown ones are all made with Vellam. There’s white Pongal which is a savoury and Sakkara Pongal, its sweetened brown version. Vellam gives us health benefits in the hot season as well.  I remember my mother preparing  glasses of icy ‘paanaham’ – a  gur sharbat flavoured with dried ginger and cardamom- which kept us cool during the days when Delhi’s ‘loo’ wind was at its height. The taste beat Roohafza or Nimbu pani or any other pani.

Vellam is probably the purest form of cane sugar. It is unrefined and rich in moisture, iron, minerals and 'heat'. It is high in calories, but these are ‘good calories’ unlike the ones in refined white sugar. Shakkar is another form of golden unrefined sugar, a little lighter in colour and powdery in texture. Fresh stocks of Gur and Shakkar arrive at grocery shops at the beginning of the cold weather. I found both in Delhi on my visit there last month.  Both were excellent. Only small quantities of Gur and Shakkar make their way into the rural areas of Eastern India. 

 

  A couple of months back, I bought some Gur here which was awful. It was adulterated with caramelised white sugar. Hard to believe it, but the cost of Gur has been higher than that of white sugar for some years now. It used to be cheap and available everywhere: the poor man’s sweetener and a traditional rustic dessert. In the nineties, my husband and I would take the train to Madras, and when we passed through the poorer parts of rural Orissa vendors would sell us tea sweetened with Gur.

I remember days of sugar shortage and rationing. That was also the age when readymade garments were costly and you got your clothes made by the tailor, when all our vegetables and fruits were not evenly sized and brightly coloured hybrids, but actually tasted of the earth from which they came.

The Bengali month of Poush began a few days ago, and with it, the open season for bingeing on sweets, particularly those made with Khejur Gur.

Khejur Gur is Gur made from date palm sap. The sap is sweet and ready for collection at the beginning of the cold weather, and it gets sweeter as the weather gets colder. I saw and tasted my first Khejur Gur sweets when I got married and moved to the Dooars, North Bengal.  They weren’t all that well known outside Bengal in those days. Once I tasted them, I was hooked for life. Bengali Khejur Gur sweets are golden and boozy in flavour, with a mellow richness that can’t be matched. We used to travel the length of Dooars at least once a week, and my husband managed to hunt out the best eateries and sweetshops in all the little towns. Pretty soon, we zeroed in on Nagrakata, Mal Bazar and Bagdogra (in that order) as the places which stocked the best ‘Khejur Gur er Mishti’.Around five years ago, there was a sudden drop in the quality of these sweets. The sweetshops stocked them in large numbers, but alas, they no longer tasted the same. It didn’t take long to discover the truth. There was no Khejur Gur to be had anywhere, and the sweetshops had switched to caramel.  This happened because there were no Khejur (date) palm trees growing anywhere any more.

                                    Khejur Gur and Sandesh from the 'Gur Old Days' !

Some photographs from The Telegraph, taken in Nadia district, show how date palm sap is collected and how the 'gur' is made and sold at the market.

Christmas!

These are the colours of a tea garden Christmas!
Joy to the world!

Haiku : Envy

Lizard in the sun

Thrives all summer, 

Enjoys winter's refreshing sleep.

Celebration Lilies

 Easter lilies are so special. They almost always bloom on April 14, which we celebrate as 'Vishu' or New Year's Day. There would be a vase full of them in my mother's 'Vishu Kani'.
My mother remembers that when I was very young, I'd  pluck all the buds which were just about to open. She and my father would be waiting  to see the flowers and all they got was headless stalks.
 I must have been a monster of an infant. Thank God for parents who brought me up anyway - and passed on their love of flowers to all of us.

 

What joy to go around a new garden, checking what plants there are! And what joy to see Easter lily leaves, to know that there will be flowers in March or April. Those few days when they bloom are enough to keep you going through the year.

Our garden at Moraghat Tea Estate had both red and white lilies. The reds bloomed first and then the whites. Once the flowering was over, we planted the bulbs out in rows - something we carried on doing for the fifteen years we lived there.

The nuns from St.James School and Holy Cross School at Binnaguri would drop in to collect lilies from us to decorate the church on Easter Sunday. We shared our bulbs with them too and in time to come, they had enough lilies in their own gardens. I did miss their annual visits!

                                Moraghat Bungalow                    
                                                                                        

                                Bhatkawa Bungalow

Our next bungalow was at Bhatkawa Tea Estate, and my garden there didn't have a single Easter lily! I moaned about it for all the three years that we were there. You don't find Easter lilies in nurseries, you get them from friends. My friend in the neighbouring garden didn't have any in her bungalow either, and between us we knew no one in the district on whom we could descend to beg for bulbs.

There are several Easter lilies in the garden where we now live and I'm grateful to the people who must have planted these. They bring back so many memories.

 A good way to start another New Year, giving thanks for life, for family, for friends old and new.
 

Reflections of An Evening, written 2007

In Delhi, in the seventies, we used to look out for sunsets in the monsoon and post-monsoon months of August and September without fail. In a big and dry city like Delhi, rain was incredibly energetic. It was always a bonus; it brought high spirits, and it spelt romance. Spells of rain never lasted too long, and when they ended by evening, we got the additional treat of a sunset to enjoy and remember.

Evening curfew for a young girl like me in those days was lighting-up time. As soon as the street lights came on, I had to be home. What lovely late evening twilights we had. The light would fade slowly and grandly out of the sky, lingering until the clouds and trees were dark silhouettes. In my imagination, those banked up clouds on the horizon, black and purple masses, were mountains. The return home at the street light hour was followed by prayers in the back verandah. The puja was in the store room that opened off it. The back verandah would be lit only by the fading daylight and the storeroom was beautiful in the dark. It was comforting and yet exciting, and there were many smells that filled it: the sharp smell of the scrubbed brass villakku or the smoky smell of burnt oil wicks, the scent of goodies stored in big biscuit tins, and agarbatti, which dominated, and then took over my senses with its calming effect so that my troubles -- homework undone or a test the next day-- would be washed away. Only the comfort and the safety of my parents' home would remain.

It was remarkable that one could connect to nature in such a profound way in the heart of Delhi.

That was a long time ago, and the habit of enjoying a few quiet moments gathering one's thoughts at the end of the day remains. On some evenings, the day seems to die, and it has a melancholy feel. On other days, there is only a feeling of peace. Today, I was sitting outside our house and looking at the Bhutan Himalayas, purple and black masses against the Northern sky, and I dreamed they were the clouds of my Delhi childhood. One peak stood out sharply defined, perfectly symmetrical, and in the foreground, a gulmohar leaf swayed in the silent breeze. It could have been a calendar picture of Mt.Fuji with a leaf etching in front.

It rained all afternoon after an incredibly hot and sticky morning. The thunder was deafening and it was a really dramatic, high intensity storm. It cleared the air magically. By four o'clock, the sky was washed blue and the hills stood out in clear relief. I walked down to the National Highway -- a straight road leads to it from my house - at about five o'clock, with my head turned right to see the hills. They were silhouettes; I couldn’t see the trees on them at all, but I could see the ranges layered out distinctly. Where the sky met the hills, it was a lighter blue than anywhere else; almost whitish, and luminous. The silence that settled around this spectacle made me imagine it was a pre-dawn scene, as if something big was about to happen soon.
Back from my walk, I sat outside on a swing, with our patient and undemanding dog Simba at my feet. There was a gentle breeze blowing. Birds had returned to their nests and fallen silent. A truck rumbled past on the highway, but it wasn’t an unwelcome sound.

The sound of children playing somewhere in the distance was missing today. It is a typical evening sound. Once I was among children who played in the evenings out in the open, watching anxiously for the lights on the lampposts. Then, as a young adult, I remember sitting and daydreaming on the front steps in the evening and listening to a sad song about a lonely man watching the children play. I sit alone now and the children who played in this garden when they were little have left home. Home and childhood may seem very far away to them too. The complete tranquility and simplicity of those childhood years is lost for ever, but at moments such as these, one can recapture traces of it. 

Published here in my blog in 2007

Fresh Skin!

After two cold, windy and rainy days, the sun showed up at around noon today. We always tread carefully on the lawn because there are creatures that bite and sting, but I didn't notice what was there until the mali pointed it out to me.

 

I was not the only one who'd come out to enjoy the sun!



We thought that the frilly bit was where the head must have been, but when the malis turned the skin over and unfurled it, this is what we saw:

The snake must have been over five feet long. Look at the head :

  All the revulsion I'd felt at the sight of the skin was gone.

Winter Haiku

December sky music:
A Capella Betelgeuse
Sirius up next

Smelling of April and May

When the drought is over and we've had some rain we get to feast our eyes on these signs of moisture. It's a surfeit of flowers and new leaves everywhere. No need to plan out beds or plant seeds like the cold weather, because what's already in the garden starts blooming. There are lilies, hibiscus,hydrangeas, magnolias and gardenias. The grass is green again.

Thank you to the person who planted these hydrangeas. They're pink and lilac in one border and blue in another.

Almost like a forest floor under the mahogany trees.

Delicate blooms of bougainvillea.

Heady and intoxicating, the fragrance of the magnolia blooms - alas, I can't capture that!

Gardenia - what I choose to call myself on this blog.


There are many fellow creatures celebrating life out there. I captured the most eye-catching of the lot.






I salute the Maker!!

Grand Trunk

The season of storms is here again. A biggie hit us last Saturday night. I was in the verandah trying to make a phone call when a huge gust of wind blew everything out, including the lights . We could barely stand against the force of the gale, but I tried to save pot plants and the odd unstable table here and there. Branches snapped unseen above us and came flying about at top speed. I retired from rescue operations and went indoors, much to the chowkidar's relief.

We woke on Easter Sunday to see the lawn littered with branches, twigs and leaves.  The bungalow has five magnificent mahogany trees, and everything that the wind blew down was from these trees. They are the most striking feature of the bungalow and when seen from certain points they seem to frame and define the house. They're old trees, and I'm glad to think they will probably be around for a long time.

All through the cold weather, my chair was placed under the mahoganies. When the leaves began to fall, I was told that seed pods would fall too, and it wouldn't be wise to sit there any more. I saw little cone like pods high up in the branches. Soon falling leaves covered the entire compound. The lily beds underneath the trees were like a forest floor. With leaves fell the hard outer segments of the pods. They looked like extra large dried orange peel. Our bungalow boys said they made excellent fuel for fires. The inner segments of the pods were beautiful and we scooped up handfuls to fill up our pot pourri bowls.

The branches were bare in the space of a week, and within another week, buds formed and new leaves began to appear. It is amazing how leaf fall, bud break and the appearance of new foliage are all compacted into such a short span of time. With new leaves, new birds came into our garden. 

The bottle brush above the lily pond attracted a kingfisher that dazzled our eyes everytime it swooped and dipped into the water. A barbet, almost the exact colour of the new mahogany leaves, sat pecking at the trunk of one of the trees. 

The seed pods remained hidden until the storm blew them down.

 We marvelled at the design. How effectively the seeds are contained, and how well protected they are until they mature! Mohan has collected and distributed a good number for propagation.

I'm waiting now to see the flowers. The trees have put out buds and so have all the orchid plants growing along the trunks.

Baba ... Black Sheep?

I don’t like to make any comments on ‘godmen’, spiritual leaders or faith healers. There are believers and there are sceptics. Baba Ramdev, who came into the limelight some years ago, has attracted enough attention from each category.  Apart from lessons on spirituality, yoga and faith healing, the Baba ran a line in traditional medicine. The medicines (like Baba) became a rage and soon news channels on TV were afire with the story that they contained traces of crushed human bones. It takes more than a scandal or two to destroy a success. The noise died down the way it always does.

Baba Ramdev has been called a rogue, a charlatan and a Casanova. He tried his hand at politics, but he made a quick exit. You can read about it here and on Wikipedia.

The Baba hasn’t made news in some time now. It turns out he makes much more.

Last year when my daughter had come home from Delhi she was on the lookout for a ‘Patanjali’ shop here in the Dooars (the tea growing region of North Bengal).  Patanjali, she informed us, sells a range of products including soaps and toiletries made with natural ingredients and free from harmful chemicals. And it is owned by Baba Ramdev.

My husband laughed outright. ‘Powdered bones,’ he said.  I didn’t want to take sides, and I kept my thoughts to myself.  My daughter had brought home a bar of Patanjali  ‘Multani Mitti’ (Fuller’s earth) soap.  It looked good, in that it really looked like clay, and it smelt wonderful. I washed my face with it after she asked me to give it a shot, and I was ‘converted’.  Now this is the dangerous part when the reader begins to think this is an ad, after all.

 I expected to see a price tag of Rs.85/- at least, because that is what fancy ‘natural’ or ‘herbal’ soap bars sell for. This one was priced at Rs. 35/-. An ‘I told you so’ hung unspoken in the air.

Now, scepticism gone, we went in search of a Patanjali shop. To our surprise, there was one in Hamiltonganj, a small town close to the tea garden where we lived at the time. The shop had a stock of Multani Mitti and much more, including biscuits priced at Rs.10/- for 100 gms. Those biscuits were fresh and crisp. The ‘Neem Kanti’ soap at Rs. 13/- for the bar - around half the price of a standard bar of soap-  was even better than the Multani Mitti. One single use was enough to convert the husband.

   The gentleman at the well-stocked Alipurduar Patanjali let me take pictures.

I found it absurdly delightful that there was an outlet in Hamiltonganj, but there is one in Hasimara too, and that is an even smaller town. After my eyes were opened, I’ve seen shops all over the Dooars: in Binnaguri, Jaigaon and Alipurduar, in Mal Bazar, Chalsa and Oodlabari, all small towns dotting the countryside around tea gardens. Every shop has a large poster of Baba in orange robes with arm outstretched, as if calling out to customers while blessing them.  
We found an outlet close to my sister’s home in Chennai too, and we’d thought the Baba only ruled in areas where Hindi is spoken!

The shampoo and hair oil are every bit as good as the soaps and I’m saving money on these purchases as well as my dishwash and detergent bars. All our old brand loyalties have gone out the window. It’s simple: Patanjali provides  quality products at reasonable prices. Instead of pitching the product at a high price for the privileged few, it chooses to attract the common man – or the thrifty woman.              

There is one outlet in our part of the Dooars – no names - where we stopped to stock up last month. A shop assistant packed our stuff while his boss was busy dispensing medicine, advice and attention to a group of women who were hanging on to his every word. He had a good supply of words in at least three of our local languages: Nepali, Bengali and Hindi. His audience was giggling and shrieking with enjoyment. When my husband went up to pay for our purchases, he took the money and handed him his change without a break in the patter.

Make no bones about it, soft soap sells.

A Garden Party

Our cold weather garden has been nothing short of a celebration this year. I'm like that lucky hostess who does nothing but enjoy herself at her own party. Our malis are all novices and this is their first success. They are overjoyed at what they have achieved. For them, yes, this is a real garden party.

You know that feeling when you arrive at a celebration that every one has been looking forward to for ages. There's a sense of disappointment when things don't pick up. Well, that's what it was like at first. We had our share of stragglers and latecomers and we almost gave up waiting. Our marigolds took their own time. It was the same with our dianthus, sweet williams and antirrhinums.  Once they arrived it was a riot, and everyone forgot how worried and disappointed we’d been. The party was in full swing once they all got into the act.   

Then there was the flamboyant brigade - the dahlias and the gerberas. They were the stars from the beginning; all admiring eyes went towards them. The phlox were like those people who form groups with the like minded and chatter and sparkle among themselves. Phlox always look so happy, running riot in their chosen area, all bright and lively.

The gatecrashers at our party were made most welcome; last year's blue eyed daisies popped up unplanned and spread light and loveliness here and there. You'd actually think we'd placed them carefully. They are great at mingling, those friendly creatures. Ditto with the californian poppies.

Our garden has a little something for everybody.  There are plenty of intoxicants, even though the party is drawing to a close. There are sights, sounds and smells that can transport you to another plane altogether. There is plenty of food too, if you are the kind of person who appreciates food for thought.

I must mention the special guests; they were driven here from my friend Jayati's bungalow one evening, all ready to go straight to the beds prepared for them here. Some muscians flew in from the North in all their finery. The one with brilliant red and black feathers stole the show. The musicians have departed, and our 'local talent' has started screeching raucously, practically monopolising the mike. 

And now we have the debris that starts collecting at the end of festivities. You start seeing it out of the corner of your eye when the bash is in full swing. Dead leaves are gathering everywhere and the boys have their hands full sweeping them up. Soon we will be left with photographs, memories, and loads of cleaning to do. And after we've thanked and congratulated all the people who worked so hard, it will be time to plan our next party. One of the chief summer attractions is already in place: the solitary tokay lizard has returned to his tree. He announces his presence every evening with a few 'tokay's. We're relieved he is back; we thought poachers had got him at the beginning of the cold weather. 

Cicero said that if you had a garden and a library you had everything you needed. Give me a life of the senses: all I need is the garden for now.

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.

Janamashtami Story for Children

A Story for Janamashtami

Yesterday was Janamashtami. Here is a link to a story to read out to your little ones.

A Page from A Monsoon Diary in the Dooars

Does guava jelly keep monkeys away? I decided to find out when I saw that the guavas on the tree in the corner were beginning to ripen. They were small and woody and not worth the picking and eating. Those guavas can give the strongest tummy terrible aches.

Parrots and monkeys love these fruits. Parrots are okay, but monkeys! We have never been plagued by monkeys as we are here. We could handle regular visits by elephants who routinely destroyed our crops of corn and trampled or uprooted palms, banana and jackfruit trees. Elephants, we’ve seen, are destructive without any provocation, but after having suffered monkeys, I feel like putting out welcome mats for them.

We thought the monkeys would keep away if there was nothing to attract them so we picked all the guavas off the tree. Into a big vessel they went one evening and by morning the juice was ready to be made into jelly. We got one small bottle of a richly coloured jelly.  I smirked at having put off at least one monkey raid.

Yesterday the rogues were back. This time there were young ones too. Two or three sat on the swing, and they got it going. I could swear a couple more were pushing the swing. Maybe I am losing my mind. Another couple of little ones were on top of the slide, waiting to come down. Some had already torn flowers off the bushes here and there. I give up. I don't see myself making allamanda wine or hibiscus jam to keep the demons away. Any suggestions?

There are days and there are dull days and there are days when the excitement arrives just when you are about to drop off. A python entered the section behind the bungalow. It scared the wits out of Margaret, the ayah, and the chowkidar who saw it crossing the road as they were going home.  We heard about it at around 9.30. Mohan and the chowkidars made sure the cows and the calf were safe in their shed. I was worried about the calf, especially after reading about the two little boys killed by a python in a pet store owner's apartment in Canada.

Mohan popped up at 11.30 p.m. and told me not to feel scared about the python entering the bathroom or anything - that was really nice of him, considering I had forgotten all about it. Goodbye to all sleep for me that night. In the morning, we were all still excited. The python could be hiding under the bungalow. A gardener sprinkled some strong smelling insecticide all around to drive it away. Later, the estate chowkidars said they knew about the python; it lived in a section near the pump house and had been there for a long time. After a couple of days of being on the lookout, we guessed that it would have gone back there.

August is almost over, and by now we should all have been fed up of eating corn. We'd have it steamed at breakfast, or roasted on the cob on rainy evenings. It was a staple in the monsoon months when green vegetables were hard to come by.  All that is in the past, I now realise.  We don't grow corn any more, because the monkeys won't let it rise. We couldn't find any to buy either, and that was a mystery! The last time I found any in the daily 'haat' was in the month of May. I have now learnt that the Railways have forbidden the growing of corn anywhere near the tracks, and the Forest Department has forbidden the cultivation of corn anywhere in the region - that is, anywhere in the neighbourhood of the Buxa Tiger Reserve.

It's obvious that the Railways don't want any elephants wandering about near the train tracks. Corn is fodder, and it brings them into inhabited areas. With no solutions yet to the human-elephant conflict, the Forest Department and the Wildlife Department must put their faith in these short-term preventive measures, I suppose. And it is obvious that we must learn to eat frozen packed corn.

(Published in The Sunday Statesman and on Koi-hai.com)