Aroma of Orange Pekoe
Jeff Tikari
Published by Jeff Tikari at Smashwords
Copyright 2010 Jeff Tikari
A Smashwords Edition
ISBN: 978-1-4253-5787-4
About the Author: Jeff Tikari has worked on tea plantations in northern India for twenty years, from 1959 to 1977 and on coffee and tea plantations in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea for fifteen years. He now resides, with his wife, on the outskirts of Delhi where he runs a Homeopathic clinic and from where he does all his writing.
His first book on spiritualism and philosophy: ‘The Future Intelligence” was published in the year 2000. He has also had short articles & stories published in magazines around India: Elle, Delhi Press, Vanity, etc. in the USA, Diabolic Publications, Chiaroscuro, Sealy Publications Secret Attic, etc. in Canada, Horizon, and short story anthologies in the UK. He has self published a book, ‘Masala Tales & Random Thoughts’.
Jeff Tikari, M-12/24, DLF City -2, Gurgaon 122002, India.
Other Books by Jeff Tikari are available at www.smashwords.com:
To view sample pages e-mail to: jtikari@gmail.com or visit www.smashwords.com and search author’s name. Or visit www.jeffspage.com
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Aroma of Orange Pekoe
Introduction
These are stories, snippets from the day to day life of tea and coffee planters. They are mainly my stories – I spent thirty three years serving in tea and coffee plantations in India and Papua New Guinea: from 1959 to 1992.
I say mainly my stories because I have also included amusing stories told at the bar in tea clubs, usually late at night, with slurred words, halting speech, and good humor – a close and genial time when the true character of a tale is revealed.
Planters lived a simple life and so the stories are simple and from the heart. They lived a hard life which too is revealed in the telling. They made their own entertainment – cut off and living in far flung estates in large plantation bungalows staffed with a retinue of servants – no TVs only radios with weak signals over-laden with static; they entertained and kept sane by visiting, partying, and dancing. Furtive, short, love affairs blossomed here and there – with a ground swell of well healed, healthy, young bachelors, it is only but inevitable.
Hunting was taken up by many and tennis, cricket, football, etc. was played by all. Managers insisted that youngsters visit the club and play games, “Keeps them out of mischief,” they said. Young Assistant Managers were not allowed to marry during their first tenure (usually three years) and so formed strong friendships, visiting each other regularly. Club nights were very popular and allowed an outlet to the loneliness of living by ones self.
A good salary, generous accommodation including extensive flower and vegetable gardens, with a number of servants thrown in made an ideal situation where a young executive might like to bring home a bride. Not being allowed to marry during the first tenure turned some into keen hunters, sportsmen, and keener club revelers; others, to escape the loneliness of living alone, had women visiting; and whilst some temporarily kept ‘garden women’, others retained their women for years, and still some married them – especially when children were born.
Dr Graham’s School in Kalimpong (India) is an excellent establishment that, in those days, looked after ex-pat planters’ children that were either born out of wedlock or children that were loosely adopted, as well as other children. The medium of instruction was English and most children who graduated from this excellent institute have done well in life.
In the spring of 1977 I traveled by Air India to Sydney – to the Company headquarters of tea and coffee plantations in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea where I was seeking a position. I was interviewed by the Managing Director in Sydney to ascertain my suitability for the job. Steven Rich was a busy Director and was at a Board Meeting when I arrived at the appointed hour. On being told of my arrival he rushed out and shook my hand. Australians, generally dress more casually than their British counterparts…Steven was dressed in jeans and matching jacket. I, being brought up more formally, wore a three piece suit. I think in his mind, Steven had allotted five minutes for the interview, at the end of which I could sense I had made a favourable impression. Steven’s last question to me was addressed in a serious tone of voice:
‘Jeff,’ he asked, ‘do you drink?’
The question threw me, but I had to be truthful.
‘From way back, Sir.’ I replied.
‘Right, my friend,’ he smiled. ‘You are on the next flight to Port Moresby (Papua New Guinea). And he rushed back to his meeting.
When some months later I met him on the plantation in the Western Highlands (Bunum Wo) and asked him how he would have reacted if, that morning in Sydney, I had said I did not drink, his reply was swift, ‘I would put you on the first plane back to India. For, you see my friend, this is a small community of ex-pats here and you have to get along together. Anyone who does not drink would stick out like a sore thumb. Anyway, Sandy Fraser knew you in India and said you liked your drink as much as the next person.’
Working on Bunum Wo was akin to work in India and yet not the same. Tea and coffee were grown on the same plantation and parallel factories for manufacture were maintained. When the tea fields were in full production, coffee harvest was at its lowest. This suited the plantation well for labour could be switched between the two works.
Clubs were not plantation clubs, as in India, but catered to the general public and were situated in small towns. These clubs were open every day of the week whereas the Tea clubs operated three days a week.
It took me a while to learn Pisin, the language of the Highlands. But having to speak it every day soon made me fluent.
Chapter 1
Resurgence of Hope
During the 50s and 60s, Jamair did sterling service transporting people and goods to the many remote grass airstrips that dotted North Bengal: a lifeline for the many tea plantations that lay well beyond the reach of rail lines. Plantation companies of the area put together resources to support and maintain these strips where the versatile Dakotas landed bringing factory engine parts, cement, office useables, and other essential goods so vital for the running of the plantations. The arrival of the Dakotas spread especial cheer as they carried bread, butter, cheese, bacon, ham, and cakes from Calcutta for managers and their families living in those isolated regions.
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I had procured employment with a British company and was offered the job of an Assistant Manager on their tea plantations up-country. My destination that day was to the foothills of the mighty Himalayas in the heart of the Tea Plantation area in north-eastern India, two thousand miles from Calcutta.
I landed at Grassmore (Dooars) in a Jamair twin prop World War-2 vintage Dakota (DC – 3) early on the morning of the thirteenth day of March (that too a Friday!) in the year 1959. The flight had originated from a hanger at Dum Dum Airport (Calcutta) at three in the morning (morning indeed, it was pitch dark!). I was attired in a brown suit (a lot of us arrived wearing suits) having boarded the flight straight from a farewell party. Inside the bare, hollow of the DC-3 cabin there were only a few makeshift strapped-down seats for passengers and I was seated in one behind a load of cargo that shifted ominously with every bump in spite of it being tied down with a heavy rope net.
*
Back in Calcutta I was congratulated roundly by friends for having landed a plum job as a tea planter in a British company that paid the princely sum of Rs 650 per month as basic pay – a large sum it was considered in those days as starting pay for a youngster: I was in my twenty-first year, fresh out of college.
*
Tota driver, driving a rattley old Ford truck that belched more smoke than a steam locomotive, met me at Grassmore airfield. He kept me waiting an eternity whilst he collected 'cold stores' for the senior staff – I later learnt what an important lifeline those 'cold stores' from Calcutta were for us.
I waited in the shade cast by the awning of the building that served as the Terminus: a crudely plastered brick shed, whitewashed and roofed with corrugated iron sheets. I could see a tea plantation across a narrow macadam road: tea bushes trimmed flat formed a green carpet that stretched away into the distance rolling with the undulating terrain – a four feet high barbed wire fence separated it from the airstrip. A batch of colorfully draped women were picking green tea leaves and putting handfuls into conical baskets they carried slung on their backs. Children – bare feet and some bare every thing - lined the fence staring at the 'Iron Bird' that was disgorging hessian covered packages of all sizes. Through the trees, I could see the massive Himalayas – hazy, blue, and serene in the distance.
Tota emerged - buttonless shirt flapping around his khaki shorts- and we headed for the truck. We traveled on a dirt road that skirted a tea garden (Grassmore Tea Estate, I learned later) and proceeded towards the mountains stirring up clouds of dust and belching smoke that blanketed the fresh smell of lush green tea fields.
We drove over an iron grid built across the road (a cattle trap) the rattle of which sounded like a locomotive going over a bridge - we had now entered Bhogotpore Tea Estate of Dooars Tea Company. A company that belonged to the King William House Group of Companies, registered in London and managed by Gillanders Arbuthnot & Co. Ltd. of Calcutta.
On our way to the main office, we passed ‘labour lines’ where dogs ran out barking and chasing after the truck; past a football field at the edge of which stood a plantation school: a whitewashed large shed-like structure. We continued and soon two tall factory chimneys came into view exuding wispy grey smoke.
We had arrived at the Bhogotpore tea factory and offices - my destination. Tota stopped here and I descended brushing dust off my new suit and looking around at my new surroundings. Bhogotpore factory was large and spread out with many open outbuildings (chungs) to house the green leaf from the tea fields. A chain link fence towered eight feet around the factory and offices.
Daya Sehgal (senior Assistant Manager) 'tall, dark and handsome' wore an open necked shirt and shorts. He grinned widely when he saw me alight from the smoke belching truck in a suit (It was only later that I learned what an incongruous sight I had cut in a suit). He shook my hand in welcome and turned to Tota, "Take the Chota Sahib to the AG Division bungalow," he then addressed me, "I'll pick you up in an hour, when you have settled in… and put on shorts and a half-sleeved shirt… save the suit for Hogmanay," he said with a twinkle in his eye.
Any thoughts I had of a swanky first-impression evaporated rapidly.
*
I had schooled in Darjeeling: the winter hill station capital of Bengal during the erstwhile British Raj. Darjeeling is also the prime ‘quality tea’ area of India - and so I did not make any stupid comments about the tea fields as I believe many new comers did. However, the leafy, lightly canopied shade trees towering over the Tea looked magnificent in their whitewashed stockings (tree trunks were white washed with lime and ‘Gammexene’ from the ground to a height of four feet to keep soil borne weevils at bay) – there were no shade trees on the steeply sloping high altitude Darjeeling plantations, but I held my tongue.
*
Bhogotpore Tea Estate lies at the foothills of the Bhutan and Kalimpong range. The Ghatia River that flows two hundred feet below in a steep gorge demarcates the plantation's eastern boundary. Many a night, in later years, would I stand at the edge of this natural demarcation gazing across the valley at the glimmering lights of Ghatia Tea Estate on the other edge of the chasm, and up the valley at the shimmering lights of mystical Bhutan.
*
That first night at the Nagrakata club (a brick building, glazed windows, wooden floors, and corrugated iron roof – most clubs were built this way) I was greeted like a conquering hero by all the Dooars Tea Co. staff. I was overwhelmed – at last, I was appreciated for my flair and style!
But alas, it was not so!
My appointment had removed the anxiety the company executive staff had been suffering from…the rumor was that the Dooars Tea Company may be on the 'sale list' and my appointment allayed those fears. Two crushing blows to my ego in twelve hours took away something from the euphoria of landing a plum job at age twenty-one. But I salvaged some of my deserting ego that night by drubbing all and sundry at the billiard table. "You have obviously had a wicked upbringing," commented a senior manager - scuttling any progress I had made with my fading dignity.
All youngsters get a certain amount of leg pull on first joining. A senior manager, that night, hopped onto the bar and held a full glass of whisky against the ceiling, "Get me a billiard cue, lad," he said to me; I promptly obliged. "Now see if you can hold the glass pressed tightly against the ceiling with the cue".
Gosh, of course I can, I thought to myself waiting for the next move in the game. Does the 'old fogy' think I can't hold the glass? The manager hopped off the bar and joined his cronies in conversation at the far end. I looked around…all seemed to have lost interest in the game – I was left holding the cue supporting the glass against the ceiling twelve feet above me.
"Hey, what do I do next?" I said to Daya who was closest to me. He shrugged and looked away.
I had been had! I could see amused looks thrown my way from the Senior Managers' end of the bar. You bloody cad, I said to my self – you've been taken! But I was young and agile and a fair cricketer – I could easily catch the glass once I discarded the billiard cue – I would wipe the amused smiles off the faces of the perpetrators – they had chosen the wrong guy – They did not know how facile Jeff Tikari was.
I smiled confidently at the amused onlookers – they would soon be eating crow. I flung the cue away and very easily caught the descending glass…But they won!
I was covered with Scotch whisky that dripped off my hair into my shirt collar and into my eyes.
Loud hoots indicated I was now accepted and was a good sport.
Alec Hayward, my manager: a big built Scot, bushy eye-browed, and ruddy complexioned, put his arms around my shoulder and I knew I was the actual winner.
To be hugged by the senior most Manager of the Company within fourteen hours of arriving at ones first job was something not many could boast of. My dignity, that was unobtrusively slinking out the side door, returned
Chapter 2
A Planting Episode
Tea Planters, in those days, were a wild lot. 'We drink hard and work hard' was what one would hear them say. And it was true. A planter was up before 6 o'clock and quite often knocked off after 8 p.m. If one's name happened to be on the roster to help at night in the factory, then getting home at 2 or 3 a.m. after closing the factory was normal. Mind you, most Managers would allow one the concession to report late in the morning for having worked at night - at least Alec Hayward, my Manager, did (planting season excepted – one still had to turn up for planting at the crack of dawn).
When I joined Bhogotpore in March, it was near the end of the planting season and 'tipping' (the season’s first picking of tea leaves) in the pruned tea had commenced. The factory produced 'Legg cut' teas and so production started soon after the first field 'weighment' (there was no withering of the fresh leaf in this system of manufacture). The “Legg Cut” system of manufacture has been discarded now, and today Dooars plantations produce a variety of Rotorvane and CTC type teas (the small sized black tea leaf that throws strong, dark liquors). Some plantations make the long leaf Orthodox tea at the start of the season, known as ‘the second flush’ period. The first flush is the long stems of tea that rise from the pruned bush; this is level picked, usually to a height of six to eight inches above the pruned mark. The tertiary shoots that emerge from these stems are the second flush teas and are the seasons best.
My name was added to the factory roster for ‘night duty’ so I would 'learn the ropes' quickly and become a productive member of the Managerial Staff. Juniors were judged by the Manager to ascertain their capability of assuming Managerialship of a plantation in the distant future…and very distant, indeed, it looked at that time.
At five in the morning, in the darkness before dawn, I heard Tota Driver drive up to my bungalow (in the oldest truck there was on the plantation – a blotchy dragon-green Ford) to pick me up for 'planting'. I would be up and ready after finishing the last sip from my cup of tea – I had ample time to do so for I could hear the truck (two kilometres away) groaning and wheezing along, climbing its way to my bungalow – I had no transport of my own. The Company would only give me an advance to buy a transport after I had successfully completed six months of probation.
'Planting' is the expression employed to describe the planting of young tea saplings from a nursery to fields where they would grow and produce young succulent leaves for the next fifty or sixty years. 'Planting' commences before dawn – in the cool of very early mornings – and continues until about 10 o'clock when the sun is too hot for the tender plants.
Daya Sehgal met me at the planting field and tutored me on what to keep 'an eye out for':
No short cuts to finish early.
'Dhurmush' (compact) the soil thoroughly to ensure no air pockets are left inside,
Ensure planting lines are straight!
It would be years before we realized that too much 'dhurmush' was bad for the plants and that if a plant was a few centimetres out of line, it hardly mattered as every plant grew in its own way and within a few years the tea would cover the entire ground, anyway.
Plantations are set a target area for new planting each year along with a schedule for uprooting of old unproductive tea. These tasks had to be completed during the cold weather before the main plucking of tea commenced, for then all hands would be required to bring in the harvest.