While growing up in Pune I never dreamt I would be living on
a tea estate. I was around 12 years old when my cousin got married in Kollam to
a lawyer practicing in the Trivandrum High Court. Since it was very near school
reopening time and since my brother went to a school run by the Central Board
and had a nearly a month of holidays left, only my mom and brother went for the
marriage. I remember being in charge of the kitchen and being very happy
cooking.
My cousin’s husband had his ancestral home in a place called
Vidirah, which had tea estates near by and I so distinctly remember listening longingly
to my mother talking about the tea estate they visited with my maternal uncle.
Life
is so strange because I never knew about Assam nor did I
ever think I would be learning a lot about the tea estates in south and
east
India. I got married in 1998 and was really looking forward to seeing
the
gorgeous tea estates with gently undulating hillocks covered in the most
beautifull shade of green.Unfortunately the day the marriage party was
to depart for the north east we got disappointed because the train was
cancelled as it was the 6th of December and the anniversary of a black
day for India. My brother- in-law's, mother-in-law who was had come for
the wedding was very worried about the fact that I was carrying a lot of
gold ornaments with me. When she went to the extent of crying I started
getting nervous about how bad could life be in another part of India!!!!!.
fortunately i had grown up in a part of India where women are respected
and it was very safe for women to move around freely, not only that the
law and order situation was also good.
The first shock I got was when the train we were traveling to Assam at Jalpaiguri and Siliguri, the tea estates were on flat lands and plains!!!!!!!!!!!!! Hmmmmmmm what a thing to happen, and what amazes me is the fact that my husband had sent me quite a few snaps of his estate to me before the wedding, but I suppose that is life ……… you always miss what is apparent and known to you. It was very late in the night when we reached Guwahati, one of the main and most developed city in Assam. That was not our final destination, we had to travel to Dhekiajuli a tea estate near Tezpur. After we had traveled for an hour the driver got down to check if the luggage was secure on top of the van we had hired, and i was so scared that he definitely was signalling some miscreants to come and loot us. The second shock I got was the fact that there were no street lights on the high way, this makes the roads look eerie, the dense foliage of the place did not help matters either.
I was so glad to reach the tea estate safe and sound without any untoward incident, and what really struck me was, the enormous height of the iron fence the bungalow had, and i found that a bit odd. The next day was the wedding reception that my father-in-law was hosting for friends and family in Assam as the main wedding had taken place in Pune. I had prevented my family from traveling with me to Assam as everyone in my house was very tired with all the running around that a marriage involved and there were many guests who my parents had to look after in Pune.
Nothing prepares a person from the west of India for the east of India, one of the first amazing phenomenon is the time dusk sets in and the awareness of lack of a separate time zone. Dusk fell at around 3.30pm and I thought there might be an eclipse of some sort, so i kept going out every few minutes to check the setting sun. When i noticed the smiles on my father-in-law's face i asked him as to what was wrong and he said, dont worry you will get used to the dusk and dawn timings in due course.
The next few days went in looking after guests and soon it was time for my husband and me to take a tour of some relatives places in Assam. The first part of that journey was a trip to my father;in;laws house in Digboi an oil township in India. It being December the extreme dip in temperature was also a novelty for me. We stayed in Digboi for two days and then left for my brother-in-law's place in Jorhat. He too was working in a tea estate which was in a troubled area. The first signs of conditions not being normal were the innumerable
police check posts all over the place.
12/04/13
The day we reached Jorhat i heard my brother-in-law and his wife discussing, something about a body being discovered in a ditch near their bungalow. For someone totally new to the place it gave me shivers to hear people talk about deaths as a common occurrence. From there we went to a place called Kakoajan, a sleepy little town near Jorhat, to the ancestral house of my husband's sister, a typical Assamese house with a big pond in the compound. The pond was used to breed fish and it was amazing to see the lush fields and other greenery around, though the mineral and iron content in the water was apparent from the reddish film covering the water in the pond, in the house and in the water bodies nearby. There were cows, ducks and chicken running around and the air was so fresh and clean.That day for the first time i had pure authentic Assamese food, and realised the reason why every time one lays the table in Assam, one always serves green chillies. It was a very healthy balanced meal, cooked with very little spice in it and only those who wanted a bit of bite in their meal, took the green chillies and had them raw!!!! This was something very new for me, the cooking medium, which was mustard oil and the lack of spice. I soon got used to both, tough the mustard oil i stopped using after a bit because it did not suit me.
13/4/13
We went back to the estate and soon i settled down to the daily routine, tea is made in Assam from 11pm to 3am at night. This meant i was alone in the house, with the two night watchman having the whole house to themselves and me being too scared to venture out of the bedroom!!!!!!!!!! I was so not used to having male domestic help in the house, in Pune my mom only hired women to help her with the household work. I would not go and help myself to some thing to eat, even if i was hungry because i was actually scared of the watchmen for the entire duration of my stay in Deckiajuli Tea Estate, in lower Assam near Tezpur. There the agitation was by the Bodos (a tribe of Assam), and there was constant security for the estate.The bungalow i was staying in was a staff quarter converted into a bungalow. It had a big front garden, back yard and the main house consisting of the porch area, two bedrooms and drawing cum dining room was separate from the kitchen and pantry. There was a long corridor separating the two parts of the house, i hated this corridor too because that was just covered with a grill and a fine wire mesh. The wire mesh was in place to keep out the numerous flies, mosquitoes, and even the fire flies, the fire flies were so cute and such a pleasure to watch.
The bungalow had no privacy as it was surrounded by staff quarters and i would get stares if i went near the gate, the wife of the staff staying next door would sing loudly and it was my connect to another woman's voice. The bungalow had 8 male domestic help and i was the only woman, everyday my husband would tell me to give the men work to do, i would give them work and go into the bedroom and read or listen to the radio in the mornings. I would get to hear a very bad reception of BBC on the radio and i remember getting startled out of my wits, listening to the news of Clinton getting impeached and not believing my ears.... Everyday in the evening my husband would check if the windows and grills and other furniture in the house was cleaned and polished and i would get pulled up for not checking on the boys working. The cook was a rare specimen altogether, he would drink so much and everytime my in-laws came over they would tip, all the help and he would promptly report to work drunk in the evenings. It is customary for the lady of the house to light a lamp next to the Tulsi (Basil) plant, found in every Assamese house. It used to get pitch dark by 5pm in December, and sometimes if i got late and lit the lamp by 6pm, which was the cook's reporting time, he would end up startling me, by walking very softly and appearing all of sudden out of the dark. This was because the outdoor light in that area would be lit only after i lit the lamp and the area used to be so dark and scary. I was scared of the huge amount of snakes to be found in Assam.
The cook Junas knew a lot because he had worked with a lot of people and even the British if i were to believe him. He was famous for his cooking baking and drinking, he had a one more vice and that too was known to all, pilfering!!! Someone told us how when working with a bachelor, he had kept diluting the drinks in the bar till it reached a ridiculous level. Now i used to feel bad for the workers but it was their dependence on alcohol that was the reason for their sorry state of affairs. I say this because i saw the tea companies in Assam providing the workers with some amount of flour, oil, rice and lentils, some fuel for the kitchen fires, free medical help in the form of a hospital, free education for their children, and even a creche for the children of couples who were working. The wives of the executives were responsible for the welfare of the estate workers children, they had to inspect the creches to see that the milk and eggs and midday meal were being served properly and on time to the children and to ensure no pilfering happened.
The first shock I got was when the train we were traveling to Assam at Jalpaiguri and Siliguri, the tea estates were on flat lands and plains!!!!!!!!!!!!! Hmmmmmmm what a thing to happen, and what amazes me is the fact that my husband had sent me quite a few snaps of his estate to me before the wedding, but I suppose that is life ……… you always miss what is apparent and known to you. It was very late in the night when we reached Guwahati, one of the main and most developed city in Assam. That was not our final destination, we had to travel to Dhekiajuli a tea estate near Tezpur. After we had traveled for an hour the driver got down to check if the luggage was secure on top of the van we had hired, and i was so scared that he definitely was signalling some miscreants to come and loot us. The second shock I got was the fact that there were no street lights on the high way, this makes the roads look eerie, the dense foliage of the place did not help matters either.
I was so glad to reach the tea estate safe and sound without any untoward incident, and what really struck me was, the enormous height of the iron fence the bungalow had, and i found that a bit odd. The next day was the wedding reception that my father-in-law was hosting for friends and family in Assam as the main wedding had taken place in Pune. I had prevented my family from traveling with me to Assam as everyone in my house was very tired with all the running around that a marriage involved and there were many guests who my parents had to look after in Pune.
Nothing prepares a person from the west of India for the east of India, one of the first amazing phenomenon is the time dusk sets in and the awareness of lack of a separate time zone. Dusk fell at around 3.30pm and I thought there might be an eclipse of some sort, so i kept going out every few minutes to check the setting sun. When i noticed the smiles on my father-in-law's face i asked him as to what was wrong and he said, dont worry you will get used to the dusk and dawn timings in due course.
The next few days went in looking after guests and soon it was time for my husband and me to take a tour of some relatives places in Assam. The first part of that journey was a trip to my father;in;laws house in Digboi an oil township in India. It being December the extreme dip in temperature was also a novelty for me. We stayed in Digboi for two days and then left for my brother-in-law's place in Jorhat. He too was working in a tea estate which was in a troubled area. The first signs of conditions not being normal were the innumerable
police check posts all over the place.
12/04/13
The day we reached Jorhat i heard my brother-in-law and his wife discussing, something about a body being discovered in a ditch near their bungalow. For someone totally new to the place it gave me shivers to hear people talk about deaths as a common occurrence. From there we went to a place called Kakoajan, a sleepy little town near Jorhat, to the ancestral house of my husband's sister, a typical Assamese house with a big pond in the compound. The pond was used to breed fish and it was amazing to see the lush fields and other greenery around, though the mineral and iron content in the water was apparent from the reddish film covering the water in the pond, in the house and in the water bodies nearby. There were cows, ducks and chicken running around and the air was so fresh and clean.That day for the first time i had pure authentic Assamese food, and realised the reason why every time one lays the table in Assam, one always serves green chillies. It was a very healthy balanced meal, cooked with very little spice in it and only those who wanted a bit of bite in their meal, took the green chillies and had them raw!!!! This was something very new for me, the cooking medium, which was mustard oil and the lack of spice. I soon got used to both, tough the mustard oil i stopped using after a bit because it did not suit me.
13/4/13
We went back to the estate and soon i settled down to the daily routine, tea is made in Assam from 11pm to 3am at night. This meant i was alone in the house, with the two night watchman having the whole house to themselves and me being too scared to venture out of the bedroom!!!!!!!!!! I was so not used to having male domestic help in the house, in Pune my mom only hired women to help her with the household work. I would not go and help myself to some thing to eat, even if i was hungry because i was actually scared of the watchmen for the entire duration of my stay in Deckiajuli Tea Estate, in lower Assam near Tezpur. There the agitation was by the Bodos (a tribe of Assam), and there was constant security for the estate.The bungalow i was staying in was a staff quarter converted into a bungalow. It had a big front garden, back yard and the main house consisting of the porch area, two bedrooms and drawing cum dining room was separate from the kitchen and pantry. There was a long corridor separating the two parts of the house, i hated this corridor too because that was just covered with a grill and a fine wire mesh. The wire mesh was in place to keep out the numerous flies, mosquitoes, and even the fire flies, the fire flies were so cute and such a pleasure to watch.
The bungalow had no privacy as it was surrounded by staff quarters and i would get stares if i went near the gate, the wife of the staff staying next door would sing loudly and it was my connect to another woman's voice. The bungalow had 8 male domestic help and i was the only woman, everyday my husband would tell me to give the men work to do, i would give them work and go into the bedroom and read or listen to the radio in the mornings. I would get to hear a very bad reception of BBC on the radio and i remember getting startled out of my wits, listening to the news of Clinton getting impeached and not believing my ears.... Everyday in the evening my husband would check if the windows and grills and other furniture in the house was cleaned and polished and i would get pulled up for not checking on the boys working. The cook was a rare specimen altogether, he would drink so much and everytime my in-laws came over they would tip, all the help and he would promptly report to work drunk in the evenings. It is customary for the lady of the house to light a lamp next to the Tulsi (Basil) plant, found in every Assamese house. It used to get pitch dark by 5pm in December, and sometimes if i got late and lit the lamp by 6pm, which was the cook's reporting time, he would end up startling me, by walking very softly and appearing all of sudden out of the dark. This was because the outdoor light in that area would be lit only after i lit the lamp and the area used to be so dark and scary. I was scared of the huge amount of snakes to be found in Assam.
The cook Junas knew a lot because he had worked with a lot of people and even the British if i were to believe him. He was famous for his cooking baking and drinking, he had a one more vice and that too was known to all, pilfering!!! Someone told us how when working with a bachelor, he had kept diluting the drinks in the bar till it reached a ridiculous level. Now i used to feel bad for the workers but it was their dependence on alcohol that was the reason for their sorry state of affairs. I say this because i saw the tea companies in Assam providing the workers with some amount of flour, oil, rice and lentils, some fuel for the kitchen fires, free medical help in the form of a hospital, free education for their children, and even a creche for the children of couples who were working. The wives of the executives were responsible for the welfare of the estate workers children, they had to inspect the creches to see that the milk and eggs and midday meal were being served properly and on time to the children and to ensure no pilfering happened.
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