A STORM IN A TEA CUP

The year was 2000. I  recall  the day  Director, Central Bureau of Investigation or DCBI walked into my office in  Salt Lake, Calcutta. Like  most police chiefs, he was quirky. He always wore a cap woven out of bamboo , a fad picked up  from his early days when Mizoram was still a part of Assam. It was shaped  like  Sherlock Holmes's.

" Sir, Vivek would like to offer a  cup of tea if it is okay with you," the accompanying Joint Director asked him politely.

The DCBI  turned right to look at him  with an air of indifference, imperiousness and uninterestedness. He fanged a mock smile and replied, " Thank you, Dr. Biswas, but you see, I'm very fussy when it comes to tea."

"When I was Director General of Police,  Sikkim someone  presented me with tea from Temi Tea Garden of Sikkim. Its taste has completely spoilt me. I can't take tea from here and there," he proceeded to add, probably  as an explanation for this refusal. I felt there was no reason to do so  except  to show off.

" 'Here and there', my foot!" I said to myself. 

One may be a DCBI but this does not entitle him  to be so arrogant.  If access to supply of tea from a solitary tea garden could   make him  snobbish, then I, till the other day Superintendent of Police of Darjeeling  with its 86 gardens which produced  the champagne of teas,  could  very justifiably be insufferably  sniffy - and  also extremely miffed at this slight.

" Even I am fussy, " I announced  aloud, without batting an eyelid, and thus crossed the Rubicon in the Battle of Teas to await  the Empire strike back.

There was a pin drop silence. The Joint Director put a hand to his left ear, feigning he had not heard me. The Deputy Inspector General of Police looked like a terror stricken kitten, and turned towards  the DCBI with a "Sir, I am not responsible for this young officer's impudence" look. The Chief, momentarily  stunned, craned his neck towards me, his eyes seeming  to race down his nasal  ridge to deliver  a punch , and just when it appeared that he was going to blow his top,  he sank back to his original posture.

"Okay, let us have  tea, Vivek", he said and smiled.

The air  had become lighter. The DCBI drank two  cups  of the finest autumn flush  from Ging Tea Estate, graciously conceded that he could not compete with the tea sensibilities of a Darjeeling man, thanked me , handsomely tipped my canteen boy and went away. The terror stricken DIG was relieved that his job was still intact. Phew!!

But if you think that I was born with a teaspoon, you are mistaken. I had been a late starter in the world
of tea.  For some strange reason, my father did not allow me and my two younger brothers to  have the potion  when we were small. I do not know whether  it was due to a belief that tea makes the complexion darker. If it was so, then he had failed because what he and his wife could not give us genetically, abstinence from tea  also yielded no better result.  I remember that  when I entered Class Xth,  my parents saw the  futility of this prohibition  and   allowed me to drink  tea- the same year they also presented  me a wrist watch, Favre Leuba. 

My father drank a brand called Lopchu which was retailed by a  tea garden in Darjeeling bearing that name. He was very particular  how it was brewed. It had a typical burnt taste and I developed a liking for it. Later on,  I went to Patna and Delhi  for further studies, and drank lots of tea in ribbed glasses, but rarely the Darjeeling  variety.  

My link with Darjeeling tea was re- established when I joined service in West Bengal. Bengalis drank a lot of Darjeeling tea, they also knew how to brew it.  But my love story with tea really started when I was posted to Darjeeling in 1998 and went on to occupy  Campbell's Cottage. It was  named after a Superintendent of the Darjeeling sanitarium  who is credited to have introduced tea plantation in Darjeeling by growing tea around his residence-  from Chinese tea seeds smuggled  in 1841 from Kumaon region.

I do not know the reason  but garden fresh tea tastes better when brewed in the water of Darjeeling hills. The taste  as well as  the aroma which swirls up are absolutely captivating.Sipping tea in the lawns of our house on a crisp, sunny morning,  overlooking an  unsheathed Kanchenjunga was   an orgasmic delight.  One evening, when we were about to open the bottle, a batch mate who was visiting and was fond of spirits,  asked whether we could wait and have a cup of tea instead to start with. I was stunned. In the circle of my friends those days, if someone offered , or  even asked for, a cup tea after sun down , it would have been kufr. But now, the prospect of drinking  Darjeeling tea,  in the drawing room of Campbell Cottage, next to a roaring fireplace,  had made it  kosher!

One balmy afternoon, I was at the house of Arun Singh, General Manager of the famous Castleton Tea Garden in Kurseong. Sitting  out in his verandah and guzzling beer, we discussed the marketing prospects  for Darjeeling tea. I now forget the names of the persons who were present, but one of then was a marketing man who had earlier been a tea taster.

"How is the market for Darjeeling tea in India?" I asked.

" Not very big. Indians usually drink  CTC tea. Except the  Bengalis and a few people here and there, not many prefer Darjeeling tea," he rued. I sighed and topped his mug in sympathy.

" You know, the bad luck is that the two most affluent communities  in India don't drink Darjeeling tea?" he continued. 

" Who?" I asked, put down my glass, and lit a Gold Flake  to inhale some smoke and gyaan.

" Arrey, the Gujjus and the Punjs, yaar."

" Why, what tea  do the Gujjus drink?"

"Oh, they drink  the worst and lowest priced  tea. These loaded, Daandiya playing Gujjus have  Cachar tea," his tone hinted  a sense of betrayal.

" Cachar tea? Why, that is shameful.I have never heard anything good about Cachar. I don't even like the name Cachar," I joined in to make this betrayal appear disgustful also.

 "And the Punjs?  These Chabras and Chabrias ? Why, what do they drink?" I asked with a curiosity that could have put the friskiest of the cats to shame.

"Oye, we tea tasters   joke about the Punjs and  say that if  the buffalo could give brown milk, these buggers  wouldn't  have had tea either ',  " he guffawed,  took a huge swig of beer, put down his mug to reveal a white, frothy smile on his moustache - and made no attempt to wipe it with his sleeve.

Spring and Fall

Many years ago, when the  Durgapur Expressway had not been laid out, the  Grand Trunk Road, also Dilli Road,  was the main arterial route  as one travelled from Bardhaman to Calcutta via  Shaktigarh (of the over rated lyangcha fame), Memari, Devipur, Bainchi, Mogra, etc.The journeys were punctuated by a few bovine and canine hurdles,   one  brief,  throw -a -coin roadside mandir stopover around Devipur, and a few  level crossings  where,  depending on the season, you could buy cucumber or roasted maize from young boys and girls.

But my favourite stretch  was the one which bisected   miles of banana orchards in Hooghly district.

The banana tree is actually not quite  a spectacular one but when thousands grow side by side , the look is so refreshing. After rains, the  leaves shine and sway with gay abandon, like women in their  saawan  best. Hundreds of maroon  coloured inflorescences or mochas and fruit bunches or kolar kandi convey a sense of heightened  fecundity which is emblematic of the land and its people.  The GT Road evoked a strong sense of history, our children had still not come to the world, the Willys jeep looked more spacious,we travelled canvasses rolled up,  the air redolent with the smell of soil, of paddy and mustard, of rain on parched land, and even of firewood  and cow dung smoke wafting across  in diaphanous  sheets from  the village hearths. 

But recently when I turned into this road, taking a right turn before Dankuni, I was in for a major disappointment. Beginning from the turn itself, on either side of the road, cocking a snook at all rules and regulations, stood, in severe disorderliness, ugly looking garages with their vehicles and mechanics in different stages of undress.A large number of  tea- paan- bidi-gutka   and bicycle repair shops, roadside eateries - all  liberally  serviced with child labour- had sprouted up. Further down, a few factories had come up with their high boundary walls, trussed and tinned sheds.  Clearly, these had eaten up a substantial portion of the banana orchards.  

The water in the odd pukhur and  the water hyacinth covered  noyonjalis ( road side canals)  looked  a dirty black, and  at 15 meters above the surface,  on leafless branches, the semul or the silk cotton flowers, even in their bloom,  appeared to be dull red, brushed with dust.  As we travelled down   further, a huge stretch was being flattened on the sides  as the backhoes of huge, bright yellow coloured JCB loaders, under the careful vigilance of fluorescent red and silver jacketed workers, went  about their work with quiet but efficient insensitivity, uprooting trees and filling up the noyonjalis- snuffing out life  and removing the shades. So it was with a sense of foreboding that I soldiered on for a job that is one of the most unpleasant.

I turned left into Sahaganj, motored down a decrepit  bazaar, and was struck by a general air of melancholy as I entered into a colony.This was the Dunlop factory premise,  where once were manufactured aircraft tyres- now closed for over a decade. The whole atmosphere was  one of dispute. Disputed severance packets, disputed  claims, infact a disputed destiny.  It was in this setting that I alighted and walked in to meet the widow of a constable who had died a week ago in an IED blast triggered by the Maoists in Chhattisgarh.  

It was good that I did not meet her at  first. I am still at loss for words to face the widows in such situations even though I have been meeting  them for quite some time now, the latest being when a colleague had  died, across that lazy  River Morora, next to a knoll near the dreaded Chakarbandha area , in Gaya district, to an IED blast. As the twenty  odd people came forward, I could easily make out the immediate family by the tonsured heads of an old man of nearly seventy and a young lad of six to seven years - the father and son. The boy had a sister, about three years older.  The girl appeared to be exceptionally bright, and even  cheerful. The  enormity of death of their father  had probably not dawned upon them and when thrust forward towards me, they animatedly answered  my polite questions on school and friends and pranks and games.  I gained time to prepare myself  to meet the one person who understood it so well .

I stepped aside to enter the  house, part of a row of ten such houses, each of two  small rooms with no sunshine, an aangan, a kitchen and a toilet. Young, almost thirty,  now a bit composed  in her grief after a week of wailing, head covered with a dupatta which hid her vermillion- less hair, hands on the the heads of her two children, wistfully gazing at the photographs of her late husband which were peering down at us in the  proudest khakis, she spoke not a word about what she had lost. Her father- in - law  talked. I listened, I consoled, I comforted. I assured. I gave my telephone number. I came out. 

More words of  comfort, a few cheques to the parents and the widow. More assurances. A final running of my hands over the children's heads, a holding of hands with the  father, a few instructions to my service colleagues,  commiserating with the local ward commissioner and other close relatives , and I was off, musing over the request of my Deputy Commandant about not disclosing to the outside world the compensation amount. How correct he was about his apprehension.

The widow was already vulnerable on account of the money she was to receive which could be close to half a crore. Young and now unattached , she could possibly  attract a lot of 'well-wishers'  with "helping hands' and 'caring eyes'. Helpless parents of the martyr would resist attempt by his widow to remarry  outside lest the pension/compensation go away from them. Who would look after them? "The government compensates the widow disproportionately, not the old parents " a complaint  I had heard on numerous occasions earlier. 

There could even be attempts  to marry her off , probably against her will, to her late husband's younger brotherso as to keep the money in the family.  After all the unwedded  sister had to be married off.  The widow was no more the daughter in - law or the sister-in-law. She was a bank account. Or probably I was being unduly pessimistic.

When exactIy did I  hit the Durgapur Expressway on my return I cannot  register as all these dark clouds of  misgivings swirled uncomfortably. And I thought about Sonu, the little, fatherless , sprightly girl who  had even recited a small poem at my playful bidding.