by Jeff Tikari
In those far flung isolated tea plantations in the 60s and early 70s reading of club library books or listening to the radio were the only leisure pursuits available after a hard day in the field.
Ajit and Pratap were young Assistant Managers working on neighbouring tea plantations. Each worked on a thousand acre ‘Garden’ (as planters referred to the plantations), which were owned by British overseas companies. A thousand acres was considered a viable size, anything larger was unwieldy and had to be split into two ‘Divisions”; whereas smaller plantations suffered cash-flow problems when the ‘Tea Market’ was low.
The young men were lean and athletic and scraped the 5 feet 11 inches bar in stockinged feet. They were lightly muscled and wore their hair, in what was considered the ‘in-look’: shoulder length and loose. Both were popular in the community and exhibited a simple sense of fun and humour.
Being bachelors left them with not much to do at the close of day. Their options for the evening were limited: they could drive to the nearest suburban town and watch an outdated Indian movie (and consequently get bitten raw by bugs – not an appealing prospect), or visit other bachelors and down some pegs of their favourite libation. Their cherished scenario was to be invited to drinks and dinner by a young married couple. With a lady around, the two friends were at their charming best; the evenings were pleasant, the food delightful, and the atmosphere homely and cheerful.
However, those invitations were sadly like the proverbial blue moon. Weekends were fine, for one usually took part in sports at the Planters Club, got slurring drunk at the bar, danced like leering wolves, and flirted outrageously with the wives of the ‘senior’ planters who enjoyed the young company.
The evenings after work on weekdays were like being marooned on a lonely island. From the options available to bachelors, Ajit and Pratap chose to add company to the 'lonely island' by visiting each other every second day. The evenings were then pleasurable. Ajit had a radiogram: a sleek highly polished wooden cabinet with shelves on the left for long playing records and a Philips record player on the right – this made a compelling reason to meet at his bungalow. Pratap drove across in the Company jeep in the graying dusk with his bottle of Red Knight Indian whisky; they would drink discuss and argue until dinnertime. Dinner was unerringly ‘western fare’: steaming soup followed by a meat roast, buttered mashed potatoes, and thick brown sauce to top it all. The meal ended usually with a not too firm caramel custard for desert. A bottle of sherry would then be fished out of the glass fronted cabinet to end the evening with their usual postprandial peg and cigars from South India.
The filching of their treasured Dry Sack Sherry was, however, of immediate concern for the two; for it was imported, expensive, and of infrequent availability. Purloining of their Indian whiskey, in comparison, would tantamount to a minor irritation. One of these days, they said to each other, we will have to address this issue.
Saturdays were movie nights at the Planters Club where one saw an outdated English film (black & white usually) and afterwards gathered at the bar to discuss and argue on any subject at hand.
When married planters left with their memsahibs, conversation turned more colorful: talents of bachelor friends and their prowesses with the opposite sex were roundly debated, derided or ridiculed; swear words became more the norm than the exception.
Later, much later, in the wee hours, when only a drunk could understand the drooling slur of another drunk, they left, staggering to their jeeps or Ambassador cars, slump into the driver’s seat and drunkenly lurch away – only Managers had personal chauffeurs.
Sundays were recuperating and nursing-hangover mornings. Aspirins, Paracetamols and eggnog concoctions were consumed to salve a throbbing head. By lunchtime, there was a gathering at the club to down that hair-of-the-dog peg, usually pink gins or beer. The vigorous types sweated it out on the tennis court or the golf course and quaffed bottles of beer afterwards. But soon one felt the weekend slip away and it was back home to face the grind at the crack of dawn the next morning.
This pleasant way of meeting and enjoying long (otherwise lonely) weekday evenings that the friends devised became a routine treasured by both; if one friend postponed these evening get-togethers, the other would banteringly ask whether the errant partner was finding the present company boring or had found solace in the arms of the local bazaar women: big bosomed, garlic breath, mustard oil on the skin, and strong aromatic oil on the head.
The planting community looks forward to the onset of ‘cold weather’. The climate is pleasant, work is at a minimum, and club activities at their peak. All picking of tea leaves is over and the factories are dismantled for the yearly overhaul. This is the festive season: a season of parties, fêtes and club sport championships (tennis, golf and some indoor games). It is a season when planters travel far and wide to other districts to join in the revelries offered in those clubs. A club-hosted dinner is part of the function. Each club also has its yearly do replete with a live string band from Darjeeling to enliven the occasion.
Ajit and Pratap awaited this season of festivities like parched amphibians to the onset of the monsoons. Teenage daughters of planters: fresh faced, fun loving, and chaperoned by their proud parents would be back on cold-weather vacations from school and college vitalizing club evenings. Bachelor planters would have ‘fling’ affairs with the pretty young things that would last the length of the college vocation – for who knew by the time the next college break comes, the enamored planter could be hundreds of miles away, transferred to another plantation.
The mood change during the ‘cold weather’ in the friends was discernible. Their banter was easier, lighter, and drinking heavier. Their prized bottle of sherry too appeared to take on a joviality of its own, for it emptied itself faster and quicker. This concerned the two friends for the sherry, other than being imported was difficult to come by.
They questioned the bungalow night watchman as to how the level of their favourite tipple was dwindling so alarmingly? He scratched his head then his crotch and straight-facedly claimed to be a teetotaler. The house bearer too looked shiftily around, and claimed ignorance though admitting that when he did have an occasional drink, it was always haria / lau pani – the local plantation brewed hooch.
The young executives were not happy with the excuses they were being offered and so, over the following weeks, hatched a plan to expose the culprit. They conspired to almost finish the sherry that night and fill it up to the half way mark with their own urine. They rubbed their hands in glee in anticipation, for this would surely expose the secret toper.
When next they met they eagerly checked the adulterated bottle of sherry: the level had gone down by a good peg and a half.
The friends were stunned. Let’s not say anything yet, they decided; let us see what happens tomorrow. The following night the bottle was a further large peg down.
“Impossible!” said Ajit. “Do you mean some idiot can’t tell the difference between Old Sack Sherry and our piss?”
This called for a thorough investigation.
The servants were summoned to the sitting room. They stood in a scraggly line – all six of them, some in Company Uniform and others in shorts, all were apprehensive and fidgety. This was a serious matter – to be summoned together like this augured a grave situation. They looked at each other…there was some talk of the sahibs’ whisky missing. They glanced suspiciously at the house bearer – he was known to drink every day after work.
Ajit questioned them repeatedly as to how his cherished sherry was dwindling, but received no answers or admissions.
“Come on,” bellowed Ajit. “Own up or the lot of you will be sacked from bungalow work and relegated to field work.”
The servants were shaken and nonplussed; they shifted uncomfortably and looked at each other accusingly. The young kitchen help (gangly and skinny) quaveringly piped up in a small voice, “Sahib, I… I have seen the cook opening the drink cabinet. Pe
rhaps he should be questioned.”
The cook waddled in; fat, greasy with the Hindu holy mark smeared on his forehead. But like the others, he claimed he did not drink. “I’m a holy man, Sir, it is forbidden to me.”
“Who then has been drinking our sherry?” Ajit flashed the bottle for all to see, “we haven’t had a drink from this bottle in the last two nights and yet it is short by two or three large pegs?”
He glared at them fiercely to hide a chuckle that was rising in his throat; for whoever admitted to this dastardly felony would soon be throwing up on the lawn outside when he learned he had been drinking his and Pratap’s urine.
The gathered employees looked goggle-eyed at the offending bottle.
“But, Sir,” stammered the cook looking, bewildered. “I… I mean that is the sherry drink, Sir, a peg of which I put in your honors’ soup every night!”
Jeff Tikari has worked on tea plantations in northern India for twenty years and on coffee and tea plantations in Papua New Guinea for fifteen years. He now lives 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 had short articles & stories published in magazines around India, the USA, Canada, Australia, and in the UK. He has self published a book, ‘Masala Tales & Random Thoughts’. Jeff has also written the following books:
The Future Intelligence - Spiritual Assessment.
Masala Tales & Random Thoughts
Aroma of Orange Pekoe – his memoirs and humorous snippets from Tea.
The Honey Gatherer – fictional novel.
Laugh Like a Dog – fictional novel.
Travails of Innocence – Fiction
To Sweeten Boredom – short stories.
Episodes of Ecstasy – short stories.
All the above books can be viewed & sampled at: https://stores.lulu.com/jtikari
Jeff Tikari, M-12/24, DLF City -2, Gurgaon 122002, India.
E-mail: [email protected]
Website: https://jeffspage.com and www.downloadbookonline.net
