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Journalism of Courage
Today tea planters in Munnar and elsewhere effortlessly zip around their sprawling estates on motorcycles. But a century ago it was the horse that ferried their British predecessors around. And thereby hangs many a tale.
In those days the British planters thought nothing of riding 30 kilometres from their remote tea estates to spend an evening socialising at Munnar’s High Range Club. They often returned late at night usually well lit up though their paths weren’t. Indeed, in the darkness, their horses were guided only by the pale glow of a lantern swinging from the stirrup.
But, by all accounts, their mounts knew the way home even when the rider was temporarily indisposed. Once, after a rather intemperate evening at the club, two bachelors mounted their horses and headed home, falling asleep en route. They woke up the next morning to find themselves in each other’s beds! One steed with its sleepy rider drooping over its neck dozed off itself — and the duo had a rude awakening at the bottom of a ravine!
A new recruit was required to canter — on foot — behind his mounted manager as the latter acquainted him with the tea garden. The novice manfully went through the ordeal, no doubt consoled by the thought that one day he would, in turn, give his own assistant a dose of the same medicine!
Then there was the dour Scotsman whose chronically flatulent horse amused the workers no end — they often mistook him to be the source of the odd sputtering! This, of course, only soured his disposition further.
Given the horse’s indispensability, the British tea company in Munnar is said to have hiked its managers’ horse allowance to Rs 100 per month — twice the marriage allowance being paid to them. Apparently, it felt it was more expensive to maintain a horse than a wife!
And with the horse, of course, came the syce or groom. A breed apart, he sported the Brit’s discarded breeches and an air of self-importance as he exercised “Master’s harse”. At the monthly gymkhana in Munnar, the syce would swell with pride as he led in the horse with the Brit astride. And if it won a race, neither could be reined in!
