Tea and Company

THE 8216;bagan8217; or 8216;garden time8217; introduced by British planters of the Assam Company era in the mid-nineteenth century may n...

THE 8216;bagan8217; or 8216;garden time8217; introduced by British planters of the Assam Company era in the mid-nineteenth century may no longer be in use today. But it does not prevent young assistant managers like Rohit Kakkar and Vipul Sharma from waking up early and ensuring the siren blows at 5 am IST, a wake-up call for every soul living inside the tea garden as well as around it. It is time to get ready for 8216;kamjari8217; 8212; the garden terminology for duty.

8216;8216;It is a challenging job,8217;8217; says Vipul, a graduate from Delhi8217;s Hindu College, who preferred a job in Assam8217;s remote tea estates to the National Defence Academy. 8216;8216;Taking up a tea plantation job was never on my mind until I came here on a holiday, and there has been no looking back since,8217;8217; he adds. Vipul is not alone. A whole new crop of bright, young city-slickers are opting for the lush, green hills, fragrant with the smell of tea. There is Joydeep, another Hindu College graduate, Rahul Rana from the illustrious Lawrence School in Sanawar and dozens of others, who are now taking over from the first generation of Indian planters, who worked independent of British planters when they left in the mid-1970s.

Yet, life has changed quite drastically in the tea plantations. 8216;8216;That too, at a very fast pace,8217;8217; says Zubair Ahmed, who retired last week after 29 years in the tea industry. Ahmed learned the art of tea growing and manufacturing under the guidance of the last batch of Britishers and has witnessed the first two transitions of the tea planter8217;s life. 8216;8216;First it was the disappearance of the white sahibs who were here till around the Emergency. Then came the difficult days with militants training their guns on the industry.8217;8217;

8216;8216;Today, the WTO puts pressure on all of us,8217;8217; adds his colleague, R K Dutta, who will bid goodbye to the industry in six months. The telling effects of this new kind of pulls and pressures are visible everywhere, on the grand old club houses to the majestic bungalows with their sprawling gardens.

8216;8216;There is barely any time for clubs these days except on weekends,8217;8217; says a mournful, young executive, who did not want to be named. 8216;8216;With computers and e-mails, the trade keeps you on tenterhooks,8217;8217; adds another young executive, who has put in 13 years as assistant manager and hopes to take over as a full-time manager the next financial year.

Until the mid-seventies, a young 8216;sahib8217; like Rahul or Vipul would have wound up work by 4 pm and rushed off to tee in the numerous golf courses that dot the tea districts of upper and northern Assam. Planters8217; clubs, most of which are at least a 100 years old, each boast of sprawling golf courses, polo grounds and tennis courts outside, while vintage billiard tables, grand pianos and furniture are scattered inside the stately rooms.

Today, these 8216;young sahibs8217; have to work almost 14 hours a day, first in the field and then in the office, e-mailing market information on a day-to-day basis to their head offices, most of which are located in Kolkata. But the perks are more than exemplary 8212; along with a fully-furnished bungalow comes an army of housekeepers, cooks and beheras bearers, gardeners and gatekeepers, who ensure their 8216;sahibs8217; can function without the slightest discomfort.

This lavish tradition has not changed despite the fact that today the 8216;memsahib8217; is very much part of plantation life. Earlier, most tea executives left their families behind in Kolkata because there were no schools for the children and no social life for the wives. Now many good schools have come up in the State, with the planter no longer having to take his ward to Darjeeling, Shimla or to the Doon Valley. There is the excellent Assam Valley School at Tezpur, promoted by the Williamson and Magor group, and a Delhi Public School each at Numaligarh and Digboi.

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Today8217;s executive also prefers to have his wife in the garden, even in the face of remote or occasional threat from a militant group. But the present-day memsahib does not idle her time in club life, instead she plays an active role in looking after the welfare of the labour force. 8216;8216;Life becomes boring if you sit idle,8217;8217; says Manjula Singh, who has been a planter8217;s wife for 20 years, ever since she married V K Singh, a senior manager. Today, wives supervise creches for children whose mothers work on the estates, visit the 8216;lines8217; labourers8217; quarters to check on cleanliness and safety, and organise health camps and education programmes. This new awareness has also brought about a new legislation whereby every tea estate is required to have a welfare officer to look after labourers. The latter are now eligible for ration at a highly subsidised rate and medical and educational facilities have vastly improved.

8216;8216;Life was a big party earlier,8217;8217; recalls Manjula Singh. 8216;8216;The music, games, billiards and Lotto, the bar evenings which ended in singing and great camaraderie.8217;8217; Adds Rajiv Gogoi, who has spent over a decade in the industry, 8216;8216;Nowadays, Sundays are the only days we look forward to. Golf and tennis for the men followed by an elaborate lunch with the ladies,8217;8217; he says. Couples also spend weekends in clubs in other districts to keep in touch, the most popular being the 127-year old Tezpur Station Club and the Dibrugarh Planters8217; Club.

Life changed, says V K Singh, after the great collapse of the Indian tea industry. The export market plunged into an abyss with the demise of the USSR. Pakistan, another major tea buyer, cut its links with India. Competitive prices from Sri Lanka and Kenya put the Indian industry on a tight leash. And, finally, tea was no longer a fashionable beverage with the new generation. But the Singhs have no regrets, their son has just joined the industry as a young executive in a major tea company.

Some of the romance that draws young managers to tea gardens today must stem from the legendary stories about gora sahibs and their leisurely pursuits. British planters like J M Lampet and Jeffrey Duncan would send off their wives to Kolkata or London during the winter and pitch tents beside the Jia-Bhoroli river near Tezpur to enjoy weeks of angling for the golden mahseer, the wonderful sport fish which is now almost extinct.

Or the time when the manager of the Corramore estate, who would fly his light aircraft to the Mangaldoi Club in the afternoon and find the airstrip in the evening darkness at home with the labourers mashals torches.

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The present-day sahib does not have such luxuries at hand. The changing profile of a manager also strips him of his status of lone monarch, free to administer his garden in isolation. Today he is required to constantly watch the company8217;s bottomline, without compromising the welfare of the workers. The top management, which used to monitor from overseas, is now closer home, in Kolkata or Guwahati, thus increasing the pressure to perform. Tour incentives are no longer lavish. Profits are down. 8216;8216;Every company is bound to tighten its fists,8217;8217; points out Bolin Bordoloi, general manager, Tata Tea. Captain Tridib Phukan, who heads George Williamson seems to agree. 8216;8216;Today8217;s manager has to identify himself with the changing atmosphere. But we ensure it does not become an all-work-and-no-play situation,8217;8217; says Phukan.

And so, as dusk settles, it is not uncommon to see a tea executive listen to the lilting notes of mountain music in the large 8216;gol kamra8217; drawing room or the 8216;jaali kamra8217; verandah. The peace that surrounds the hills keeps them coming for more.

Some names have been changed