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Journalism of Courage
Humor and impish resourcefulness often characterised tea planting in Munnar in the days of the Raj. Indeed, sans these, life would have been intolerably dreary for the British planters cloistered in the remote estates.
There was this well-groomed planter, a parsimonious Scotsman, who applied to the club secretary for a reduced haircut fee from the club barber. Unlike others, he claimed he had regular and frequent trims rather than an occasional shearing and, therefore, deserved a concessional rate. Unable to agree to his request, the secretary advised him, tongue-in-cheek, that he could not 8220;split hairs!8221;
Teaching his wife to fish with his imported rod, a planter and ardent angler was dismayed to see her lose her balance and slip into the water. 8220;Keep the tip of the rod up!8221; he yelled, more concerned about his expensive rod than his wife. Quite understandably, she never went fishing with him again.
Discussing the declining milk production in his estate with the vet, a British planter was advised to pen the estate bull with one cow every day. 8220;But don8217;t expect to see a calf the next morning!8221; the vet joked. 8220;Of course, not,8221; the planter retorted, 8220;But I do expect to see at least a couple of contented faces!8221;
Then there were some indolent but enterprising assistant managers who quietly raised a patch of brambles in their backyard 8212; into which they stepped before venturing out to meet the manager. This simple expedient encrusted their stockings with thorns apart from scratching their legs, thus fooling the boss into believing that they had been hard at work in the tea fields.
Another ruse was to stay indoors while the monsoon raged and keep one8217;s raincoat and hat dripping in the porch, so that if the manager stopped by unexpectedly there was visible proof that one had been out in the downpour.
A few British bachelors developed liaisons with local lasses, usually tea-pickers. Such women were euphemistically 8212; and imaginatively 8212; called 8220;talking dictionaries8221;. For she also helped to brush up the man8217;s knowledge of Tamil 8212; a prerequisite then, as now, for advancement in a planter8217;s career. Could there have been a better way of combining business with pleasure?
