by Shona Patel
Jamina stared at me as if I was the biggest traitor in the world.
“I am doing this for your own good,” I added lamely.
She got up and walked off in a huff.
Fearing I had jeopardized our friendship, I called out after her. “Jamina, please come again tomorrow.” And I was relieved when the back of her head gave a little nod.
Aynakhal
27th March 1946
Moon, dear sister,
Letters are my lifeline in Aynakhal—my window to the real world. You have no idea how I wait for them. Our mail comes twice a week (Tuesdays and Thursdays), and Manik brings my letters home in the evening. I wait for him at the bottom of our hill and watch him carefully as he walks toward me. I can tell by his exaggerated casualness when there is something for me tucked inside his shirt. He makes me chase him up the hill and extracts as many “favors” as he can before he parts with my letters, the rascal!
I miss you, dear sister. I would give anything to share a cup of tea with you! Not that I am lonely here, mind you. Manik is wonderful company and Jamina comes every day. She is a simple girl and talks nonstop! Debbie Ashton is probably the closest I have to a friend. Debbie is writing a romance novel—“chutney fiction,” she calls it.
Emma and Budni have become best friends. I made them saris by cutting up one of mine. The garden dhobi burned a big hole in the saffron paisley one you liked so much. Never will I give my expensive saris to the dhobi again. I even stitched the girls tiny matching blouses and petticoats. You should just see those two playing house! They chatter nonstop in Hindustani and English with a lot of gibberish and head shaking thrown in. It just makes me realize language is never a barrier when there is a genuine desire to communicate.
The younger wives at the club have no such desire where I am concerned. I will always be a misfit in their circle. The older ladies (Mrs. McIntyre and her friends) are gracious and very kind but there is an unspoken rule—I am expected to socialize with the Junior Assistants’ wives.
You were curious about the “fishing fleet.” Let me explain. The First World War, as you know, had wiped out a big section of the male population in Europe. The remaining men drifted to the colonies in search of jobs. India, as you can imagine, is the prime hunting ground for young girls and war widows. The “fishing fleet” are women who come to India every winter on the pretext of visiting a relative but more blatantly to hook a catch. I was surprised to learn the British government actually pays single women to travel overseas to find husbands. It’s one way to make sure the whites marry into their own, I suppose. The ladies come in droves every winter and make a beeline for hill stations like Shillong and Simla, where most of the romancing takes place. I am told there is close to a stampede from young bachelors to seek their favor. The top pick of fleet ladies are the men in civil-service jobs living in big cities (look what Manik missed!). Next come the military lads and at the very bottom of the barrel are our poor tea planters.
Tea planters don’t encounter much feminine company, as you can imagine—at least not the eligible kind. It takes a special kind of woman to make a good planter’s wife. Debbie Ashton is a good example. She is independent, free-spirited and revels in adventure. Other wives adapt best as they can. Some suffer and survive, some run away.
Larry Baker is going to Silchar tomorrow and will post this letter. He will also pick up our order from Paul & Co. I am hoping the cake tin I ordered from Calcutta has arrived. Mrs. McIntyre has shared with me a wonderful recipe for Scottish Whiskey Dundee cake. The cake has to be “fed” four tablespoons of Scotch after baking. This makes it exceptionally rich and moist. Manik says if he got fed Scotch, he’d be rich and moist, too!
I am delighted to hear little Aesha knows so many words already. I think this one will be a chatterbox. As for Anik, I am glad he has a new favorite color, although I am not sure black makes his mother any happier.
I must end here, dear sister. I am writing to Mima next. Mima’s letter to me is a long list of questions. It will take me three pages just to answer them all.
My love to you, Jojo and Anik & Aesha.
Layla
Manik ambled around to the back of the house looking for me. I was in the malibari instructing the malis to take down the trellis for the green beans they had spent all morning putting up in the wrong bed for the carrots.
“What? Is it lunchtime already?” I exclaimed.
“I’m home early,” he said. “What’s this bamboo crisscross thing?”
“For the green beans.”
Manik made a face. When I turned around he plucked a sprig of fox grass and tickled the nape of my neck.
“Oooh!” I jumped, swiping my neck, thinking it was a caterpillar. The malis stopped in their work to stare at me.
Manik turned his bespectacled face, full of fake concern. “Is something wrong?”
“Behave yourself, will you,” I laughed.
He flung the fox grass away, stuck his hands in his pockets and rocked on his heels. “Jimmy O’Connor was at the office. He came to see Mr. McIntyre.”
“What about?”
“He shot a leopard in Dega and wanted to know about the one we killed. He didn’t even bother getting a permit from the Forest Department.”
“Won’t he get into trouble? Won’t that Mr. Sircar come after him?”
“Nobody comes after Jimmy O’Connor. That man is a law unto himself. Jimmy O’Connor says Sircar is a far bigger menace than the animals. He’d shoot Sircar on the wing tip, if he could. If Sircar shows his face at his bungalow, Jimmy sends his wild geese and dogs to chase him out.”
It sounded as though the Forest Department had enough reasons, legitimate or otherwise, to concern themselves with Jimmy O’Connor. Kaziranga, the neighboring wildlife sanctuary, bordered three tea gardens: Aynakhal, Chulsa and Dega, but the major portion fell on the Dega side. It was common to have large animals wander into the tea plantations—water buffalo, elephants or deer, mostly. They were easily chased out. Leopards were a bigger menace, especially if they became man-eaters and started prowling the labor lines.
“Is it true Jimmy O’Connor killed a rogue elephant?”
“Not one—goodness, he has killed several! He’s an excellent shikari. Jimmy is the only planter in Assam who can take down a rogue with a single shot. He never misses.”
Rogue elephants were a tricky target, Manik explained. A shikari had only one chance to kill it by aiming at a spot precisely between the eye and earlobe. If he missed, most likely he was mashed meat. The demented fury of a rogue elephant is legend. Bloodcurdling stories abound in shikar lore. Typically a double-barrel .375 Magnum rifle is used with a four-inch bullet: powerful enough to stop a train. Not many tea planters owned such a weapon. Jimmy O’Connor owned not just one, but two Magnum rifles.
“Is that story about his wife true?” I asked.
“Yes, although the elephant did not kill her directly. Jimmy’s wife got chased by a rogue and drowned in a river. Alasdair knew Jimmy’s wife. They were just newly married, back then. He and Marie—I think that was her name—were fishing in Upper Assam when they encountered a rogue on the riverbank. The elephant backed Marie into the river and she was swept away by the current and drowned. The rogue came back to chase Jimmy up a tree. He spent a whole day with the beast trumpeting and shaking the tree. He escaped with his life but it became his obsession to kill this rogue. He spent months tracking it down. During this period, it was rumored he stayed with the Naga headhunters in a tree house, ate monkey meat and drank goat’s blood. Finally he shot the elephant deep in Naga foothills. Alasdair says Jimmy was unrecognizable when he returned with his matted hair and tattered clothes. He brought back the massive tusk and had it capped in silver. He keeps Marie’s ashes inside it, I believe.”
I could just picture Jimmy O’Connor holding aloft the bloody tusk of the slain el
ephant. There was a primitive caveman quality about the man.
“I don’t understand how he can pull the trigger of a gun, let alone kill a rogue with a single shot, if he is missing his forefinger,” I said. “How did he lose his finger, anyway?”
“I have no idea. Some say he lost it in the war. Larry thinks it was bitten off by a rabid dog. Jimmy O’Connor is not the kind you can ask such questions. Coming to think of it, I am not sure how he fires a gun, but he is a crack shot, and I don’t believe he is left-handed because Alasdair borrows guns from him all the time.”
“Such a curious man, with his geese and tomatoes.”
“The geese, I know about, but what tomatoes?”
“The ladies at the club were saying that he grows some kind of heirloom tomato and won’t share the seeds with anyone.”
Manik laughed. “That sounds like Jimmy, all right. That man’s a genius. He is undoubtedly one of the best tea planters in Assam. He invented a cloning method for tea bushes that yields a premium leaf grade, and he won’t share that secret with anyone, either. Dega Tea Estate has always had an edge over other gardens because of him. But he is a bit unpredictable with his drinking problem.”
“That’s because his wife died so tragically,” I said, feeling sorry for the poor man.
Manik snorted. “A nice story to butter up the ladies, if you ask me. Jimmy O’Connor is Irish—alcohol is in his blood. He was a tippler long before his wife died.”
“So, how did he know it was the same elephant—the one he shot—that killed his wife?”
“It had a bifurcated tail—”
“A what?”
“A tail split in its extremity. Tea-garden coolies believe an elephant with a bifurcated tail will one day take human life. Coolies are very superstitious. I think that’s nonsense, really. Rupali, our garden elephant, has a split tail, but she is gentle as a lamb and saves human lives.”
“She’s female, though. They are more docile than males, aren’t they? Rogues are the male elephants in heat, right?”
“‘In musth,’ they call the condition. You can tell when a male elephant is in musth by a dark secretion that oozes just above their eye. In that condition they are extremely dangerous and will destroy anything.”
“So how do they deal with domesticated male elephants when they are in musth?”
“The mahuts, their trainers, know how to handle them. They mix small amounts of opium in their diet and stand the elephant in a river for several hours a day to calm it down. The musth only lasts for a few days, but sometimes rogues get permanently deranged. When that happens, they have to be killed. The one that killed Jimmy O’Connor’s wife was a permanently deranged one, I believe.” Manik looked at me seriously. “I can show you a domesticated elephant in musth, if you like. They are not dangerous or anything.”
I swiveled around. “Really? Where?”
“We have one here in Aynakhal. Now if you will kindly follow me to the bedroom...”
“Ufff!” I said, slapping his arm.
I suppressed a smile. Lately I noticed my ears no longer turned red when Manik teased me. His innuendos titillated, but they no longer embarrassed me like they did before.
Aynakhal
7th April 1946
Dear Dadamoshai,
I am sending this letter through Jamina, who is going to her village. I am also sending you some fresh cauliflower from my garden and a bottle of homemade marmalade. This is an old Scottish recipe shared by Mrs. McIntyre. She is a wonderful mentor and has been helping me to plan my garden. I was a little late with the flowers this year, but I am redesigning the flower beds to get them ready for next season. I have three new malis. The old mali was a hopeless opium addict and his two helpers complete duffers.
Kalua and Halua are so set in their bad habits. I have to do periodic kitchen inspections to make sure it stays clean. Kalua still can’t cut a chicken without gripping it with his dirty toe and using some kind of hatchet. It is an uphill battle with those two. That goes, too, for their master, who views anything remotely green on his plate with suspicion. I finally got sick of our poultry diet and asked Kalua to buy mutton at the local haat. The next day I heard a loud commotion and here comes Kalua pulling a young, knock-kneed goat right into the living room to show me. The goat dropped pellets all over the house and almost made lunch out of my curtains.
But I must admit Kalua is picking up some nice recipes from the Mung borchee at the burrabungalow. The borchee is not happy about sharing his secrets but Mrs. McIntyre has ordered him to give cooking lessons to Kalua every Wednesday, so he has no choice. The borchee tries to slyly leave out some crucial ingredient or the other to throw Kalua off track, but Kalua, being a canny fellow, catches on or improvises. The other day, to our delight, he turned out a chicken Kiev fit for a king.
Among my other accomplishments: I have learned to drive the jeep and shoot a gun! Manik insists they are both basic requirements. When I asked him why, he said for the same reason one needs to know how to swim if one lives on a boat. Imagine my surprise when I shot a jungle fowl! I think the poor creature died of a heart attack, because we could not find a single bullet wound.
I hope you can visit us in Aynakhal soon, Dadamoshai. There is so much I want to show you. Please give my best wishes to Boris Ivanov. How long will he be staying with you?
With my love,
Layla
The topless Willys jeep careened to a halt and out jumped a windblown and dusty Debbie Ashton.
“Who was that short girl in the green sari?” she said, nodding toward the gate.
“That’s Jamina,” I replied. When Debbie looked blank I added, “Alasdair’s...”
Debbie’s eyes widened. “You know Alasdair’s OP?”
“Well, yes.”
Debbie gave a little jump. “Oh, I’d love to meet her. Can I?” she cried. “Do you think she’ll talk to me?”
“I don’t know,” I said doubtfully. “Jamina’s awfully shy.”
I told her briefly about Jamina’s life.
“Fantastic fiction material,” Debbie said meditatively. “Will you introduce us?”
“Of course,” I replied, “but don’t be surprised if she clams up.”
“I’ll wear a sari, if that helps. Every time I see Emmi in her sari, I want to wear one.”
I laughed. “I’ll put one on for you.”
“When do you suppose I can meet her?”
“Jamina is going to her village tomorrow. She’ll be back after two weeks. Usually she’s here every day around nine. She sits and drinks her salt tea on the floor—don’t ask me why. Maybe she is more comfortable that way.”
“I will wear a sari, sit on the floor and drink salt tea, as well. Also, can I go home wearing the sari? Imagine Robby’s surprise when he sees Emma and me waiting for him like maharanis on the veranda! Talking about that rascal, is she here?”
“She’s out in the back playing with Wendy.”
“Goodness, I have been all over the place looking for her. First to Jimmy O’Connor’s, where I got nipped by a damn goose.” She twisted her ankle to show me a cut above her shin. “Those geese bite everyone except Emma. She orders the dogs, the geese and even Uncle Jimmy around, bossy little thing that she is.”
“Do you want some Dettol for that cut?”
“Nah, it’s nothing,” said Debbie. “I better go and get Emmi. I forgot today is her best friend Shirley’s birthday. They adore each other. We better not forget to take our present. It’s in the bathtub.”
“What is it, a fish?” I asked.
Debbie laughed. “No, a guinea pig. Emmi wanted to give her best friend a brown-and-white guinea pig exactly like her Chico. So she goes crying to Uncle Jimmy, and Uncle Jimmy sends someone scooting off God only knows where to get a brown-and-white guinea pig.
What that man won’t do for Emma Ashton, I tell you. No wonder she wants to marry him.”
“Why is the guinea pig in the bathtub?”
“I tried to put it in the cage with Chico but they’re both males and almost killed each other. Who knew guinea pigs can be so aggressive.”
We walked around to the back of the bungalow, where I found, to my chagrin, Emma and Budni feeding nubs of carrots, picked from my malibari, to the goat. The goat wore Budni’s pink ribbon around its neck, and from the spoiled look on its face, I had my doubts we would see goat curry on our table soon.
“Emmi, c’mon darling. It’s Shirley’s birthday. Don’t you want to go to her party?”
Emma stared back at her mother, a big mud streak on her cheek. She played absently with the goat’s ear. It flicked her fingers away. “Can we go tomorrow?”
“Don’t be silly, darling. Her birthday is today. Hurry up now. We have to put the guinea pig in a box and get ourselves cleaned up, don’t we?”
“Can Wendy come to the birthday party?”
Debbie sighed. “Why are you being so difficult, darling?”
“Please, Mummy!” Emma pleaded, stamping her foot.
Debbie turned to me. “Actually, I don’t see why Wendy can’t come along to Shirley’s party. I’ll make her wear one of Emma’s dresses. Where is Halua? Let me ask him.”
“Are you sure?” I said. The children of servants never played with bungalow children, let alone went to their birthday parties.
“Oh, absolutely,” laughed Debbie. “I don’t suppose you’ve met Jill Melling of Tarajuli Tea Estate, have you? Shirley’s mother? Jill is wonderful. All the servant children are invited for Shirley’s birthday party. They are given pretty new clothes to wear and share Shirley’s birthday gifts. None of this elitist baba-bibi nonsense with Jill, thank God.”
Halua appeared at the pantry door.
“Halua!” Debbie said. “I am taking Wendy to a baba’s birthday party in Tarajuli, all right?”