Darjeeling

by Bharti Kirchner

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  acknowledgments

  one

  two

  three

  four

  five

  six

  seven

  eight

  nine

  ten

  eleven

  twelve

  thirteen

  fourteen

  fifteen

  sixteen

  seventeen

  eighteen

  nineteen

  twenty

  twenty-one

  twenty-two

  twenty-three

  twenty-four

  twenty-five

  twenty-six

  twenty-seven

  twenty-eight

  twenty-nine

  thirty

  thirty-one

  thirty-two

  thirty-three

  thirty-four

  thirty-five

  thirty-six

  thirty-seven

  thirty-eight

  thirty-nine

  forty

  forty-one

  forty-two

  forty-three

  forty-four

  forty-five

  forty-six

  forty-seven

  forty-eight

  forty-nine

  ALSO BY BHARTI KIRCHNER

  READING GROUP GUIDE

  Copyright Page

  In memory of my mother:

  So we don’t forget Darjeeling

  acknowledgments

  I’d like to acknowledge the following people who accompanied me in the long, arduous journey that became this novel. It was a pleasure collaborating with my editor, Linda McFall, and my agent, Liza Dawson. I couldn’t have asked for a better team. Your enthusiasm for the project made the long hours worthwhile.

  I extend my loving thanks to my husband, Tom Kirchner, once again, for helping me realize my dreams. Thank you for your patience, understanding, reading, and support, as well as for supplying those missing commas!

  My deep gratitude goes to Barbara Galvin, Savithri Machiraju, Leon Billig, and Diane Ste Marie, four writers who have seen me through several of my previous books as well as this one. It was a comfort to know you were there for me. I value your input highly.

  I owe much to Barbara McHugh, Laura Fine-Morrison, Nalini Iyer, Valerie J. Brooks, Gianni Truzzi, Mark Anthony Rolo, and Marjorie Reynolds, who have been most generous with their time and support. Special thanks to Jill Schoolman, whose many words of wisdom kept my spirits from flagging down the stretch.

  In India I am indebted to Mr. Sharma, S. M. Changoiwala, and his son Samir Changoiwala, Rajah Banerjee, Srirupa Banerjee, Sujit Bhattacharya, Mr. Prakash, Mrs. Roy, and the staff of the Darjeeling Planters’ Club for their hospitality and willingness to share information. This book, in fact, is a tribute to all those in the tea industry who devote untold hours as well as their life energy to produce a product that has made the appellation “Darjeeling” synonymous with fine tea.

  Though they are not directly connected with this book, I’d like to acknowledge Shau-lee Chau, Sudha Shetty, and Simmone Misra for the warm light they shed on my life. And I want to thank Nancy Pearl, Frank Miller, and Chris Higashi for their friendship and support over the years.

  Though leaves are many, the root is one.

  WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

  Tea is nought but this:

  First you heat the water,

  Then you make the tea.

  Then you drink it properly.

  That is all you need to know.

  SEN NO RIKYU,

  SIXTEENTH-CENTURY TEA MASTER

  one

  Autumn 2000

  Aloka Gupta gazed down from the window of her apartment at the gray-brown bustle of Manhattan’s Fifty-second Street, her thoughts turning to her childhood home and the family-owned tea plantation in Darjeeling. Urged on by the chill of the short autumn days, the tea plants were now forming their third flush of tender shiny leaves, lending a tantalizing fragrance to the crisp mountain air. Eight years earlier, her life and love, like the bumblebees flitting from bud to bud, had been entwined with those bushes.

  The cold jumble of glass, concrete, chrome, and steel before her now stood in cruel contrast to the allure of that idyllic time. As she turned away, the final divorce papers, legal-sized and officiously stamped with the seal of the state of New York and the day’s date, stared accusingly from the top of her writing desk.

  How was a divorce possible? She had always assumed that she would grow up to be a pativrata and remain devoted to her husband for the rest of her life. Having been reared on stories of powerful goddesses, Sita, Savitri, and Sakuntala, examples of devoted Hindu wives, she found it hard to believe that now, at age forty, she would be alone. Sita, Savitri, and Sakuntala would exist only on the pages of scriptures.

  She sank down in front of her desk, pushed the divorce papers aside, and picked up the current issue of Manhattan, India, published by Girish Enterprises. Three years ago, she’d landed a journalist’s position with the publication, primarily because of her master’s degree in English and high school teaching experience. The widely read weekly reported news and events of interest to the flourishing Indian-American community scattered throughout New York and its environs. Subscribers devoured the newsweekly from cover to cover, passed it to friends, talked about it over chai latte, and sent clippings back home. Aloka wrote feature articles and reveled in the challenge of touching the emotions of the readers.

  The first two pages of this week’s edition were devoted to the profile of a taxicab driver who’d donated his total savings to his village in India to establish a school for girls, and that of a biochemist who served food to the homeless in her spare time. It also contained Aloka’s own piece: an interview with a nutritionist about vegetarian sources for vitamin B12. Aloka enjoyed afresh seeing her work in print.

  She flipped to page three. The entire top half of the page was dedicated to an advice column, “Ask Seva,” the most popular section of the paper. It was her most important contribution, one she penned under the pseudonym. Nine months earlier, when she’d started the column, her editor hadn’t been enthusiastic about its reception. Before long she had surprised him with her knack for sensing the needs, feelings, and concerns of transplants from her old country, and responding to them appropriately. By day the new arrivals, the disoriented desis, marveled at the broad avenues, monumental skyscrapers, and well-stocked department stores. By night they longed for the meaningful human contact so lacking in their new homeland. They would huddle in a tiny, dilapidated efficiency, shared with another desi. Their faces growing long, their eyelashes dampening, they would moan, “My country, my relatives, my language, my food.” They would speculate on whether the migration—most often forced by economic realities—hadn’t been a mistake. One lonely man, a “married bachelor,” was known to dial 800 numbers just to converse with someone. “The first three to four years is a curse,” wiser members of the community would advise them. “Thereafter you stop crying.”

  Aloka did more than stopping tears. Her column was a skillful merger of optimism, guidance, and practical advice on how to make the adjustment to a new home: where to get a silk sari cleaned, how to locate a Hindu priest for an auspicious family event, how to order a vegetarian meal sans eggs in a restaurant, why must one wear layered clothing during the frigid months, and how to make the first move in a relationship.

  “Seva” meant service and, as in much of the vocabulary of Indian languages, carried overtones of devotion. True to the spirit of her assumed name, Aloka didn’t deliver a terse reply to a sensitive question, or enlist the help of a team of psychologists for a technically accurate answer. Rather, she dispensed
commonsense advice a loving sister might offer. Young and the old, male and female, new arrivals and longtime residents alike read her column and conferred about it at the kebob house, as well as on Internet user groups. They corresponded with her and visited her website, www.askseva.com, seeking guidance on all manner of problems but especially those of the heart. They embraced her as a source of hope and wisdom. She was “their own.”

  This week’s column had begun with suggestions of low-cost ways to enjoy the city: the Sunday band at Central Park, the cumin-spiked vegetable juices served by a blind vendor near Rockefeller Square, and the American release of an earlier Soumitra Chatterjee film at a Bronx theater. The column had ended with a plea to help find a missing Tamil-speaking child.

  Her upbeat style, clear simple phrasing, and handwritten “Love, Seva” signature, done in a single stroke of the pen, had won hearts. Manhattan, India now boasted the highest circulation of all local Indian-American periodicals, some fifty thousand and growing.

  But who was the real Seva?

  The question was a hot topic of discussion at social and religious gatherings of the community. The current consensus—and it shifted often—was that the voice belonged to a chain-smoking, elite female novelist, Nandita Pal, who called a choice Fifth Avenue address home. Not even Pranab, Aloka’s ex-husband, had suspected it was her. This was the first secret she had kept from him. As her marriage had disintegrated, she had felt a greater need to rely on her own career and identity. She told friends and acquaintances that she worked for a diversified company that counted publishing, music, and importing clothing among its activities. When asked, Aloka would offer, “Oh, I do a little writing and some market research.” Seva’s real identity remained the paper’s closely guarded secret.

  Now Aloka reached for the pile of mail she’d brought from work and began sorting through it. She received mostly complimentary letters, along with an occasional diatribe—“truffles and arrows,” as she called them. The first card in the batch happened to be from an admirer. It said:

  Even if it turns out that you’re forty and overweight, with rotten teeth and five terrible children, I’d still love you.

  Aloka chuckled and shook her head, tossed the card in the corner waste can, and picked up the next.

  I am absolutely positive you are a man.

  Your replies are much too intelligent for a zanana.

  Annoyed by the condescending term, which translated roughly as a mere woman, Aloka wadded the note into a ball and flung it toward the waste can, missing it by several feet. Her eyes were already focused on the next letter.

  Why do women in New York wash their hair so much? The last three attractive women I asked for a date all replied, “I’d love to, but I have to wash my hair.”

  I wish I were Breck.

  Aloka smiled to herself. A suitable solution to “Breck’s” problem was beginning to form in her mind when she was startled by the sound of footsteps. She turned halfway in her chair.

  Pranab was standing in the doorway. In the drab navy jacket of a telephone repair service specialist, he seemed ill at ease. His body emitted a faint oily odor.

  “Oh, it’s you.” Why today, of all days? she wondered. “I wasn’t expecting you.”

  He stepped into the room. At five-foot-ten, he towered over her; but in the deep afternoon shadows he appeared diminished. His deep-set eyes seemed to have retreated even farther behind the habitual tortoiseshell spectacles; his lips were compressed into a thin line, giving his face an icy expression.

  “Just came for a book.”

  He paused uncertainly before the maple bookcase that contained old volumes bound in maroon, literature they had shared. This study, with its cherry-finished desk beneath the window and adjustable reading light, had always been his shrine.

  A wayward lock of hair stuck out from the nape of his neck and her fingers trembled with the urge to smooth it. She rubbed them instead over her tight-fitting denim jeans, a cheerless reminder of the pounds gained over the last several months.

  “Can I help you find anything?” She spoke in English, glad that they shared a second language. In propitious times, they had conversed in Bengali, or Bangla, their poetic mother tongue, with its mellifluous tones. Not today. Only English, a neutral language bare of emotions, could be trusted to convey the appropriate formality.

  His silence knifed through her like a high wind from the Himalayas. She watched him remove a tattered volume with a cracked binding, his favorite treatise written in Sanskrit, musty scent emanating from it. With long tapered fingers he began to leaf through the book. His expression softened when he turned to a page that contained a favorite passage.

  He snapped the book closed and gave her a glance. How quickly husband becomes stranger. Not even the hint of a question hung in the air. When there were no questions between them; she knew the marriage was dead.

  He half turned toward the door. “I’m moving to my new place tomorrow,” he finally said, in a tone that was low, mundane, and devoid of sentiment.

  She wanted to ask: Where have you left the voice that once so forcefully exhorted the tea workers in Darjeeling to rise against their oppressor—my father, no less? In those exciting days, Pranab, his robust figure clad in a white kurta and his luminous eyes emanating fervor, had commanded like the mythical god Arjuna. She had loved him enough to risk her life for him.

  “Here’s my new address and phone number in case you ever need it.” He dropped the apartment keys on a side table and pressed a blue Post-It into her hand.

  How would he manage on his own? He needed a woman in his life. Right now she longed to massage his forehead with a fragrant oil to chase away the day’s irritations, like a good Hindu wife would do.

  She said, “I’ll be sure to forward your mail.”

  He took a step toward the door. “If I can ever do anything for you, Aloka …”

  She heard the regret in his voice, witnessed the tentative movement of his legs. Perhaps their ten-year relationship hadn’t ended. There were empty pages yet to be written.

  She stood motionlessly, staring after his departing figure, hoping for him to swivel around at any moment. His image became smaller and his outline blurred. It was as though she were peering at him through a rain-drenched glass panel. Finally he floated out of the room. She listened to the familiar squeak of his Nikes descending the stairs. Then an ambulance siren smothered that tiny sound, but not her hopes.

  two

  In the next hour, Aloka furiously cleaned her apartment. Housecleaning had always been her antidote to the blues. In the living room she swept the patina of dust from the surface of the glass-topped coffee table. As she arranged the throw pillows, she noticed, though not for the first time, that the sofas, relics of her moribund marriage, didn’t match. In the early days, when they were short of money, she had snapped up the cushiony, roll-armed, mocha-colored sofa from a thrift shop for a few hundred and considered it banditry. From the same shop Pranab had selected the flare-armed, saddle-brown sofa, but for some mysterious reason never sat on it. He would walk around his purchase with a disgusted look on his face and grab a chair instead. She had always meant to ask why but somehow never got around to doing so.

  Now, as she waxed the floor, she asked, “Why, Pranab?”

  She straightened the frame of a family photograph on the off-white wall. Her attention fell on a print of the Mary Cassatt painting The Sisters, hanging right below the photograph. Aloka had fallen in love with that print the instant she’d seen it at a small local gallery. Now she gazed at the guileless eyes of the two winsome children looking out together against a background of bluish green mist. She felt a quiver in her heart.

  The discordant jangling of the telephone interrupted her dreamlike state. She answered and recognized the voice of her editor from Manhattan, India, and managed to reel herself back into a more businesslike frame of mind. She had been unable to break the news of her divorce to her boss, an expatriate Indian who’d been marrie
d to the same woman for thirty-five years. Another time she, an advice columnist, might have appreciated the irony of the situation, but not this afternoon.

  “I just heard you went home early today, Aloka. Aren’t you feeling well?”

  “No, nothing like that. Just some personal problems.” Her voice quaking, she told him of the divorce.

  Though he mumbled words of apology, she could almost see the happily overweight man shake his head disapprovingly atop a nonexistent neck and mutter to himself, “These young people.” Many older members of the Indian community—Mr. Choudhury, Mr. Gopal, and Mrs. Roy came to mind—became numb or overagitated when they received news of a divorce. Marriage, they understood. A wedding ceremony was conducted with much pageantry and was attended by many well-wishers. But the same people wouldn’t be around when one’s relationship was in tatters. In divorce, a woman stood alone.

  “Do you need a couple of days off, Aloka?”

  “No. The worst part is over. I’ll be back in the office tomorrow.”

  “Good, good. I can’t run the paper without you. The last time you took a few days off and your column didn’t come out, we got a hundred frantic calls. By the way, there’s a pile of letters sitting on your desk. Do you have any relatives nearby you can call?”

  Aloka strained her gaze up at the poster on the wall. Victoria was only three zones away. It was still early enough to make a phone call to Sujata.

  “Yes, a sister out in Victoria, British Columbia.”

  As soon as the words flew past her lips, she saw the irony behind such a fantasy. She couldn’t have a soul-to-soul communication with her sister about the divorce, or any other matter. They barely stayed in touch.

  “I know you haven’t asked for advice, Aloka, but I’d like to offer you some from the perspective of a chap who has lived long enough to make most of life’s mistakes. When things get tough, it’s always best to turn to your parents, brothers, and sisters. You may have drifted apart, perhaps there are some resentments, unresolved issues, that sort of thing, but in the end blood connections are as strong as the currents of a powerful river, as we say in India. It took me a long time to figure that out, and in the meantime I went through a lot of unnecessary suffering alone. Now I see my family in a different light. They’ve played a big part in whatever success I’ve achieved and helped me through some very difficult times, once I finally learned to trust them. They’re the ones who’ve made me who I am. It helps to get in touch with your life source from time to time.”