Monday Musings - 32

As I write, this Monday, I am sipping on some tea liqueur (red tea, without milk and sugar) watching red flowers sway at an arms' distance. Flowers are in bloom in orange, and white, and yellow too. There are a countless stars up in the sky. By sunlight too, the moon is out. The sky is often flawlessly clear, except for today, when it was swirled with strokes of white. I am in Silchar, Assam. About a ten hour ride, from Shillong, which you may have heard of.

We are staying at beautiful, colonial era white-washed bungalow at the Aenakhal Tea Estate. Acres and acres of tea bushes surround us. In Assam there are bamboo, and paper plantations in abundance, too. Along drives, we find paddy fields, and vegetable patches, and cows, and buffaloes, and mud houses, and ducks, and rivers dried up from time. There are few churches in Assam, there are many temples- the Tea Estates are often named after Hindu Gods. We learn, little by little of the thousand tea estates in the area.

Each function like a self-sustained town. With a huge tea garden, its land amassing small cities, and a factory. Managers, and Assistant Managers, and laborers all have houses according to their salary structure. Much of Assam's infrastructure remains unaffected through time...

Managers stay in bungalows the size of club houses, with tennis courts, and swimming pools, and lush lawns, and fifteen servants. The crowd meets at the Longwai Valley Club, where they play Lotto off the same circular dispenser used many years ago. There is a cot, with a net that is as many years old...and the washroom too bears the exact resemblance to the luxury it held many years ago...the card tables come with glass holders.

And, there are fireplaces, and snooker tables, and towel racks, and slouch chairs, and swings...characteristic of the British era in India. There are even books riddled with termites, and dust, and signatures from the time...

We take many cups of chai, as we savour this beautiful, new place. So many legacies, and so many stories lie behind a humble cup of chai...And, so many picturesque sunsets too, I think. As we sit upon a hillock and watch the sun go down the horizon..disappear into the surrounding hills...

...I realize, this Monday, what a beautiful, unfathomable world we live in...

[More Monday Musings here ]