A Time for Tea

A John Hope Franklin Center book

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A Time for Tea
, ,  /

    

Piya Chatterjee

Duke University Press Durham and London 

©  Duke University Press

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America

on acid-free paper 

Designed by C. H.Westmoreland

Typeset in Fournier

by Tseng Information Systems, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication

Data appear on the last printed page

of this book.
for Baba, my father who mothers me

for Kaki, who does the same

for Kaku, who is gentle

and in memory of my mother,

Dipti Chatterjee, who wished it

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Contents

List of Illustrations ix
Acknowledgments xi

 Alap 
 Travels of Tea,
Travels of Empire 
 Cultivating the Garden 
 The Raj Baroque 
 Estates of a New Raj 
 Discipline and Labor 
 Village Politics 
 Protest 
 A Last Act 

Appendix 
Glossary 
Notes 
Bibliography 
Index 
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Illustrations

. A box of Brooke Bond tea 

. A box of Brooke Bond PG Tips teabags 
. ‘‘The Mad Hatter’s Tea Party’’ 
. A box of Celestial Seasonings tea 
a and b. ‘‘Like Sons of the Forest’’ 
. ‘‘The Colonies as a Captive Maiden Forced to Drink Tea’’ 
. Taking Tea in England 
. The High Life, or Taste à la Mode 
. A Comfortable Dish of Tea,  
. ‘‘A Harlot’s Progress’’ 
a. Portrait of Sir Thomas Lipton 
b. Garden scene 
c. Sacks of tea on a Ceylon plantation 
.Women pluckers on the plantation waiting for their leaf to be
weighed 
. ‘‘From the Tea Gardens to the Tea Pot’’ 
. ‘‘The refreshment that maintains stamina’’ 
. ‘‘The vital drink for the Indian worker’’ 
. ‘‘Keep your family strong and healthy with Indian tea’’ 
. ‘‘It’s your privilege and pride’’ 
a. ‘‘When only a certain flavour will reflect your unique taste’’ 
b. ‘‘Contemporary Tea Hand Book’’ 
c. ‘‘The Lore of Tea’’ 
. Two leaves and a bud 
. Attendance log 
. ‘‘First Apparatus Used in the Manufacture of Tea in India’’ 
. ‘‘Supremely yours’’ 
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Acknowledgments

Or Another Kind of Introduction

The paradoxes and realpolitik of patronage, power, and labor build the bed-
rock upon which the stories of plantation women are told. A Time for Tea
inhabits many spaces and undulates through and beyond the borders of a
seemingly distant landscape. It is an ethnography about postcolonial dias-
pora as much as it is about some dot on the map that I script into terms of
familiarity. These oscillations have charted the contours of its production,
its telling times. Such authorial movements suggest a highly individualized
cartography of the imagination. This is, indeed, the peril of authorship as
singularity. Yet this individuation is illusory because these are narratives
thickly peopled with the energy, kindness, and forbearance of many who
have sustained me in the years since I began my journey into the story of tea.
All have been my teachers. In ineffable ways, they too script this tale, even
when they have resisted its intrusions, its naivete, its grandiosities, and its
positions.
My teachers inhabit the world.They live in Calcutta,Chicago, Jos, Jalpai-
guri, Siliguri, Sarah’s Hope Tea Estate, Debpara Tea Estate, Riverside, Los
Angeles, New Delhi, Amherst, New York, Washington, D.C., Pittsburgh,
Wellesley, Greenwich. They map a terrain of connection and loss: a kinship
intended to assist me in telling a story that is fragmented, celebratory, and
sad; to weave a cosmology both paradoxical and possible. Their pedagogy
of compassion and kindness marks this text in indelible ways. To say I am
‘‘indebted’’ might reduce their acts of generosity to tactile measures of value
and in so doing, take away the important ways in which they inhabit this
text. It is ironic then—as I beg your indulgence in ploughing through the
many words to follow—that I begin by registering the inadequacy of these
very words.
In India, kinship and patronage made it possible for me to embark on my
various journeys into North Bengal plantations. Many planters, and their
kinswomen, have given their valuable time. For offering me their hospi-
tality in Calcutta, I thank Bimal and Monica Guha-Sircar, Renu and Pro-
noy Saharia, Monoj and Sheila Banerjee, the late S. K. Banerjee and Deepu
Banerjee, Mahavir Kanoi, Padma Kanoria, Ronnie Babaycon, the late David
Smith,Gulshan Bagai, and Bhaskar Gupta. Lata Bajoria’s friendship enabled
me to meet many Marwari maliks (owners) in Calcutta, and for her generous
networking I give my thanks. She and her daughters, Nidhi, Puja, and Babli
have provided a cool space of ribald welcome during many hot Calcutta
summers when I wrote and rewrote these stories of tea. Shanti Bannerjee—
grandmother, teacher, and friend—introduced me to some of her tea kin,
though her influence on my work extends well into the territories of my
childhood, a time when her example of pragmatic grace and wisdom made
an indelible impact on my nascent understanding of privilege and its many
effects.
In North Bengal, I was hosted by many families, particularly on initial
nomadic visits in , and then again in  and . I extend my appre-
ciation to Leonard and Sonali Smith, Mr. and Mrs. Bose, Samar Chatterjee
and Diju Chakrabarty of the Dooars Branch of the Indian Tea Association
(who readily made available some rare colonial planter journals), Dr. D. N.
Chatterjee of the  family planning project in the Dooars, Mr. L. P. Rai
of Mim Tea Estate in Darjeeling, Mr. Teddy Young of Tumsung Tea Estate,
Darjeeling, Mr. Pran Choudhury, Mr. Ravi Singh, Joydip Bose, and Pran-
jal Neog of  who gathered information for me with efficient generosity.
However, it is the kindness and hospitality of two planting families who,
despite knowing the objectives of this study, made it possible for me to stay
in the Dooars forextended periods of time. Ashok, Bonny, Mimi, and Madhu
Sen bailed me out on numerous occasions and for their energetic kindness, I
will be always grateful. Kanwarjit and Guddi Singh embraced me as another
daughterand friend. Mr. Singh enabled me to do this work byoffering me his
patronage and protection while Mrs. Singh opened up her treasure trove of
material on tea histories. Her own scholarly interest in plantation women’s
issues prompted fruitful dialogues.Without the Singhs’ support and gener-
osity, the fieldwork on two separate occasions (–, ) could not
have happened.
It is, however, a few women and men from the ‘‘other side of the lines,’’
to whom I owe my deepest gratitude. They negotiated my intrusions with
unease, even anger, but more often than not, with a remarkable generosity
of spirit. To ‘‘thank’’ them for making possible a text that rests on the back-
bone of their lives might appear a facile gesture. It is a gesture, however,
not made simply. (Imagine, for a moment, an intricate movement of hand

xii
and eye. Imagine the suggestion of patterns traced in the air.) For their re-
silient laughter and embrace of my uninvited presence, I wish to name their
central place in the stories which follow: Julekha Sheikh and her dol (gang)
at Moraghat Tea Estate, Munnu Kujoor and Bikha Kujoor, Bhagirathi Ma-
hato, Baldo Mahato, Anjali Mirdha and Arun Mirdha, Agapit, Christopher
Pracher, B. Gop, Rita Chhetri and her friends at Debpara, Kaki of Katal-
guri (who took me to meet her legendary mother, Lachmi Maya Chhetri),
Madan Shaikh, Dilip Tamang, Uma Gop, Durga Mata of Chamurchi (who
shared her sacred gifts and with a flourish of hands waved away some winds
of misfortune), Sannicharwa Lohra, Moniki Mosi, Menu Mosi, and all the
other women leaders of the Cha Bagan Mahila Seva Samity (Tea Garden
Women’s Service Society) who honor me with their trust.
Elsewhere in North Bengal, I was welcomed as kin by others who taught
me equally important lessons about the remarkable political theaterof North
Bengal. Vasanthi Raman, Vaskar Nandy, Dr. M. N. Nandy, Dida, and Mini
of Kadamtala More in Jalpaiguri opened their home in ways that made such
a political theater immediate, actual, and urgent. (Oh, for those cups of hot
sweet tea on the verandah, upstairs, by the roof with its potted plants.) Ru-
pak Mukherjee, Bithi Chakravarty, and Shukra Rautiya (who took me to the
remarkable Lal Shukra Oraon) welcomed me on various travels in the re-
gion. Nirmala Pandey also assisted me with translations and transcriptions
of songs and oral histories. Father Sebastian Martis, whom I met in , is
a partner with whom some grassroots dreams are being sown. Thank you,
Sebastian, for your charity.
The staff of many libraries in North Bengal, Calcutta, and New Delhi
have assisted with this research, and I extend my appreciation to the fol-
lowing: Mrs. Meera Chatterjee of the National Library, Calcutta, who has
walked the bureaucratic labyrinth for many years and always found books
for her anxious niece; the Jalpaiguri District Library; the North Bengal Uni-
versity Library, Bagdogra; the superb Himalayan Studies Documentation
Centerat the North Bengal University; the District Commissioner’s Library,
Jalpaiguri; the Central Secretariat Library, New Delhi; and the Ministry of
Labour Documentation Centre, New Delhi.
In Calcutta, many members of the Hooghly Mills staff have let me take
their time, space, and energy when they had better things to do: they have
photocopied material; driven me to travel agencies when I had to ship
pounds of that same material to the United States; served me tea and food
at Moran Shahib er bagan bari (Moran Sahib’s garden house) when I wrote
theater and sat by the Ganges with an old oil lantern; and made things im-
measurably easier during my Calcutta sojourns. I am aware that my father’s

Acknowledgments xiii
wish and order (hukum) made their ‘‘giving’’ imperative, not a choice. Such
are the ways of feudal patronage.Yet they have done so with an affection and
respect for my father and family that contains and exceeds the terms of such
neofeudal power. I extend, then, my deepest gratitude to Sri Nimai Mondal
and his family; Sri Raj Narain; Mr. Samanta; Sri Bhim; Sri Bhagirath; Rabi;
the staff of the Hooghly Mills computer room; Mr. Mukherjee who tends
the fax machine; and Sri Romesh.
Back in the United States, other kin networks spun their webs of support
and encouragement. Barbara Lazarus (who always urged me to let the songs
sing) and Marvin Sirbu have helped me navigate the shoals of immigration.
Barbara, simply, has made it possible for me to complete my studies in the
United States; Barbara, Led, and Kristen Day have been family in absentia;
Martha Loiter has believed in similar passions; Anissa and Yasmina Bou-
ziane have probed with me the creative vicissitudes of chosen exile; Karima
Saleh’s dogged commitment to grassroots practice and her compassion in
a time of great terror, has defined the meaning of true friendship; Omar
Qureshi’s gentle perseverance has remained, also, a benediction.One friend
has stepped, literally, on this path to and from the plantations. She has not
only met some of the remarkable women and men in the plantation I have
called Sarah’s Hope, she has on one memorable afternoon danced with them.
Cathy O’Leary’s faith and connection to these other worlds of the actual
imagination has nurtured this tea time over its long gestation.
For introducing to me the notion that writing and telling women’s stories
within the academy is an act of power, against power, I wish to thank my
first professors in the United States: Amrita Basu, Barbara Lazarus, and Sally
Merry. Their lessons helped me immeasurably in graduate school when I
often felt that ‘‘women’s politics,’’ particularly if passionately wrought, was
not welcome in the detached disembodied towers of scholarly enterprise. I
was lucky, however, to find teachers who understood my unease, and anger,
with such forms of epistemic violence. For their acts of compassion during
moments when I thought I was not going to ‘‘make it,’’ I offer my deep-
est gratitude and respect to Bernard S. Cohn, Jean Comaroff, Raymond T.
Smith, John Comaroff, Susanne Rudolph, and Lloyd Rudolph. Since ,
Chandra Mohanty has honored me with her kindness and support. Because
her writing on Third World feminisms was a pivotal part of my subterranean
training in feminist theory, her mentorship during these years has been both
poignant and invaluable. Such are the blessings of a wonderful pedagogy.
At Riverside, colleagues and friends have given their labor of time and
patience, which I hope has been deserved. In , Erla Maria Marteins-
dottir created the first data base for the bibliography and offered her energies

xiv
when her own commitments were burdensome. Her labor as my research
assistant, and its value, are beyond price. Likewise, Gina Crivello, Larisa
Broyles, Pam Cantine, Susan Mazur, Konane Martinez, and Janni Aragon
cleared the decks during heavy teaching quarters and plumbed the library
for additional sources. Most importantly, they have offered me wine, bread,
and solace when things seemed unbearable. Darlene Suarez, Narges Erami,
Raj Balasubramanian, and Ramona Pérez also offered their friendship with
large doses of toughness, wisdom, and compassion. For that common and
wrenching experience of immigrant displacement, such acts of kindness
constitute the life blood of possibility and place.
Other colleagues have erased the scrolls of abjection with ready encour-
agement and have offered their own intellectual practice as models of a
brilliant and powerful pedagogy. Parama Roy’s keen and ironic wit, her hu-
mility, and her scrupulous and ethical attention to the scholarlyendeavor has
offered a tender example; Kathleen McHugh has urged me, with passionate
faith, to find my writing soul; Devra Weber has offered her solidarity and
wisdom; Ethan Nasreddin-Longo’s brotherly patience and his compositions
of mind and music have been a gift; Jennifer Brady laid out tea and served me
many moments of kindness. Michelle Bloom has shared Proust and tisane;
Christine Gailey remains an inspiration in the way she brings a certain joy
into her ambit of leadership. She, Marguerite Waller, Amalia Cabezas, Irma
Kemp, and Roxene Davis make Women’s Studies a unique place in which
laughter is combined with innovative pedagogy and its writing work.
Funding for this research, conducted between  and , , ,
and  has come from various sources.They include the American Insti-
tute of Indian Studies Junior Fellowship, Regents Faculty Fellowship, Uni-
versity of California Riverside, Faculty Research Incentive Grant, (UCR),
and several Academic Senate Grants for extramural research from the Uni-
versity of California–Riverside awarded between  and .
Ken Wissoker’s interest in tea has sparked a happy association with Duke
University Press. My debt to him, for his patient encouragement, and his
remarkable editorial team is a large one. I would like to thank Katie Court-
land, Leigh Anne Couch, and Justin Faerber, as well as all the unnamed folks
who have cooked this leaf into a product. Maura High’s copyediting has
taught me again how much collective labor goes into the crafting of a book.
Her editorial eye has pruned astonishing snarls of syntax and metaphor to
strengthen the book immeasurably. Cherie Westmoreland’s visual imagina-
tion of the design has captured the leaves of text beautifully. Nancy Zibman
provided the index.Two anonymous reviewers of the raw manuscript made
this journey possible.Their substantial commentaries, their close reading of

Acknowledgments xv
the earlier versions, and their encouragement was deeply appreciated, and I
hope has made what now stands more worthy. Ellen Gentry took the photo-
graphs for the illustrations that are included in the book. Anik Dhonobad,
thank you, to all.
My family in Calcutta has made everything possible. My siblings—
Dada (Chayan), Bappa (Mayukh), and Priya—have wondered at the fuss,
shrugged, and laughed uproariously. I trace my impulse to follow the plan-
tation story to my father, Rama Prasad Chatterjee, who—transgressing all
the codes of patriarchal propriety—would take his six-year-old daughter
through the floors of the jute factory under his managerial purview. By en-
couraging me always to push past the borders of my own upbringing, even
allowing me to fly away, Baba will always remain my first teacher. Kaki,
Jharna Chatterjee, has walked many routes of transgression with me and
for me: allowing me to run like a jungli (uncivilized) child through the good
neighborhoods of the city. For her many invocations of the divine arsenal,
for our raucous ritual laughters, and mostly for her maternal love, I have
been immensely blessed. To her, Kaku, Mriganka Shekhar Chatterjee, and
Baba, I dedicate this bit of tea. And also to the memory of my mother, Dipti
Chatterjee, who left us too early, whose ghost may have sat on my right
shoulder, and who wished it.

xvi
chapter  Alap 1

A Time for Tea: The Play

Dramatis personae: She/Narrator; Alice, of Wonderland fame, and compan-

ions; British burra sahib; 2 British memsahib; Indian sahib; Indian memsahib;
four women pluckers as a chorus; ‘‘Son of the Forest’’; goddess; dancers; and
other incidental characters.

 ,  
The stage is horseshoe-shaped. It curves, a crescent embrace, around you. On the
far stage right, suspended from the ceiling, an empty picture frame.On the stage,
at an angle behind the picture frame, an ornate wooden table and chair. On the
table, an oil lantern.To one side, a large oval-shaped mirror in a highly baroque
bronze gilt frame. Next to the chair, a stool. Next to the stool, a pirhi (small
wooden seat). The backdrop is a cream gauze cloth, stretched loosely across the
back of center stage. The stage is dark. There are hints of shadows.
Slow drumming begins: dham dham dham. Then a sound of keening, ‘‘con-
tinuous like the lonely wailing of an old witch . . . an unsettling, unsettling’’
sound.3 This wailing rises to a crescendo, reaches an unbearable pitch, and then
stops suddenly. Absolute silence.
A woman (Narrator) steps out stage right, which curves out like a strange
pier, into you (the audience). She wears a long, dark red cloak of some lustrous
material. The robe has a cowl; it falls low on her forehead, shadowing her eyes.
She wears gloves the same color as her cloak. Her mouth is outlined in red and
black. She stands by the desk, in front of the chair. With exaggerated motions,
she removes some objects from a deep pocket in the cloak, moving as if she were
a magician: slowly, with flair and precision. A quill pen, a bottle of india ink,
a silver sickle, a bottle of nail polish, a clutter of false fingernails, a porcelain
teapot with a long pouring spout, a porcelain cup, and some tea bags. She turns
to you, with an intimate and welcoming smile, as if noticing you for the first time
watching her place this strange collection on the table.
: Nomoshkar. Hello. May I sit? (She sits drawing the folds of cloth around
her.)
I am weary. My journey here has been long and its tale most peculiar. So
strange that as it is told, you may keen, you may sigh, you may not be
able to tell the difference between a wail and a whisper.
So piercing its cacophony, you may twist your fingers into your ears.
So unbearably beautiful, the sorrow of a body curved into its shadow, you
will forget to breathe.
(She takes a deep breath, exhaling it into a sigh, ending in a wry laugh.)
Oh, let us not be so serious, so serious. This is a jatra,4 a dance, a shadow
play, a sitting-room drama. Such kichdi,5 such higgledy-piggledy, you
will elbow your neighbor and whisper for a crystal ball. You will look
under the chair for a flotation device.What is this, what is this? You will
fasten your seat belt more tightly and look out into cerulean space. You
will find the ball, you will toss it in the air; you will cover your face with
your hands and shake your head. ‘‘What is this, what is this?’’ you will
say in despair. (Pause.) Let the tale unfold as it will. Don’t panic. There
are some plots, some roads with milestones, a cartography of words. If
it is all too much, and the path disappears into the light thrown by the
headlights, and you think you are not moving—then shut your eyes.The
illusion of such stillness in the rush of the road underneath your wheels
offers such dissonance. (Pause.) Let yourself fall into the rabbit hole.
Dream, Dream.
Imagine, within the crucible behind your eyelids, a porcelain cup. Imagine,
after a breath, silence resting on its lips.
The lights dim. She leans forward and lights the lantern to a low flame. She
pours liquid from the tea pot in her cup. She is barely discernible as she rests back
in the chair’s shadow.The cup seems to warm her fingers. For a minute, you hear
the sound of rain and then again the dham dham dham of the drums, a distant
wailing. It fades.

 
Sarah’s Hope Tea Estate,West Bengal, India
There are two packets of Brooke Bond tea I have brought with me from
Chicago that I show to Anjali Mirdha and Bhagirathi Mahato, two of three


. and . ‘‘Choicest Blend,’’ from the outer packaging
of a box of Brooke Bond tea, bought in London,
England, circa , courtesy Jean Comaroff;
‘‘Finger/Tips,’’ from the outer packaging of a box of
Brooke Bond PG Tips teabags, bought in Riverside,
California, circa .

women in the tea plantation who have befriended me in this first month at
my bungalow. The packets have on their covers two women, one a photo-
graph/painting, another an etching. They appear ‘‘Asian,’’ their heads are
covered, the wrists braceleted.The hands are poised over a flutter of leaves.
With one hand, they lift a leaf. There is precision in that stilled movement,
in that carefully held and bodied point.
Puzzled at my offering of two empty tea packets, and somewhat amused
by this two-dimensional rendition of their work, Anjali and Bhagirathi
laugh.
It is one of many texts that I offer to them as one way to introduce my
research project and uneasy presence in the plantation. My questions run

Alap 