TALES FROM THE LAND OF “SHADE TREES”

Tale #1

Sunita came to Chabri Tea Estate as Ranjit, the Assistant Manager’s new bride.

Sunita had heard rather quaint stories of tea-life from her maternal uncles. Both of them were in the Army, had been posted in the North-East and told tales of the ‘planters’ and their exploits , their huge bungalows and retinue of servants even in these times, the wild parties and the “club days” and given the general feeling that tea-life was good life...far from the maddening crowd with a luxurious lifestyle as bonus.

Sunita was determined to be a success as a “tea-wife”. To that end she had questioned Ranjit about every aspect of the household structure, how many cooks, gardeners and bearers she was entitled to, what kind of socializing and entertaining was expected, what kind of clothes she would be expected to wear and what kind of home decorations she had to “carry”( she had taken for granted that Ranjit must be slumming in the typical bachelor fashion). Ranjit had tried to assuage her burning curiosities and laughingly accused that she was perhaps more interested in the life rather than the man being offered in the marriage. Sunita could not honestly say that he was wrong.

Ranjit was a very junior assistant, barely two years into the job and thus the bungalow he merited was decorously dilapidated. This way a bit of a blow to Sunita but when Ranjit explained to her that their bungalow had been originally the “bada –bungalow” or the Manager’s bungalow, she was a little mollified. Once the hiccoughs of settling in were over and the first round of “welcome the newly weds” parties were done with, Sunita started the process of making her “home”.

The Bungalow was truly enormous, not only by urban standards, but by any standard. It was a wooden duplex bungalow-- the ground floor was devoted to a good sized foyer, formal and separated drawing and dining rooms and an enormous kitchen ( a converted pantry ),. On the first floor, apart from the master bedroom and the adjoining “baba-kaamra” or children’s room, there were three “faltu” or extra rooms which were used as guest rooms. The original kitchen was a little distance away connected by a cobbled archway. The servants’ quarters were just outside the bungalow’s periphery.

Sunita looked at the large unadorned spaces and realized that in spite of all her meticulous planning, her belongings would be pitiful. The furniture that she found was a curious mixture of solid teak and ugly modern. As she talked to the servants it was revealed that Chabri had been an independent estate and that indeed this had been a manager’s bungalow inhabited by “boga” or white planters. Later on as Ranjit’s company bought up several estates, Chabri lost its independent identity and became a sub- division of the larger adjoining Chirok estate. The Manager now resided in Chirok and this bungalow was occupied by a series of junior officers in charge of the sub division and at times remained unoccupied. It had also been officially vandalized by the “bada –mem” or the manager’s wife, who had taken away the good pieces of furniture, furnishings, crockery and even some of the rare plants from the garden. The junior officers, whenever in residence, had requisitioned for replacement furniture and been granted the modern flimsy bits that clashed horribly with the antique residues but either it had not bothered the aesthetics of the occupants or they had been too low in the feeding order to be granted anything better. Sunita talked to Ranjit. He had an easy solution...they did not need so many rooms, why not store what she did not like in a couple of them and do up the rest? He promised to try for some new furnishings.

So Sunita set about looking for the pieces to discard as well as the rooms to lock up. Each one was large with huge bathrooms which by themselves could be construed as rooms. There was a particular room, at the rear of the bungalow which appealed to her. Some strenuous heaving of furniture had revealed that the uninspiring linoleum on the floor actually hid fine teak boards and the terrible pink on the walls covered a wall paper that could be salvaged. What attracted her most was the huge, claw footed porcelain bathtub with its lapis lazuli engraved fittings. It seemed to belong to a different era altogether and Sunita dreamed about the exclamations of the visiting relatives on seeing this. She decided to “keep” this room and beautify it with some pieces from other rooms. She sensed a strange reluctance about this among the servants specially the cook and the head bearer who had been with the bungalow for a long time. Not knowing whether to impose her authority or ask them outright, she kept quiet. Neither did she want to confide in her husband, whom she wanted to surprise with her decorating talents and therefore had strictly forbidden an entrance.

At last the room was done.

One day at breakfast, Ranjit announced that for the next three or four days he would not be coming back for lunch as they had some training programme at the tea factory. Sunita decided that it was the perfect time to “try” out the room- take her afternoon siestas there. Indeed the room looked inviting with the gleaming floor boards, well polished furniture, the old patina of the wall paper shining, the new curtains up and the intricately embroidered bed spread from Sunita’s trousseau giving it an elegance that seemed entirely natural and almost due to it.

It was a glowing afternoon of winter. Sunita propped a book on her chest and started to read...but somehow her glance kept on sliding away from the book to the room as she patted her own back and admired anew every change she had made. A huge window was to her right. A huge litchi tree bursting with flower buds covered it almost, casting dappling shadows into the room. Sunita didn’t know when she had drifted off to sleep....an uncanny sense of someone looking at her brought her out of an unremembered dream .She glanced about...no one...the bedroom door was closed though not locked...just as she had left it; the bathroom door was ajar. She got up and looked in. Everything was as normal as possible. She rang the bell. The second bearer, a young lad came and knocked. She was a bit more brusque than usual and asked where everyone was. He looked blank and then said that since Memsaab was resting they had been at their late afternoon tea a little longer than usual and was very sorry. Did Memsaab want anybody? Sunita nodded him away. She couldn’t settle down any more. Annoyed as well as a little uneasy, she decided to go down to the garden. Her steps, almost by their own accord turned towards the rear of the house, towards the litchi tree. The two gardeners were working in the kitchen patch and glanced towards her. She called out to them, pointing out the wide spread branches and ordered them to be trimmed...they were too near the window, she said and obstructing the light. The head gardener demurred saying that now that the blooms were coming, it was not a good time...he will do the needful after the crop was over. Anyway, he said , that room was not used. Sunita said, with a grim look, no, it was her room, she was using it now. The Mali looked at her in agitation, seemed to be on the verge of saying something and swallowed his words at the last minute.

Ranjit noticed her preoccupation in the evening and commented on it. She did not share anything.

Next afternoon , she noticed that the bolt was drawn across the door of the new “guest room”. She called the main bearer and he confessed that he had closed it. He explained that it has been fully cleaned and he has closed it so that no body will disturb it. Before Sunita could stop herself, she announced that she was again going to sleep there that day. The bearer gave her an inscrutable look, then nodded and unlocked the room and turned the bed. As she was settling down with her book, he hesitated and mentioned that if Memsaab wanted he will not go off duty then and will stay the afternoon in the kitchen. There was some pending cleaning up, he hastily added. Sunita found herself telling him, it was fine, he could go home.

She was determined not to sleep that afternoon. However her eyes seemed to close of their own accord...again to be opened suddenly by that now familiar and almost expected sense of being inspected. Sunita looked at the doors...both were closed firmly today. She looked under the bed, feeling a little ridiculous. She crossed over to the window..the sensation was stronger. She looked at the branches...though the tips seemed to be touching the window, the branches were too weak to carry any body. Anyway they were fewer in number this side. She noticed now that the tree was in fact a little lop-sided, as though some branches towards the room had been lopped off some time back.

Sunita decided that she was being over imaginative and that evening she was extra cheerful with Ranjit, asking him about his training and complaining that they seemed not to be with each other at all. Ranjit said that another three days...he would be all hers...even the afternoons. He teased, catch up with your sleep now that you can.

On the third afternoon, Sunita decided that she would watch television rather than sleep. Now the TV was in the master bedroom, so there was no way that she could go to the guest room. However she couldn’t on concentrate on the limited channels and tired of flicking, threw the remote and almost angrily marched to the guest room. Arms akimbo, she surveyed it...may be some alterations can be done. She picked up a few oddments from the drawing room, and spent some time arranging and rearranging them in the guest room. Suddenly she felt very tired. She lay down on the bed ...and as she felt herself sinking into sleep, the uncanny sensation began. This time, Sunita did not open her eyes. She tried to guide her sensations to the point of intrusion and felt herself turning to the window. She opened her eyes and found herself staring into a face....in broad daylight....some one was looking at her through the window. Her frozen mind registered that it was a man’s certainly and that it was connected to a body. The face was staring straight at her ...there was no expression save for a puzzled one. Sunita did not know whether it was for 5 seconds or 5 minutes. A sudden shout from outside her door shook her into consciousness....Ranjit coming in early, was hollering for her. Sunita did not know what to do. She had certainly been scared out of her wits by what she had seen, but as she thought back, strangely enough the sighting had been a non threatening one. A part of Sunita wanted to keep this encounter very private. She decided not to say anything to anybody.

That evening when they went to the club, Sunita managed to turn the conversation towards her bungalow. Most of the people hinted at a tragedy though nobody quite knew the details. It had been too long ago...or no one seemed inclined to share the details.....one thing however became clear...the bungalow and all its rooms were being used by a “family” after a long time.


The next day would be the last afternoon to be left alone, Sunita realized that. The whole day seemed to drag. She had her lunch early and as if preparing for a ritual picked up a book and settled down in the guest room. Her instincts said that there would a closure that day. Unlike the other days, Sunita felt unusually alert and seemed not able to settle down. She knew this would not do. She forced herself to close her eyes, to relax. Unknown to herself a strange lyric started spiralling from her lips...an old English song she had never heard....almost in a trance she got up from the bed and undressed herself. The window was open, the curtains lifted as if by a hand. Her legs moved of their volition to the bathroom. She pushed the door open. The bathtub was brimming with blood....bright, inviting, and swirling in soft motions. Sunita stepped in.


Ranjit works in a merchant bank now. He is a widower.