Getting a telephone connection in a tea garden way back in the late 70’s was indeed a novelty and, one by one, all the gardens in our vicinity got the land lines drawn through the villages and internal roads. Initially the high cost of maintenance in keeping the lines in order probably was worth much more than the benefits we got from it. But it was a welcome change to be able to talk with our friends and relatives whenever the system worked besides of course on the many work related issues.
Prior to the arrival of the telephone at the garden we had to go to the nearby town of Bishwanath Charali and if it was very urgent we had to drive almost 110 km to Tezpur to get the calls made from the post office. In those days we had to book a trunk call to call someone outside the local network and if it was a matter of utmost urgency one had to book a lightening call. As with any new improvements, it took a couple of years before the phones became useful and they got more reliable over time.
The biggest problem in the early days was in keeping the posts erect and the lines not broken by many factors like storms, animals and thefts. In the early months, I remember there used to be a portion where the line was drawn next to a forest area and a number of times elephants broke the posts and destroyed the lines. Our neighbouring gardens all belonged to bigger tea companies which proved to be a boon for us as they would treat any breakdown of the telephone lines as a priority and would send their jeep with a staff to lodge the complaint at the telephone office at Halem. Our job was confined to ensure that our internal connection from the main PWD road which was about one and a half kilometres remained intact. We had one phone in the main garden office and another one in my bungalow.
Now this tea industry had to keep pace with the telephone, so most gardens gave the additional charge of maintaining and liasioning with the telephone department to a junior factory staff and in our case, I asked Paul babu to do this work. Every morning he had to check whether the garden office phone was working by making a call to the office at Halem and if there was no ring tone he had to cycle along the phone line to see if there was any fault in our feeder line. Many times it may have been working then but a squally wind would hit us in the daytime when he had to do his inspection again. Generally the position with storm damage would have also affected the other gardens on the main line so the repairs would be done for all the gardens by the team from Halem, though at times, it took up to three or four days for the line to ring again. At once I would be sent a note from the Head Clerk “Sir, phone ringing” and then I used to come to make all the pending calls to suppliers, government offices, other garden managers, friends and my brothers at Guwahati. I used to keep a slip ready with the numbers to be called and it was a big relief to get all the news in this manner and avoid the tension of going over to call from elsewhere.
The telephone also became a liability as in the case of conveying bad news. Once I had to receive a phone call at around 8.30 pm from a person in Dibrugarh who had rung my bungalow number to request me to contact the then Acting Manager at Dufflaghur tea estate and inform him that his father had passed away and he was to come home immediately. His telephone was not working and so the person had found out the neighbouring garden’s number to relay the message. As I knew Ronju Baruah well, I steeled myself to rush over to his place in order to inform him though I told him that his father was very serious and he was to move at once. His car’s spare wheel was not in good shape, so I gave him my stepney and it was lucky as then most of us used Ambassador cars only. I waited for him to arrange for his driver to come and I left after wishing him luck and to keep firm; he was able to attend and do the last rites for his father and that is also because this news could be sent over the phone. On his return he thanked me for the help but to help one another in distress was quite common.
Another time, I got the shock of my life, literally, while using the new telephone in the garden. I was making a call to our “banker” - a Marwari shop at Halem who used to carry our money for all the garden’s requirements. In those days there were no banks in the rural areas and even if there was, they could not handle all the cash requirements of the gardens in the district. But this problem was solved by the Marwari shops which offered the service of carrying the cash from Tezpur every week and also they used to keep cash in their safes in the shop for which they had to keep guards who were licensed to use shotguns. We had to put in our money in his account in advance, which in our case was from Guwahati; if it was not for the services of such “bankers” the tea industry would not have survived. These Marwaris were very enterprising and also offered services like tea transport, supplies of rations and miscellaneous garden supplies for building materials like bricks, sand, chips and boulders. While talking that day to our banker, a lightning storm struck and I heard a sharp clap with an electric shock which shook me causing me to drop the receiver. I never realised that the telephone lines relayed the lightening charges in a storm and henceforth on rainy days I developed a habit to speak on a phone keeping it at a distance from my ears and at times during a full blown storm I refused to use the phone at all! In fact till this time also I am very careful using a mobile in a storm.
On another day a couple of us friends were waiting at our common friend’s place in the garden where he was posted waiting quite anxiously for the telephone to ring with the news of his wife who had gone for her confinement to Kolkata for the birth of their first child. He was informed earlier in the day that the baby was expected any time and he had requested us to come over to be with him for moral support. So in the afternoon, after the garden office closed, three of us were having tea in his drawing room when the phone rang. Shantanu jumped up and picked up the receiver and we heard him speak with a muted breath. Just then the line stopped. At that crucial moment his phone went dead and he just could not control himself as he kept on trying the phone again and again. This went on for a few hours till it became dark and all he had heard was it was over and had gone well. He was, however, not sure and became nervous. I decided that we should try the phone in my bungalow and taking the Kolkata number from him went off to try from my place as he would not leave the side of the phone expecting a call back. So Rajiv and I left them and we drove off to my bungalow which was about a few kilometres away. The line was fine and I got through at once and we explained the position to his father-in-law who told us that they were blessed with a baby boy and all was well. Back again at his house Shantanu was still not being able to get through and we relayed him the good news. He whooped in joy and embraced us all in turn. He insisted that we all stay for pot luck dinner and he took out a whisky bottle to celebrate.
But the best incident with the new telephone which I remember quite vividly involved an old villager who used to visit me every Sunday from his village nearby bringing me gifts of herbs, fruits and delicacies like ‘Owtenga’ and young jackfruit. He had first visited me a few years after Neil Armstrong - the first man who had walked on the moon in 1969. When I told him this story he laughed and laughed till he almost fell off his chair. He just did not believe me that it was possible for anyone to do this and when I told him that it was true and man was conducting trials to find alternative planets to stay in the future, he dismissed me as being mad and simply accepted me as a bit of a lunatic. Later, when the railway line was opened to North Lakhimpur passing by his village, he vehemently opposed this new invention which would only bring in troublesome outsiders and cause us unnecessary problems. Anyway our relationship continued and by that time I was also regularly giving him gifts like clothes and household items like buckets, mugs and cooking dishes. I also found out a lot of things of local interest from him. Then one day he saw or rather heard me talking on the phone for the first time. When I came out to the verandah he asked me about my guest inside. I told him that I was only talking to a friend on the phone. He did not comprehend and asked me to explain. So I took him inside and showed him the phone instrument and made a call to our local banker’s shop and made him listen. He was frightened and thought that it was some sort of a magic! I had to explain how it worked, like a sort of a two way transistor radio, and he simply replied that it was impossible to understand these things and that I should be careful of any dangers and my health.
Now when I remember how the telephone intruded into our lives and the great changes that it brought about, for the good mainly, it was indeed marvellous to witness from close quarters. As newer and more sophisticated gadgets are entering our lives faster then we can comprehend, I remember my old friend and wonder what he would have had to say about them.
