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01
Cover:
Morning Hues at Gisovu
Photograph: Mr Saneer Gurung
02
Editorial / Features
03
Honours
04
Planter’s Punch
My Early Days in ‘Tea’ ~ G.S. Sodhi
05
Treasury
Bhooteachang T.E. ~ Sarita Dasgupta
11
Phu Ben Communique
Celebrating 20 Years ~ Sakina Hussain
14
It's a Wild World
Pit - Pat ~ Rupa Saikia
16
African Beat, Rwanda
Lake Kivu ~ Sameer Singh
18
SerendipiTea
Bordubi C06047B ~ Nick Flittner
20
Beneficence
AVS - Moving on... ~ Leslie Peter Watts
Assam Valley Literary Award 2015
Green Valley Academy ~ Karan Jaswal
24
Narration
Empowering Women on the Tea Estates
~ Sarita Dasgupta
25
Melange
32
Centrespread:
The Chairman’s
Visit to the Margherita Estates, Assam
34
Laurels &
Shabaash
35
Treasury
Raidang T.E. ~ Rupa Saikia
40
Cameo
Avinash Khadka – a profile
~ Siddharth Thapa
42
Management Mantras
Delegation ~ Raj Kamal Phukan
44
African Beat, Uganda
A Memento of Home
~ Bathsheba Okwenje-Sharma
46
The World Around Us
Sivasagar & Panidihing Bird Sanctuary
~ Rajdeep Buragohain
49
Health Watch
Vertigo ~ Dr Neelmonee Dutta
50
Gardening
The Art of Bonsai ~ Hridayesh Chettri
53
Visitors’ Vignettes
Trip to Boroi /Singli ~ Tim Robertson
55
The Gem Collection
Atri Muni’s Ashram ~ Rajnish Das
56
The Memsahab’s Guide to
Gracious Living
Sri Lankan Cuisine ~ Roshni Dagar
58
Kamjari
The Accidental Midwife! ~ Sivaji Dutt
60
planters@play
The Chuapara & Central Dooars Swimming
Club ~ Jayati Thapa
62
Requiem
63
Postscript
Wistful Thinking... ~ Rupa Saikia
64
Back Cover:
Lone Ranger
Photograph: Mr Abhijeet Das
Features
Issue – 18
July 2016
“
Let others sing in praise of wine;
Let others deem it joy divine
Its fleeting bliss will never be mine –
Give me a cup of tea!
” (Anon)
So, sipping a cup of fresh, aromatic tea,
delve into this issue…
Those who have been posted at
Bhooteachang T.E. and Raidang T.E. can
revisit and rekindle memories while those
who haven’t can explore them in
Treasury
.
In
Narration
, read how the women workers
on our estates have been positively
influencing their community for decades,
while young girls are being educated about
their rights and encouraged to find their
‘place in the sun’.
Education is a cause that the Company
and its executives believe in implicitly. An
initiative by a resident of one of the
estates was given impetus by the
Management, resulting in an English
medium school for the estate’s children.
We bring you the Green Valley Academy
at Koomsong T.E. in
Beneficence
.
We have many talented, interesting
people working in the Company whom
we feature in
Cameo
. This time, it is the
turn of an adventurous young planter
with an unusual hobby.
In addition to our regular features, we
bring you a story that reflects the fact that
the world is indeed ‘a small place’ and that
coincidences, sometimes serendipitous
ones, do happen! A poet, writer and
inveterate tea drinker from Tasmania,
Australia, bought a tea chest off the
internet and through a series of happy
coincidences, traced it back to its origins.
We invited him to share his story with us
in
SerendipiTea
.
All the Company’s estates in the Moran
circle were part of the Ahom kingdom
and still retain relics of their illustrious
past but it is Rajmai T.E. which is situated
closest to the historic town of Sivasagar.
In
The World Around Us
, one of the
executives from the estate tells us about
the monuments that still remain in and
around Sivasagar. Incidentally, a statue of
Siu-Ka-Pha, the Shan prince from China
who founded the Ahom dynasty in 1228,
is situated just outside Lepetkatta T.E.
Six months of the year are gone and the
next six lie before us, like chapters of a
book waiting to be written. What would
we like to achieve? Where would we like
to go? What would we like to have
happen in our lives? Let’s fill those pages
with memories we can look back on with
happiness and no regrets.
Au revoir …