Chronicles of Kancha Bhatta 2 - The Lockdown Tea Trail

 

The lockdown caught Kancha Bhatta in his native village up the hills like a bewildered calf tied to the wrong post. He had come up only for a short visit, to breathe some hill air and gorge on fresh corn, fully expecting to be back in Chennai in time to brew my evening tea and shoo away the boys from my biscuit tin. Instead, the shutters came down on the world. The buses stopped, the border closed, and the Sharda below growled like a tiger in the adjoining forests in Dudhwa. 

Chennai, however, sat stubbornly in his mind: my kitchen, my office, my endless demands for "one strong tea, not that watery mess," and the familiar clatter of vessels he had mastered like a raga. Tea leaves and patience, that was his craft. And now, both were running dangerously low.

He had no money. Not even enough to buy a single cup of the milky roadside tea he secretly despised. But on one cool morning, when the mist still clung to the hills and the village roosters were arguing with the dawn, he slung a thin bag over his shoulder – a spare shirt, a dented steel tumbler, and a small packet of tea leaves (procured from Siliguri) carefully guarded like treasure – and walked out of his native hill sojourn as if he were merely stepping out to buy coriander.

"Arre Kancha, kahan jaa raha hai re?" one of the elders called out from his kirana dukaan.

"Bas, thoda neeche tak jaa raha hoon, chacha, kuch laoon aapke liye?

Dhangadi

A rattling jeep finally emerged from the fog, piled high with sacks and chickens. Kancha stepped into the road and raised his hand with all the confidence of a man who owned the highway.

"Bhaiya, Dhangadi jaa rahe ho?" he asked, peering in.

The driver, a stout man with a tired face, frowned. "Arre, lockdown hai. Kaun uthayega tumko? Paisa hai?"

"Paisa nahi hai," Kancha said cheerfully, "lekin chai banaata hoon zabardast. Ek cup piya, toh zindagi bhar yaad rahega. Abhi yahan banake pila deta hoon, phir Dhangadi tak chhod do."

The helper on the jeep burst out laughing. "Oye masterchef! Chalo, dikhao phir tumhari chai ka jaadoo."

Within minutes, Kancha had borrowed a small aluminium vessel, fetched water from a roadside handpump, and set up a makeshift stove beside the jeep. Tea leaves, a pinch of ginger from the driver's lunch box, and some mysteriously accurate proportions later, steam curled up with a smell that could have convinced even the police barricades to step aside.

"Wah re," the driver said after the first sip, eyes widening. "Aisi chai toh maine bas kahaniyon mein suni thi. Chalo, baith jao. Dhangadi tak tumhara intezaam ho gaya."

And so he rode down to Dhangadi, about 125 miles away, not as a fare-paying passenger, but as the freshly appointed Minister of Tea. To keep the driver engaged, Kancha regaled him with Bollywood stories, off the silver screen, with an air of authenticity that would put ‘Kofi with Karan’ to shame! His fav episode was his chance encounter with Daboo (the only living Kapoor of his generation) at a restaurant on Napean Sea Road. At a pit-stop in Silghadi, both alighted, looking for a snack. Kancha again, brewed some tea from his jugaad kit at a half-open tea shop, making cups for at least about 5 onlookers around.

Driving past Attariya, they reached Dhangadi that was a knot of half-open shops, shuttered hopes and whispered rumours. He had barely stepped off the jeep when the next question stared him in the face: how to cross the great wall of Gauriphanta, across the border onto the state of UP.

Over the Border

Hours later, a forest department jeep rolled in, loaded with supplies. The guard eyed him suspiciously.

"Tum kaun ho? Kahan jaa rahe ho?"

"Sahab, main cook hoon," Kancha said promptly. "Aap logon ke liye khana bana sakta hoon. Lockdown mein sab log thak gaye honge, na? Chai, khichdi, jo bolo bana doonga. Bas Gauriphanta tak chhod dijiye."

The guard looked at his colleagues. The thought of hot chai in the cold green gloom of the forests, was too enticing to resist.

"Chai bana sakta hai?" one of them asked, still not fully believing.

"Abhi bana ke pilaata hoon, sahab," said Kancha, already searching for a corner of the forest rest shed that could impersonate a kitchen.

Ten minutes later, forest rations – moist and long unused sugar, reluctant tea leaves, and dented steel glasses – had been transformed. The guard took one sip, then another.

"Arre bhai," he muttered, "isko toh border tak nahi, Lucknow tak free mein chhodna chahiye."

They didn't go that far, of course, but the jeep growled through Dudhwa with Kancha perched among the sacks, the unofficial camp cook who had bought his passage with masala chai.

"Dekha, sahab?" he said as the jeep bounced over a pothole. "Chai se bada passport duniya mein nahi hai."

The guard smiled in spite of himself. "Bas chup-chaap baith ja. Baagh bhi sun lega toh aa jayega." Humko Lakhimpur tak jaana hai. Tum wahin utar jao. Kancha Bhatta couldn’t have it better and happily grinned at the guard.

Lakhimpur

On the other side of the hills and river, the world flattened into dust and diesel fumes. By the time he reached Lakhimpur, he had already earned two meals by stirring someone's dal and frying someone else's chillies. The station area was full of stranded men with bags larger than their hopes.

A private bus stood there, its destination painted optimistically: "Bangalore – Special Service." Outside, a man with a notebook was shouting names. Migrant workers queued, heads bent, bags clutched.

Kancha wandered close and asked, "Bhaiya, Bangalore ka bus hai kya?"

The man looked him up and down. "Paisa?"

"Seedha paisa nahi hai," Kancha admitted, "lekin main chai, khana, sab banaata hoon. Raste bhar aap logon ke liye chai, upma, simple khichdi – jo milega, use jaadoo se kuch bana doonga. Aapka bhi kaam ho jaayega, mera bhi safar ho jaayega."

A woman standing nearby, with two small children and tired eyes, intervened. "Arre bhaiya, isko chadha lo. Bacho ke liye koi garam cheez bana dega toh acha hi hai."

The man shrugged. "Theek hai. Lekin seat nahi milega, samjha? Raste bhar kaam karna padega."

"Seat se zyada kaam aata hai mujhe," said Kancha. "Chalo, Bangalore!"

For the next six days, the bus was his traveling kitchen. Halting at Lucknow, Rae Bareily, Rewa, Jabalpur, Nagpur, Adilabad, Kurnool and Hyderabad, where migrant workers were dropped off, Kancha stuck to his contractual duties. At dhabas where the bus halted, he slipped into the smoky backrooms, turning leftover rice into lemon rice, plain vegetables into something resembling comfort. For the kids, he made mildly sweetened tea, more milk than leaf, and told them stories of a village where the river grumbled and the hills sulked but always forgave.

On the third evening, near some anonymous junction, one of the men said, "Arre Kancha, ek cup garam chai de na. Thandak haddi tak ghus gayi."

"Bhaiya, meri chai peene ke baad, aapko Bangalore bhi garam lagega," Kancha said. And the bus, for a brief, fragrant moment, became a moving tea stall.

Bangalore

Bangalore arrived finally, not as a grand gateway but as a jumble of flyovers and hoardings. The bus emptied itself into the city, each man dragged away by his own destiny. Kancha, left standing with his small cloth bag and his tea packet, sniffed the air.

"Idhar se Chennai door nahi hai," he told himself. "Bas thoda chai aur thoda kismet chahiye."

He found a lorry bound for Vellore, stacked high with sacks of onions. The driver was a wiry fellow who looked like he trusted no one, not even his steering wheel.

"Anna, Vellore goingu?" Kancha ventured in the only English he knew..

"Pogum," the driver grunted. "Aana paisa?"

"Paisa illa," said Kancha, slipping naturally into the local rhythm, "I meaku tea and sappadu. You take, humko free sawari?

The driver stared at him for a moment. "Tea saaptuttu dhaan drive pannuvaen," he admitted. "Sari, vaa. Onion sack mela ukkandhuko."

Somewhere on the highway, as the lorry huffed up a gentle rise, Kancha balanced a small stove on a wooden plank, boiled water in an old tin can, and brewed tea that cut straight through road fatigue.

"Idhu thaan tea da," the driver said after a sip. "Namma oorla ippadi tea kidaikkave maata."

Kancha grinned, as the lorry rolled toward Vellore.

Chennai..

At Vellore, the lorry dropped him near the highway like a parcel finally delivered. His legs were stiff, his shirt smelled faintly of onions and smoke, and his tea packet was now half its original size.

An ageing Ambassador crawled by, white and weary. Kancha stepped forward.

"Anna, Chennai goingu?" he called out.

An elderly man with a heavy moustache peered out. "Pogum. Aana meter illa, paisa dhaan."

Kancha beseeched, “Paisa illa. I tea maku and givvu. Tum Chennai la poraan!

The old man hesitated, then smiled faintly. "Tea-na enakku weak point. Seri, ukkaru."

At a fuel stop, under the shade of a half-dead tree, Kancha conjured up tea with the last of his precious leaves, and a simple upma out of whatever they could rummage from the Ambassador's emergency grocery bag.

"Idhu veetla saapadra maathiri irukku," the old man said, almost wistfully, as Chennai's outer ring road slowly wrapped itself around them.

In the city, traffic broke them up. From there, it was a ballet of two-wheelers. A delivery boy dropped him a few kilometres closer to Bandikavanoor in exchange for a quick help at a roadside stall – stirring a bubbling pot so the cook could answer his phone.

"Enga side la irukke?" the rider asked.

"Bandikavanoor inside goingu, machan," said Kancha. "my village I go ‘paidal’ from there”

The last stretch from Bandikavanoor he walked, as if the earth itself needed to feel the proof of his return. The fields were quiet, only the occasional bird tracing the evening sky. The familiar line of palm trees appeared like old friends, and then, finally, my village – Dharmarajapuram, sitting calm and mildly amused, as if it had known all along he would come trudging back with dust in his hair and mischief in his eyes.

By the time he reached my gate, the lamp in my courtyard was already lit. I heard the faint scuffle of his feet, the soft rustle of his bag.

He stood there, framed by the doorway, thinner perhaps, darker by a few shades of sun, but entirely himself. Then, with that same irrepressible grin, he announced his arrival in the only way he knew how:

"Tiger Zinda hai."

Of course he was. The tiger that brewed tea instead of roaring, cooked quietly instead of clawing, and walked across a locked-down subcontinent with nothing but a steel tumbler, a packet of tea leaves, and the unquestioning faith that somehow, lap by lap, someone would always be hungry for a hot cup and a simple meal.

Meadows whispered his saga that night, Kancha’s tea steaming tales into eternity. What's next for our tiger? Only the holy Sharda murmurs the secret.

Dharmarajapuram

 

Dharmarajapuram is a scenic village ensconced amidst lush green paddy fields about a few hundred meters off a state highway from the state metropolitan capital to an adjoining district headquarter.

I first set foot in this village about two decades ago when I identified a piece of land by a village road to build a small house in the rural milieu. I decided to move to the rural countryside and enjoy the bounties of nature that that were on offer here. I could fancy myself enjoying a siesta, after a sumptuous meal, on a jute woven cot under the shade of a neem tree at a corner of a paddy field on a sunny day, with the afternoon breeze blowing in from the coast, about 25 miles away, as the crow flies.

The first few months breezed along and I thoroughly enjoyed the fresh paddy-scented air and the bountiful ground water pumped from the nearby barrage across the Kosasthalai that meanders down to the Bay of Bengal. Life was peaceful, time almost stood still and I often wondered why I hadn’t located this heaven earlier.

All that glitters is not gold. And so, I discovered in phases, over a considerable period of time, that all things nice and beautiful do come at a cost.

A couple of months passed by, when Santhan, a lad of about 20, an electrician, gave up his life, unable to reconcile himself to the consequences of conflicts within his parental family. He had helped me fix up the ceiling fans in my house.

Three more months later, Saraswathi, a young girl, just out of school, jumped down the barrage and ended her life when her family reprimanded her for failing in her public exams. This girl was very talkative and lively. She would prepare tea at her home and serve to the masons working at my place when my house was being built. I was dismayed that downtrodden youth in the village hardly value their life. They would rather teach a lesson to their parents at the cost of sacrificing their own lives.

The third quarter saw yet another life ebb away. This time, it was a young man, about 40 years of age. He was a clerk in the district magistrate court. He was given to drinking and succumbed to sclerosis of the liver.

Before the onset of the next calendar year, Sekhar, a plantain farmer living on the outskirts of the village, consumed a lethal insecticide, unable to bear the trauma resulting from his wife’s elopement with a distant relative. Sekhar was a modest farmer who used to frequent my home to supply plantains and banana at very economical prices. His youngest son, a high school student, died soon after, when a state transport bus accidentally ran over some students right in front of the school due to brake failure, in a neighbouring village. 

And so began a cycle of untimely deaths with unfailing regularity over all these years. Notable among them were Raghu Reddy, my neighbour who sold the land to me to build my house, the plough farmer Velan who used to anchor his pair of bulls (Kona Nandi & Kripa Nandi) in an open land adjacent to my place, Ponvannan, an ever-smiling old man who used to herd his cattle every day in and out of the village, Sanka Reddy, a cable TV agent who died when a truck ran over him on the highway near the village, his wife Ramadevi, who died of a sudden cardiac failure, Sitaram Reddy’s wife who had only a few months before been operated with total knee replacements, Madhavan, the owner of a local petty restaurant, Pugazhenthi, the local village sarpanch, Sudalaimuthu Konar, a small time poultry farmer and many more from the village folk.

The latest to hit the bucket was Anwar Basha, who eked out a living by selling meat during weekends. On other days, he would be busy procuring goats from Chittoor district or doing odd masonry jobs in and around the village. He was only about 53, suffering from many disorders, including diabetes and high blood pressure, brought about from years of alcohol abuse, besides a liberal use of tobacco, both in the form of fumes and its oral consumption.

Surprisingly, covid as a pandemic, hardly claimed a couple of lives in the village during the year 2020-21, when Dharmaraja seemed to have taken a respite here and looked to other directions to claim his victims.

The demography of Dharmarajapuram of about 800 odd people consists of Reddys (the caste Hindus), Konars, (small time farmers who also breed cows), Pillais (who used to maintain land records-but not anymore) and the downtrodden, who live in the outskirts of the village.

A recent conversation with Sitaram Reddy revealed something intriguing and mysterious. His narration ran thus…

 “Many decades ago, most of the land, predominantly leased out for agriculture in and around the village to landless labourers, were owned by a brahmin from Kancheepuram. He hailed from a lineage of priests who conducted daily pooja routines and managed a famous Vishnu temple in Kanchi.

Since most of his lands were not maintained by the landlord himself, but leased out to small farmers, he had failed to keep track of taxes that were payable and accruing on the lands. During the pre-independence era, the Kanakku-Pillais (Patwari/Karnam) were bestowed with authority and responsibility of administering the land, collecting land revenue and the maintenance of land records. This practice paradoxically and unintendedly endowed them with sky-high powers of determining title to land and property, which they often misused to usurp the assets on personal whims and fancies.

The then local Patwari in the village, Kishta Pillai and his brother, Mani Pillai were the administrators of land in and around the village. The former, was the elder of the two who turned out to be  unscrupulous and an usurper of others’ property by giving out the flimsiest of reasons for resorting to punitive actions.

Kishta Pillai sent a notice to the landlord to pay up the taxes due on his property within a stipulated date, the notice being awfully short, giving the landlord only a couple of days to take any action in this regard, failing which the Pillai promised that all such land would be confiscated for consequent auction.

The landlord arrived at the village a week after the notice was received and to his utter shock and dismay, learnt that his land had purportedly been auctioned and that the proceeds of the assets were hardly sufficient to pay up the arrears of land revenue. The Patwari had usurped all his lands by transferring title in the name of his kith and kin.

Awestricken, dumbfounded and frustrated, the brahmin wailed uncontrollably, bewailing his fate, having lost huge property for the flimsiest of error. His anguish gradually turned into frustration and thence to an act of retribution. Seething with anger, and under a state of extreme mental agony and utter stupefaction, he cursed Kishta Pillai and his ilk, throwing up the soil from the wetlands as he left the village, that the Pillai’s family will completely disintegrate and face destruction of family lineage and and that they would no longer be able to enjoy the properties of the usurper and that all such farmers who buy such land from him will also face such destruction.

Kishta Pillai's house now presents a picture of dilapidated ruins unoccupied since ages.

There is hardly any family in the village that does not own hereditary land or property in these surroundings, most of them acquired from the Patwari!

Chronicles of Kancha Bhatta 1

It was a rather weird acquaintance when I first met Kancha Bhatta on a street near my office. I was on a stroll after a heavy meal with a colleague of mine on the road overlooking a lake in West Mango Town. He was a short wiry boy, fair complexioned with roving eyes. He struck up a conversation by asking me, "Sir, kuch kaam milega? I was nonplussed at this rather unconventional entreaty from a stranger. Not having the heart to ignore him, I asked him, "Kya kar paoge? Kahaan se aaye ho? He retorted, "Aap mujse kya karwana chahte hain? Main kuch bhi karoonga. Chai banane aur pilane se leke saamgri bechne tak, main kuch bhi kar sakta hoon aur taiyyar hoon. Main Mumbai mein bahot saal raha, ab us nagari ko chod chadkar, yahaan aa gaya hoon"

Not willing to trust him at the outset but to afford him an opportunity to re-establish in a place alien to his comfort, I asked him to come over to my office to work as an errand boy. I was, in fact, looking out for one after the previous incumbent called up one fine day to say, "Saar naan nintaen"! (Sir, I have left)

Next morning, he showed up and commenced his work in earnest. He impressed one and all by making fine ginger tea and serving the finely brewed concoction in a most pleasant manner. The finance manager, moving over to my table with a cup in hand quipped, "finally, we have found a great guy for an office boy". 

The same evening Kancha requested me to advance him a thousand rupees to send to his family in a neighbouring country, beyond the Siwalik range. Hesitating initially, I took a chance and obliged, though my colleague cautioned me against it. 

He was missing the next day and there was no way I could contact him. But he did turn up the subsequent day, and the next and everyday thereafter. That was the beginning of a long but tumultuous association of sorts that saw mood swings dime a dozen between him and me.

Having lived and grown up in the streets in Bombay of the nineties, he was well versed in the matters of the world (he calls it "Duniyadari") and knows enough to eke out a solitary living and send a few thousands to his dependents living far away in the hills right across the sacred Sharda.

Bhatta is a living encyclopedia on all matters connected with Bollywood, from Sohrab Modi's Sikandar-e-azam of 1965 to today's Sajid Nadiadwala's Sikandar. This illiterate from the hills can, with an elephant's memory, trace, for instance, the relationship between Ajay Devgn and Shobana Samarth or describe the entire family tree of the Kapoor family meticulously from Shamsa Kapoor (who is this?) to Shehenshah Akbar of Mughal-e-azam. He can even passionately describe the ethos and emotions that actually formed the backdrop of the relationship between Yousuf Khan and Mumtaz Begum Dehlavi behind the shooting of the magnum opus over the longest period a movie was ever shot in Bollywood. He had, in the past, clicked selfies with many Bollywood celebrities from Randhir Kapoor to Sallubhai. If they did not oblige, he was content clicking himself with "Jalsa" and "Aashirwaad" behind him. These formed his "testimonials" if you can call them some.

Recently, he got me to talk to Dharam paaji over his (Bhatta's) mobile. Dharam's personal aide is closely related to Bhatta. I was overwhelmed when the Sholay star blessed me," Jeete raho beta, khoob phoolo phalo"

One fine day, after a year of service at my home and office, Bhatta suddenly announced, "I want to go over to my native village for a month. I am homesick, would like to see my only daughter and wife and return when I get sick of my native"! I bid him goodbye and sent him on a fully paid vacation for a month. He was too impatient to have his tickets booked on train and convinced me that he is comfortable travelling on the wooden sleeper seats in the last bogies of the train to Delhi. He boarded an early morning mail at the central station hiding behind loads and loads of stuff he purchased a day before at the markets abounding near the railway station.

He called me after about 4 days to confirm that he has reached his village after changing several buses, jeeps and vehicles from Kashmere Gate, Banbasa, Attariya and Silghadi. 

A month passed and another two weeks. There were no calls from Bhatta. Then he called up a few more days later and demanded that I send him another month's "pagaar". I refused. He swore that he will never come back and that he was rathet happy boozing away his time at his village.

Yet another month later, he turned up at my door with his "bori and bistar" and announced "Tiger zinda hai"

Glimpse of a Life in Thopputhurai

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The tiled house on Draupadi Amman Koil Street, seemingly an extension of Sivan Koil South Street, close to the Amman temple and not far from Varadaraja Perumal temple, seemed to be at least a century old. The house located on a lane, opposite to the Model High School in Thopputhurai certainly has a wonder to behold.

A young lady welcomed us as we had comfortably perched ourselves on the pyol (thinnai) abutting the inner precincts of the house. She urged us to step into the inner hall (nadu kattu) through the corridor passage (raezhi) next to the open roof (mittam).

We seated ourselves on a large bench that was placed alongside a wall facing the kitchen (adukkalai) at the far end of the hall. Adjacent to us, were family and solo photographs of many members of the family and of the extended family that the house had witnessed, come and go, over the many decades of its existence.

A thin, frail and aged lady unaided by any support, walked into our midst from an adjoining room and looked intently at my mother for a few seconds and questioningly uttered, “Aren’t you my niece Janaki's daughter? I had last seen you during your marriage many years ago. Paavam, destiny did not permit my brother Kittu to live long enough to witness your wedding ceremony.”

Next, she transferred her gaze to me and remarked, “Your daughter resembles mapplai more than you”. She then pinched the cheeks of my two year old son and asked him, “Do you know who I am?”. My son moved his head from left to right and vice versa (to indicate his ignorance). The old lady remarked, “Subbulakshmi da Subbulaskhmi, your Ellu Paati (great-great-grand-mother)

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A colleague of mine, (quoted above) with her family members had been on a short trip to Vedaranyam to pay annual obeisance to her family deity. This town is not far from the coastal tip at Point Calimere where the Salt Satyagraha yatra from Trichy was concluded by Rajaji. Vedaranyam derives its name from Vedaranyeswarar temple, dedicated to Lord Shiva, that was built during the reign of Aditya Chola (871-907 CE). The legend has it that the temple was closed for worship by the Gods and it was the Tamil poet saints, Appar and Tirugnanasambandar who sang peans to the Lord in order to open and close the temple door for the benefit  of the mortals.

Having fulfilled the purpose of her visit, she, with her family hailed an auto rickshaw to visit a relative’s home in Thopputhurai, a sleepy neighbourhood village, few miles from Vedaranyam,

Subbulakshmi is 105 years old and has been a witness to about eight generations of her lineal family from her grand parents to her great great-grand children. She is active enough to manage her personal daily chores sans any assistance from anybody else in the household. She doesn’t even use a walking stick. Though beset with some hearing loss, she is active enough to cut vegetables for her great grand-daughter, watch the television and pass cryptic comments, read the newspaper daily, walk out to the pyol by the street to chat with the neighbours and visitors or bargain with the vegetable vendor. She still manages the household by keeping a tight leash on the finances.

The family gathered about a decade ago at the ancestral house to perform Subbulakshmi’s Kanakabishekam. (an auspicious ceremony conducted in a family where a 4th generation great-grandson performs the event for the first generation of his great-grand father/great-grand mother). It was a grand affair with most of the relatives attending the function.

 

Subbulakshmi hasn’t travelled beyond Nagapattinam, the district headquarters of Vedaranyam taluk, yet she is seized of most political, social, economic and other matters affecting the state and the Nation.

Subbulakshmi experiences each passing day to live her moments, cherishing every minute of her life and looks forward to many more years of happy, joyous living and a meaningful existence.

PS: Subbulakshmi passed away at her home in Thopputhurai in the early hours on 7th April'2025