46. The Lord of the Garden Gypsy
Greetings to all you lovely people at CFC/FOM!
It’s that magical time of day when I sit down with a good cup of tea and lose myself in dreams of all the tea gardens we’ve lived in over the years. Life in each garden had its own flavour.
My old friend Ranu Taragi tells a delightful tale. Her story is itself like life in the gardens; charming, pleasant and full of fun, and then without a warning, terror and danger! ‘Life in the wilderness can take sudden frightening turns’, says Ranu.
I know you will enjoy this story, with all its character sketches and descriptions of the thousand little things that make life unique in Tea. Oh, and I must thank my own ‘Bawarchi’, ‘Bearer’ and ‘Baghal’ from the time when this story was written, because they posed happily for pictures to embellish the tale – not that it needed any pictures! So pick up your teacup and sit down to enjoy this little road trip to the tea gardens. Off we go!
Cheers to the spirit of Indian Tea! And cheers to all the wonderful people who bring us that lovely cuppa!
I’ll be back with another chai ki kahaani for you next Friday…yeh vaada raha!
– Gowri Mohanakrishnan
Indian Chai Stories
This segment is a result of our fruitful collaboration with Indian Chai Stories, a blog by Gowri Mohanakrishnan, a planter’s wife who’s been writing tea stories for many years and is also an active supporter of Chai for Cancer
Her stories come straight from the tea gardens of India and are best enjoyed with a cup of garam chai.
So go ahead #raiseyourcup #DrinkToACause
Visit www.chaiforcancer.org to donate towards our cause.