JORHAT, Feb 7 — Unwinding over a cup of steaming tea held delicately between her stunningly fair slender hands, a sari-clad Ms L Crow’s mind might have raced back to the deep recess of her innermost treasured feelings, as she recalled the 31 eventful years of her life in this verdant land of mist-clad hills, lush green forests, rolling valleys, and by her own admission, an extremely hospitable people. Cynosure of all eyes at the first-ever Tea Tourism Festival organised by the State Government at the sprawling Khelmati field of the Gymkhana Club here from February 4, side by side with the 125th Jorhat Races 2002, Ms Crow shares an emotional bond with this mystic land as she wandered from one tea estate to another since 1952, given the fact that her late husband Michael Crow had served as the superintendent of the Jhanji Tea Company. Having spent several years at Seleng, Boisahabi and Naginijan tea estates, she later rented a cottage at Kunwari Gaon near Jeypore off the oil town Naharkatia and lived there for 12 years after Michael met a watery grave in 1969.
“I love coming to Assam,” she exclaimed before this scribe, eyes beaming. A resident of Sussex in England, she admitted, “the hospitality of the Assamese is what draws me to this verdant land.” Provided God permits, “I hope to come back once again after two years, as I have done so regularly since 1983.” Having taught sewing and knitting to village damsels while at Kunwari Gaon, she claims to have enjoyed her faithful stay among the simple agrarian folk and shared their myriad emotions. Allured no end by Assam’s uniqueness, the British lady felt her longing for this land of colourful mix of people would endure ‘till the end.’ On the other hand, lording over the festivities with his regal presence was Bisa Nong Gam, the scion of Singpho King (1823) Bisa Gam. The latter is credited with introducing wild tea bushes to British merchant and soldier of fortune Robert Bruce, refuting the generally accepted theory that the tea plant in Assam was discovered by the said Englishman, according to eminent botanist and researcher, Dr Anjan Baruah of the Regional Research Laboratory here.
Attired in a dazzling traditional robes and with the a sword-wielding attendant-in-waiting shadowing him, the chieftain’s 28-year-old son Bisa Mung Dang Gam also accompanied his father. Carrying home-grown tea leaves inside an air-tight bamboo container, the tribal leader proudly claimed before this correspondent to drinking mostly strong brew prepared from such ‘stuff’. A resident of Bisa Gaon in Tirap mouza along the Assam-Arunachal Pradesh border in Margherita, the six generation royal descendant is presently mouzadar of a huge tract encompassing approximately 34,84,800 bighas of land with a Singpho population nearing 10,000 people, besides Tangsa, Naga, Taiphake, Sema, Mising and Kochari tribals. With only small tea growers dotting his jurisdiction, “locally manufactured tea with its customary qualities is still sold only within our community,” he revealed. Dr Baruah too mentions in a recently published report, “the Singphos were habituated to regularly drinking tea, and grew the crop wherever they settled. As a result, tea plantations gradually spread to Tirap district (then within Assam), and other parts of the North East”. He further states, “it has been established that the Singphos were the first to grow, cultivate and consume tea in the Patkai hill region, and drinking the brew was the their prime habit.
“As the Singhpos revolted against the British rulers in due course, the ‘democratic’ king Bisa Gam was eventually imprisoned at the Jorhat jail, where he breathed his last in 1840.” Going back in time, the tribal chief nostalgically reflected on several interesting episodes involving their ancestors, when they were appointed sentinel of the State’s eastern borders by the British. He even mentioned about Bisa Kopi Tea Estate near Doomdooma, which still exists. It was here that the Singphos planted tea plants in an organised manner for the very first time on the advice of the British rulers. “Befriended by the Whites, the Singphos were exempted from paying tax during those days,” he added. Introspecting on his community’s pitiable condition at present, he hoped the ABITA would be benevolent enough to release funds for upliftment of his tribal brethren, as he felt such an initiative would always stand out as a befitting gift, and also go along well with the festivities revolving round cha-ching pani (tea liquor in Singpho dialect), the jovial chubby-faced regal descendant opined.