The following poem by Bibhusha Rai from Darjeeling, West Bengal won the second prize in Wingword Poetry Competition 2022
Bibhusha Rai writes about her homeland that produces tea leaves. She starts the poem by mentioning the difference between the tea in Darjeeling and the tea across the country. With no spices and only with water and sugar or salt, Darjeeling Tea has the pure and authentic aroma that dominates the tea. Even though it is called Fikha Chiya, the Darjeeling Tea is not bland. Rai mentions that she is a village girl who grew up away from the tea gardens. She belongs to the land of tea leaves which has been harvested by her people generations over generations. Women have made their ways through rough terrains to reach up the hill and collect the tea leaves. She says how hard men and women work on these fields to get tea but at the end of the day, the tea is owned by corporate people who do not belong to her land. Even though it was her people who have nurtured the land and the tea leaves, they are called outsiders by politics. She questions that if this land isn’t the home to the people who have lived here for centuries, what is home? Fiercely she blames the other people who enjoy the profits of these cultivations for the exploitation of her people. The absence of basic necessities and amenities is ridiculous. She puts in light the discrimination they face for their looks and language by people who are proud of the Indian diversity. By the end of the poem she seems furious and rebellious and points out that the next people drink the Darjeeling Tea, they remember the real nurturers and workers who have harvested the tea with all their hard work on their own land.
Darjeeling Tea is a poem that an Indian writes with a broken heart for her people have been discriminated against because they look different. She describes the hard work and patience and time it takes to harvest the tea. But despite all the energy and love the tea workers put in, they are underpaid and overworked. The poem highlights the exploitation done by the corporate industry. She wishes that the people of her land are recognised enough and appreciated enough for their work.
Throughout our country, tea often milky, strong with spices, dark brown is drunk.
In Darjeeling, tea we often drink is boiled solely in water, little sugar or salt, allowing space for the aroma of tea leaves
to dominate. Fikha chiya
we call it, it is everything but bland.
I am a village girl, who grew up away from the chiya kamaans. I belong here, where the famously marketed Darjeeling Tea is picked by my people. Generations born and dead within tea plantations.
On hills dominated by rain, fog, hail. Women with dokos on backs, dots of colour: red, blue, yellow, white in the overwhelming green make their way through rough terrain, picking the coveted bud with two leaves. Men and women toil for tea: sweat and blood running through the hills. But the tea isn’t owned by them, belonging to corporations run by people from outside.
My hometown, known across corners of the globe because of chiya is a different picture, far from the marketed. Tea plantations closing, not growing: forsaken bushes, discarded people. This land, where my people nurtured lives and tea is our home. Politics states the other, calls my people outsiders. If where we existed for centuries isn’t home, what is home?
You who are magnified by Darjeeling marginalize who people it. You
who project our image for gains, tarnish us when we seek light. Tea gardens here are populated by the underpaid and overworked. We face absence of : rights, jobs, infrastructure, education, water. Ridiculous, isn’t it? The green hills encompass drought.
You boast of diversity, but inclusivity doesn’t include us. My people are of various tribes, many tongues, different faiths, multiple dishes, intricate traditions, diverse individuals. You say Chinkies look the same. My people’s eyes are small and big, mono or double-lidded. Light brown as fikha chiya, dark brown like chai, black as coffee. Of varied features and multiple hues.
My ancestors who worshipped nature, lived among the elements. My people who lived through backbreaking labour, political and civil unrest. Have not come this far to tolerate your disrespect. You label the men weak, the women cheap, steal children’s dreams, tag us savages. We are the other you build yourself on, burying us. In exoticism you revere us. In realism
you remove us. Postcolonialism yet you divide and rule. Mountains signifying permanence is our home, yet you relegate us to oblivion.
When a cup of Darjeeling tea relieves your thirst, I hope you remember us. Indian Gorkhas scattered across the globe, people who created the cup of tea you hold in your hands. Amber liquid, encapsulating
the taste and scent of our home.
Notes:
Fikha chiya: Black tea
Chiya kamaans: Tea gardens/plantations/estates
Dokos: Bamboo baskets
About the poet
Bibhusha Rai hails from Darjeeling, she holds a BA and MA in English Literature from Delhi University. Having worked on a research project with the Confluence Collective on Darjeeling’s tea gardens for the past year, she gained a renewed understanding of tea’s significance in regard to the Darjeeling Gorkha identity. Most of her work speaks on the intersection of food and identity, like the poem “Momos for Dinner” on the Alipore website.