75 The Tea Estate
Just below the monastery on the way down the hill lies a tea estate. As soon as one leaves the forest the whole atmosphere changes as the dense tree cover and foliage gives way to open lands and skies, and one can look out over the valleys and mountains that lie to the north and west, and which provide one of those magnificent views for which this area is noted.
The main thing grown here is of course tea, but there are also a variety of other crops including coffee, pepper, and spice trees, clove and the like. We’re in the middle of the dry season at the moment and all the trees that lie dotted around the estate seem to be flowering or giving fruit. Of the latter there are mango, and breadfruit with its beautiful leaves, jak, and avocado which are veritably drooping with fruit. There are also coconut and banana around, though at 800 meters we must be at the cut-out height for the growing of these trees.
The present owners, of which there appear to be many, seem to have inherited the estate from a common parentage, and there are a number of large stone-built houses on the estate, which have been tastefully decorated with bougainvillea, jasmine, and many other shrubs and flowers, with cut hedges and lawns to enhance the living quarters. A giant mango tree stands at the driveway entrance to one of the houses and I met one of the owners here one day, and we sat together on a wooden seat under the tree while he reminisced about the history of the place.
Just below this house there is a large banyan tree, one of the most regal trees I have seen, its branches stretching out to more than a hundred feet around, where they have become intermingled with the other trees trees which grow nearby. The workers have erected a small shrine at the foot of the tree where they can burn camphor oil and make other offerings to the spirit of the tree, and one feels totally in sympathy with them, for this is truly an awesome place.
A little further along again and one comes to a mountain stream that makes its way down the hill, and here the workers come to wash their clothes and take a bath after the long day’s work. Alongside the stream have been planted different varieties of temple tree that sprinkle down white, yellow, and red flowers in the evening, whether in offering to the poor workers or the setting sun I don’t know. On the hillsides that are not under cultivation yellow sunflower, and pink flowered glyricidia brighten up the otherwise sparse scrubland.
I often go for a walk through this estate in the morning or late afternoon. There is no hurry, time passes at another pace here, and I am able to walk slowly along admiring the landscape, the trees, the crops and shrubs which make of this place such a veritable wonderland.
Mynah makes merry before his mate;
babblers drop in bristling and bustling,
as quails go quietly, half hid by hedge.
Half-moon still hangs up high in the sky.
Cock is crowing and day is breaking;
barbet’s call is going back and forth;
woodpecker screeches, then taps on tree;
squirrels are scolding an unseen foe.
Calls in the air, children are crying;
water is splashing down at the well,
a woman is heard thumping washing,
the wind is blowing across the dell.
– and yet even with all these sights and sounds
life is still so very simple.