Tea, Tennis, and Turbulent Times
A Slice of Life
by
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Rather shaken by the sudden turn of events, we drove at great speed back to the Lungla bungalow. We had the safe keys for all the Duncan’s Estates, which had to be left with somebody responsible. Shotgun Chowdhury at that time was living in Maulvi Bazaar, so we sent a message that we would be coming through first thing in the morning and would hand over the keys.
At dawn the next morning, with Ivan driving, the three of us took his Vauxhall Victor down the back road to Maulvi Bazaar. It was very dangerous to drive in the early hours of the morning before the roads had been swept for land-mines. Even the Pakistan Army wouldn’t move before the local buses kept to their early morning schedules, ensuring that if anybody was going to get blown up, it was going to be the local residents themselves. And to prove how lucky we were, a bus was indeed blown up on the main road that very same morning, which could well have been us if we had taken that route.
With safe keys handed over, off we went at great speed down the road, heading for Comilla. Within an hour of us leaving, the town was bombed by the Indian Air Force, so we had had a narrow escape there.Then instead of taking the tarred road down through Teliapara, we took as always a dirt road past Deundi. We reckoned the tar road was unsafe as it ran very close to the Indian border, and we’d always avoided it. I guess the gods were looking after us that day. Shortly after Independence, a lorry load of pluckers were killed opposite the factory gate by a mine in this very same road. It was discovered later that it had been put there by the freedom fighter son of the estate bara sirdar. Quite what good he thought would have come of blowing up his own people I’m not really sure. The young man later boasted of having put other mines in the road and showed local authorities their positions, which was exactly the same stretch of dirt road we regularly used to go up and down to Dhaka. Luckily for us, they had been put in too deep for our weight to set off the triggering mechanism.
Ivan then drove like a maniac down the main road through Brahmanbaria and on towards Comilla. This road was also very close to the Indian border, with many diversions caused by blown-up bridges. But the road itself was macadam and, apart from the diversions, in very good condition so we were able to really belt along.At one stage, we saw smoke and flames in the near distance and wondered what was going on. Apart from ourselves, there was no traffic on the roads, so we were interested to see an army jeep heading in our direction. As they got close, one of the personnel on the jeep put his clenched fist on top of his head in the universal signal of follow me. So we slammed on our brakes and turned round. It was as well, for when we stopped, we could hear the noise of artillery blocked out by our tyre-and- engine noise.
We followed the jeep back a kilometre or so and got out to talk. They were all laughing and joking, which I guess was a normal reaction to getting out of a combat area safely. They were part of a signal section, repairing wires running down the road. We found we had driven into the middle of an artillery battle and what we could see and hear was the Indian Army shelling a Pakistani emplacement. It was explained to us it would be safe enough to go after a few minutes as the guns firing at that rate would have to stop to let the barrels cool down. Very reassuring!Sure enough, all eventually went quiet and we were free to proceed. As we passed, we could see the Pakistani artillery dug in with camouflage nets. But just at the very moment we passed, the Pakistanis began their return fire. So you can imagine we almost jumped out of our skins, and Ivan’s foot went through the floor.
We had planned to drive all the way to Dacca but were informed in Comilla that the road was now closed. Luckily, we knew Father Dan Kennerk, the Catholic priest in Comilla, who was well known by the planting community. He told us where we could find a bed until the dust settled.The actual surrender document was not signed until 16 December. I did, though, manage to get a letter off to Aunt Liz, which is dated the 11th. I can only guess that we talked somebody into posting our envelopes from India.
A letter to London seems more likely to get through than one to anywhere else so I am writing to you in the knowledge that you will inform the rest of the family that I am still at large. We had the word to clear out of Sylhet about 24 hours too late and only got as far as here where we are staying in the Ford Foundation Guest-house before communications became cut-off. At times life has been a bit frightening and once a little tenuous, but everything is quiet now and we are being well looked after. At date, according to the radio, Dacca is under siege; and I reckon they are having it pretty rough there so just as well we never made it further than here.
We had a phone call from Chittagong our first night and our Dacca office know we are here so it’s possible you have already had news of my whereabouts. It’s doubtful if we will be able to move from here for a long time to come and in the meantime we lie like lords living a millionaire existence.
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About the Book
This is a true story of an ordinary boy who grew up to have what I believe to be an extraordinary tale to tell. This is the tale of a lad growing up in post-war Britain and of the trials and tribulations of life in a boarding school and an attempt to earn his wings at Cranwell.
This is also the account of how letters sent home over a fifteen-year period prompted the author to write his memoirs of these years spent in what is now Bangladesh and of the exciting, but often dangerous times of being caught up in the Indo-Pakistan War and the birth of a new nation—a slice of history barely remembered today. This is about his experiences as a young tea planter adapting to the vagaries of a strange language and living conditions in a Third World country as well as the droughts and cyclones that at times resulted in so much loss of life and infrastructure, learning to live and adapt to the harsh and often bone-wearying humidity and heat of the monsoons but relishing the beauty and the blessing of the cooler winter months. It’s a factual story of how tea in the 1960s and 1970s was produced from—‘two leaves and a bud’ to a perfect cup of tea, how sport and club life played a major part in helping to dispel the loneliness he felt at being often the only Britisher for many miles, and how his friendships were made, many of which endure to this day. Simon Watt sets out the tale of his first thirty-five years in a frank and candid way. It is an honest, often moving account of his life up to that time. It is a book written with sincerity and humour while revealing a fascinating story.About the Author
From Britain during the Blitz, boarding school from age 5 and the hardship of a peripatetic lifestyle in a military family Simon Watt grew up knowing that all he ever wanted to do was become a pilot.
But fate took a hand and he was to spend his whole working life on tea and coffee plantations. The first 15 years of his working life, from 1960 to 1975, was spent as an assistant, then Estate Manager in the tea growing areas of East Pakistan. He was there through all the turbulent times associated with the Indo-Pakistan wars from which the modern day country of Bangladesh would emerge. Subsequently, circumstances decreed that he leave the Indian subcontinent and he moved to Africa. First to Malawi as a Field Manager on a tea estate, then 4 years later, when his work permit was due to expire, to Zimbabwe as a General Manager on a tea and coffee estate in the east of the country. He was to spend 18 years in Zimbabwe. The last 10 years as a Manager on a coffee estate right on the border with Mozambique. Finally deciding to retire, he immigrated to Western Australia, with his Australian wife, Sandra where they now live quietly near the beach south of Fremantle.