Darjeeling: A third generation tea planter who has occupied various positions in the tea industry gives a peep into life of a tea planter, his club, his life style and habits with ample anecdotes and hilarious incidents of Darjeeling tea community.
The book about Darjeeling tea community entitled “All in a Cup of Tea” is authored by the son of the first local Tea Garden Manager Mr Jeevan Prakash Gurung who is associated with tea industry for over 50 years.
JP Gurung’s father Mr Kharga Bahadur got his first job as an Apprentice Clerk at Oaks Tea Estate in 1922 and retired as acting Manager in 1968.
Bishop Stephen Lepcha of Darjeeling was the chief guest at the multi-city book release held in 16 countries on 23 November 2020. He was accompanied by authors family and local tea garden managers in the Salesian College AV Hall.
Bishop Lepcha released the book and handed over the first copy to author’s wife Mrs. Ramala Gurung.
The 204 page book which narrates almost 100 year saga of world famous Darjeeling Tea is Salesian College Sonada Publication. Priced at Indian Rs. 699, the book is an autobiography as it is a perceptive commentary into the life and times of the Darjeeling planter and his mileu.
Besides highlighting the problems that Darjeeling Tea industry is passing through, Gurung makes some valid suggestions for its improvement.
The book also provides a rounded report on socio-economic facets of the Darjeeling Tea Industry politics, policies, workers, trade unions, and the statehood. The tea industry has more than 60 per cent female labourers.
In eighteen short chapters, Gurung says, “I have attempted to share my experience over the years, memories of people who have had a deep influence in my life, the workers and the trade unions in Darjeeling and a brief account of the [Gorkhaland] movement for a separate state.”
The book also contains, “For the first time ever, a firsthand account of the gruesome murder of Geoffrey James Ower Johnston, the erstwhile owner of Rungmook & Cedars Tea Estates 39 years after his death,” claims Gurung.
Spanning three generations and timeliness across the lush, tea plantation covered hills of Darjeeling, ‘All in a Cup of Tea’ offers an insider’s account and a perspective into the globally renowned beverage, Darjeeling Tea.
“I am not a Christian but have always thought and continue to think that a Christian education is what taught me my values and perhaps contributed largely to what I have achieved in life,” says Gurung who has dedicated a chapter to his friend an Italian missionary of the Balasun Valley Salesian Fr Luigi Jellici.
Another chapter narrates spine chilling account of two late night strange and weird experiences on Hill Cart Road with his Company Jeep.
One of the earlier books on tea was Jimmy Pyke’s 1939 book entitled The Tea Planter’s Son: An Anglo-Indian Life. It tells story of a young Englishman who rejects a diplomatic career and leaves England to become a tea planter in Darjeeling. He marries an illiterate tea picker of Nepali origin and they have a son. The book continues with the sons journey through life: the prejudices he faces as an Anglo-Indian in both countries.
The latest book by JP Gurung is bound to immortalise the experiment started in 1847 which transformed a scenic hamlet into Darjeeling, a bustling town and into a name that soon became synonymous with tea.