Glimpses of India
Tea from Assam
Retell 'Tea from Assam' and form words from verb + particle.
On the train. Rajvir is travelling with his classmate Pranjol, whose father manages a tea garden in Upper Assam. A vendor calls 'Chai-garam'. Rajvir says that 'over eighty crore cups of tea are drunk every day throughout the world'.
A sea of tea bushes. Pranjol has his nose in a detective book. Rajvir loves detective stories too, but today he is 'keener on looking at the beautiful scenery'. Green paddy fields give way to a sea of tea bushes, with tall shade-trees and 'doll-like figures' (the pluckers) moving between the rows. Pranjol, who grew up on a plantation, is not excited: 'Assam has the largest concentration of plantations in the world.'
Two legends. 'No one really knows who discovered tea.'
- China: an emperor always boiled his water. Leaves from the burning twigs fell in and gave it a lovely flavour: tea.
- India: Bodhidharma, a Buddhist monk, cut off his eyelids because he felt sleepy while meditating. Ten tea plants grew from them, and their leaves banished sleep.
A little history. Tea was first drunk in China, as far back as 2700 B.C. The words tea, chai and chini come from Chinese. Tea reached Europe only in the sixteenth century, where it was drunk 'more as medicine than as beverage'.
At Dhekiabari. The boys get off at Mariani junction and drive to the Dhekiabari Tea Estate. Pluckers with bamboo baskets are picking new leaves. Rajvir asks Mr Barua if this is the second flush, from May to July, which 'yields the best tea'. Mr Barua is surprised: 'You seem to have done your homework.'
Word study: a verb + a small word makes a new word: upkeep, downpour, undergo, dropout, walk-in, overthrow, breakthrough, bypass, outlook, downcast.
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