Fiction: What awaits Adivasis Durgi and Dosaru in Assam’s Atharighat Tea Estate is no promised land

The weather was hot and humid. The narrow paths running through the tea gardens were muddy. The paddy fields too were half-submerged in water. One sank to the knees in the mud while trying to walk on the riverbank. Hordes of mosquitoes attacked relentlessly. To add to the misery, snakes, leeches and centipedes proliferated. Weeds and wild creepers were growing rapidly at the Atharighat Tea Estate. On the northern side of the estate, a few akashilata creepers could be seen. This air-sucking creeper quickly covered the trees. The ferns at the base of the tea bushes raced to keep up with other unwelcome plants. The plantation urgently needed intervention; the quality of the tea would suffer. The fast-deteriorating garden waited eagerly for the welcome hands of labourers. But where were they?

This was also kolom time – the bushes needed trimming. For the past 15 days, it had been raining without a break. If it continued like this, the tea garden would soon go to seed. Thankfully, the sirish trees planted to give shade to the tea bushes were growing well. They also held on firmly to the soil and did not let insects build nests. Their usually green branches were...

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