Cheerful women carrying long jute woven straps across their forehead laden in a colorful cloth with a bamboo basket ‘doko’ hanging down their back, an umbrella and lunch box tugged in- is the typical tea picker of Darjeeling.

Six days a week, at the same time (usually 7a.m), the pickers gather at a location prescribed by the manager to the ‘kamdari’ the supervisor. The section of the plantation to be picked on that day. The pickers are divided into decks which usually hold 35-50 pickers and supervising staff of two or three.

It is not the manager but the kamdaris’ that the tea pickers have to follow and please. Some share their lunch and some bestow him with gifts from the small livestock they keep, mostly poultry. This ritual of keeping the supervisor happy is  for the daily roll call he makes at the start of the day and the kind of ‘melo’ row of tea bushes he assigns the picker. Tea plantations in Darjeeling being planted in rows and columns has to be picked according to a prior estimate. The supervisor needs to have the special know how on what the bushes can deliver from a particular section or season. Sometimes, he also has to decide on the spot how the picking should be carried out (hard or liberal), as to the demand of his next assignment.

The process of harvesting is quite a job, the pickers slip their fingers under the new growth, twist and break the two leaves and a bud, and throw it into the basket on their back — and immediately reach out for the next bud.

The connections between the terrain, the pickers and leaves are almost intense when a full fledged harvesting war is wedged. In these silent environments the breaking of leaves in clicks n clacks can be heard and behind the smell of sweet vegetal aroma of the leaves lingers.

It is an articulate job as the pickers have to choose the right type of leaves to harvest and leave behind the new unfolding ones for the next round and sometimes even discard the overgrown ones. An experienced picker gracefully picks the right quality of leaves and their speed is well developed. To produce one kilogram of fine tea a picker needs to hand pick approximately 160000 shoots or 4 (four) kilograms of fresh green leaves. The picking average of a tea picker whole year round is also approximately 4 kilograms in Darjeeling district. Generally a good picker has an average of 6-8 kilograms of fresh green leaves.

During some adventures of listening to the pickers I’ve heard them softly speak of their children and daily chores at home. They also enjoy speaking about fellow pickers’ husbands who occasionally get drunk and the way he’d behave, to share a laugh. In the contrary they merrily and easily carry out this arduous job.

The pickers are given a task each day. This task is set by the joint efforts of local picker representative, supervisors and the managers and they are awarded a bonus if they exceed it – This bonus usually comes in terms of cash and called ELP-extra leaf price. The experienced ones always strive to earn this. The worn skins on the fingers of the pickers can speak of the tasks if they are at all fair.

Three or four times a day they take their basket to a weighing shed which is called the ‘taulai ghar’ where the leaves are looked at for quality (poorly harvested leaves are not accepted), weighed and recorded. After the weighing is over during noon the pickers congregate together for lunch. These weighing sheds also act as a crèche. The day in the field ends with the final weighing and then it is off to home.

At home again the tea picker metamorphoses to a home maker. They clean and cook for the family and prepare for another day. This is the journey of a picker’s life at a tea plantation in Darjeeling.

Life hasn’t changed for a more than a century in a plantation where the world famous Darjeeling tea is grown, except for the coming of mass media like television and radio. On holidays and evenings the tea pickers and their family enjoys the popular regional soaps and news, even if they have to folk to their neighbors. This has by large influenced the lives and inspirations of the younger people in the rural areas where these plantations lie. The educated few have already migrated for greener pastures outside the borders of the plantations.

A day might come when the cheerful pickers will decline in number because of the prevalent feudalistic management structure and the neglected policies of the government, in terms of education, land distribution, food distribution, primary health and other administrative rights which lie in the hands of the management who govern the local community with absolute impunity and is driven by top line sale and bottom line returns.

Surviving the penury, the humble picker still smiles. The pickers resiliently send their siblings to nearby towns for education. The glimpse of hope lies in the minds

of the present day picker who hold the future of our beloved Darjeeling Tea.