I’m terrible with dates. While I need to shovel loads of fish down my gullet to simply remember even my own date of birth date, the one date which is firmly etched in my memory is the 1st of January 1978.  I was a young pudian (green horn) SD (Sina Dorai = Assistant...

After two years on Panniar as an Assistant Superintendent to a PD (Periya Dorai = Estate Superintendent) Abid Khan, whom I looked up towards as a father figure, I was transferred to one of the other Malayalam Plantations properties in the High Ranges – Surianalle...

In 1975 at a young 22 almost straight out of University and a Masters in English, I found myself up on Panniar Estate in Kerala in the High Ranges as an SD (Sina Dorai = Assistant Superintendent) having been despatched there by the Malayalam Plantations Agents in...

In 1974 while still studying for my post-grads in English in the Punjab University in Chandigarh, over the Diwali holiday break I had headed off to Delhi to spend a couple of days with my elder sister.  On an evening at a party in her house I got into a long...