From My Notebooks In 1976: Coffee in Chikmagalur

18th January 2025 |

[It’s November 1976 and I’m working my way slowly up the west coast of India. In Bangalore, Gopinath invited me to accompany him on a visit to a friend of his with a coffee plantation in Chikmagalur, which was also Indira Ghandi’s constituency. I only got to know the friend as Cyril.]

He’s a passionate man, and a very striking figure as he appeared on his verandah the night we arrived. He was wearing a silk robe over a long sarong and the effect exaggerated his height. He is very dark-skinned, with a coal dust blackness and his eyes are often bloodshot or rather misted with red. At first his natural authority masked his simplicity.

[We talked a lot about politics and Indira Ghandi’s Emergency.]

A discussion, with Cyril. Again, vehement opposition to E. More power has increased corruption at high levels. Confused examples of inefficiency of new credit policies for poor.

Cyril says money is borrowed for wrong reasons. Not bullocks but weddings. Only local moneylenders can assess risks and hope to recover. But I think he gets his interest rates wrong. Wife corrects him. Moneylender rates are 22% per month – not per year. He says government requires 50% of negotiated salary increases to be paid into Government accounts at 4%. After three years they release a fifth, + interest accruing to state on borrowed capital, lent out at 16% = 39% State makes 19% profit and keeps capital.

[Well, that’s what I wrote. Maybe you can make sense of it, because I can’t.]

Another discussion with Cyril, again about opposition to Emergency. More power has increased corruption at high levels. Confused examples of inefficiency of new credit policies for poor. Says money is borrowed for wrong reasons – not bullocks but weddings. Only local moneylender can assess risks and hope to recover. But I think he gets his interest rates wrong. Wife corrects him. Moneylender rates are 22% per month – not per year.

He says Government requires 50% of negotiated salary income to be paid into Government accounts – at 4%. After three years they release a fifth. Interest accruing to State at 16% = 39%. State makes 19% profit and keeps capital.

[I confess I don’t understand any of this now. I’m not sure I understood it then either.]

Both Cyril and CR make the point that Indira could have done all she is doing in the last eight years without Emergency. Say she’s getting black on her closest associates. I reply that she may have wanted to but was opposed by those same associates. Now she either controls them or goes. They say evidence is that she has clearly fallen to the temptations of power. That her head is turned, that she has no ‘head’ – “Indira, the mother of all springs,” and “Indira, the fountainhead of India.” And then there’s her son!

But again I say, what’s the alternative?

Cyril falls back on his own position. “I’ll do what I can in my own domain to improve things. I borrowed money to buy this place, but I borrowed more to build new lines [In India “lines” meant rows of dwellings for workers] to electrify. There’s a crèche, soon I hope to start an adult night school. One day I want a hospital here. And let the politicians go to hell.

A fuzzy Gopi on Cyril’s coffee estate in Chikmagalur

A fuzzy Gopi on Cyril’s coffee estate in Chikmagalur

Not stupid – he picks up more than Gopi in political areas – but is impatient of complications. A man who has worked hard and prospered and can’t see why the same easy formula shouldn’t work all round. He has born his crosses also (psoriasis is one) and those regrets ………………. he can’t reconcile, he dissolves in drink. Not every night, perhaps, but quite often. Perhaps very often. Joyce drinks with him. Would she contradict him? No. Would he be ashamed to tell a lie in front of her, say, about giving up drink regularly for Lent? Yes, I think he would (though many Indians would not). But if it were a case of giving it up except for these occasions, however rare or frequent when obligation required him to join his guests, etc.?

Both mother and daughter stayed up with is until 2.30am. Both were certainly bored stiff. Whether they knew it or not. In support or in protest?

How many Indians call somebody else “Master.” Why is that better than an African calling somebody “Baas?”

Gopi is a terrible snoring machine. However bad I may be, he is surely in a different class. The one reason I’m glad to leave. It’s hard to keep respect for someone who keeps you awake at night, unless you can tell him. I’m afraid to tell Gopi – he seems vulnerable – but the secret diminishes us. However every once in a while, he overwhelms me with some lucid outburst about some foolish aspect of life and quite captures me. It’s so rare to hear a witty phrase – but so few speak English well enough.

Green (or grey) pigeon shooting. Off into the coffee bushes. Swarms of children following. Birds sit on highest branches but choose trees with light foliage, so their silhouettes are easily seen. Lovely plumage. Sad slaughter. Delicious pickings. Saw bee hives on tree. Great black objects hanging from branches.

The manager thought I didn’t know what honey was – he called it tree ghee, and sent me a bottle marked:

‘HONEY – sweet fluid gathered by bees from flowers’

Think he must have access to a dictionary.

At a spice market

At a spice market

Chikmagalur name of district – town. Kadur Club is old British presence. Remained exclusively white until 1967, when I believe Donald Graham [presumably the president] took down the Royal portraits against Cyril’s protests.

The story of the maintenance of the road. Should be joint. But others have Jeeps and don’t care. So Cyril does it all. Once when Cyril was away a tree fell across the road and had to be sawn up and moved.

The fellow down the road asked Joyce for ten men. She said they were all at work, although if he went to the lines and offered some money he might find some who would accept.

A nice example of a dilemma. Cyril takes this stuff in his stride. Joyce is the stickler. Which is right? To get people to do things they find uncongenial, or let people get away with it, and rely on their natural good will to make it up some other way. Neither system works well unaided. Indeed it’s the human interaction that succeeds, not the method.

Tuesday 2nd

Back to Bangalore. Tilluk came round to house. We went to club while Gopi did his business. Met two Indians who make wine. Tasted it – like Sanatogen. In fact that’s what it is. Acid grape corrected with sugar. They say it’s just (a matter of) fermentation temperature. I doubt it. “India is a great garden. You can grow anything here.”

Later to Peacock Restaurant. Air-con. Disco nights. White Russian woman with ophthalmic goitre. One twenty-six-year-long swan song. Ravaged face. Tilluk’s cool goodbye. Indians are so affected by parting that they can’t control – so they have to anaesthetize.

Wednesday 3rd

The last surprise. A whip-round [organised by Gopi] collected 350 rupees, stuffed in a window envelope, with the 100 rupee note showing through. Also, I see the round robin letter, which suggests similar treatment elsewhere. Very embarrassing. But lovely of them. Bless the B.M.F.C.

[The Bangalore Malayalee Family Club still exists today. Bear in mind that I could easily survive on 10-15 rupees a day.]