GLIMPSES OF THE PAST — 100 years of Tezpur Station Club

by Pallab Bhattacharjee

(Published in the souvenir of the 100th AGM of Tezpur Station Club in 2009)

The famous sign inside the bar

Tezpur Station Club- the very name inspired fear, awe and respect in me when I was a child. It meant soda water which my father brought home after he became a member, tennis on Sundays and European planters who walked in and out through its portals. It had a very select membership which could only be obtained by luck or stature as my father found out on a day when a couple of European planters who, having finished with their business in his office, suggested they have a drink together at the Club. When my father asked to be excused since he was not a member, they were taken aback and asked him to accompany them at once to the Club office to fill in the membership form. Formalities were completed in quick time the result of the balloting was a foregone conclusion and he became a member in 1964.

My earliest recollection of the Club was of that evening in 1964 when I accompanied him to a Housie evening during my winter holidays. The Housie was held in the lounge and the members were dressed in their best attire. Manners and decorum were meticulously maintained by the participants and the indefatigable P. Chaliha conducted the Housie in his inimitable style. It was here that I met H.N. Agarwala’s quartet of talented children who are still my friends. I also recollect the late Major Tarun Hazarika’s stories of his experiences in Burma during the Second World War. Having been through Field Marshal Slim’s account of the Burma campaign (a book so voluminous that I had difficulty in carrying it from the school library) I was wonder struck by meeting a man who had been through the ferocious and brutal jungle fighting against a formidable foe which was the hallmark of the campaign. His account of his escape from his Japanese captors was told casually if it was an everyday affair because I knew from Slim’s account that Japanese practiced bayonet work on many of their prisoners. It was difficult to believe that such a jovial and fun loving man could play the part of a skilled jungle fighter.

On finishing school, I attended the ball on Chummery Cup night in 1969. The hall was bursting at the seams with planters and a sprinkling of local members. Dances like the foxtrot and frug were in order that night and I, a sixteen year old, squirmed with embarrassment when a beautiful middle aged English lady asked me to have a dance with her on the packed floor. Luckily I was saved from displaying my ineptitude at this activity when a handsome gentleman interrupted her request by asking her to dance with him. I later learnt that the handsome English gentleman was Gordon Simpson of Borengajuli TE who went on to become Superintendent of all the Magor gardens in Mangaldai Circle.

Chummery Cup

When my father became secretary of the Club in 1969, in was running on a shoestring budget and was practically in the red. With tremendous effort he managed to turn it around with the help and rapport he enjoyed with the staff. I remember him saying proudly to his friends in the early Seventies that it had managed to make a profit of fourteen thousand rupees in the preceding year, a princely sum in those days.

Then there are stories of the legendary barman Kolai, who could make a large variety of cocktails like Manhattan, Tom Collins and even settled quarrels at the bar among inebriated members by his impeccable tact. He died of cancer in the early Seventies. Michael Rome, the General Manager of Phulbari T.E. at that time, went to Dibrugarh Medical College to wish him well. Unsung but not forgotten is Surujram Mali, the grounds man from the period of Alex Aitken’s secretary ship, who died sometime in 1984. Alex Aitken, the first recorded Secretary of the Club, founder of Aitken Brothers and a confirmed bachelor, had given him strict instructions to look after my father in his infancy so that my grandfather could be free to look after the day to day affairs of Aitken Brothers. So attached was Surujram to my father that he used to call him by his nickname “Khoka Babu” even after he became secretary. It is said that Alex Aitken, a Scotsman to the core, live in the guest house and had his meals dressed in a kilt and to the accompaniment of bagpipers.

These are some of the memories which readily come to my ageing mind-some more in the next issue perhaps.

(The writer is a partner of Aitken Brothers, surveyors based at Tezpur)

The Tezpur Introvert

Small town woman from Assam with too many ‘Whys’. Loos, social entrepreneurship and Star Wars can lead to unending conversations.

Mayuri Bhattacharjee

Written by

Made in Assam | Passionate about toilets, gender equality & entrepreneurship in post-conflict/conflict areas | World Economic Forum Global Shaper.

The Tezpur Introvert

Small town woman from Assam with too many ‘Whys’. Loos, social entrepreneurship and Star Wars can lead to unending conversations.

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