A Different Blend Altogether

LIKE most corporate mottoes go, this one is as trite as the one on the next hoarding: "Making a difference differently." And Anuradha, Archana, Babini, Deepika and Kaveri seem to realise its profound import. Breaking ground and storming bastions is all very fine but they know that when churn comes to grind, tea leaves do not differentiate from man to man, and woman. Just like the wild elephants, leeches, treacherous slopes, frost and weeds. Or an average annual rainfall of 500 cm, sub-zero temperatures, and hundreds of hectares of plantations, not to mention 100 cc bikes. And loneliness. So what if they are perhaps the first women plantation managers in the world. They need to play the game by the same rules as the guy in the colonial ‘Men Only’ bar at the High Range Club.

And one of the guys in the bar makes no bones about what it is all about. "It’s a tough job, man. It’s corporate farming, and now we have women doing the job." Indeed, when the five, 20-something girls strap their jackets and kickstart their bikes, it is as if they are off to just another job. Being assistant manager on tea plantations in Munnar, in Kerala’s Idukki district, is anything but just another job, however much the girls try to impress that it is. There are jobs and there are tough jobs. And recruited by Tata Tea to work on its estates a year- and - a - half   ago—" to dismantle the last bastion of male chauvinism"— the ladies from diff e rent corners of the country are reinforcing familiar urban statements of ‘equal opportunity reflecting equal capability’ in tough jobs in rural Munnar.

"It’s the life (on a plantation)," says Kaveri Kuttappa, 25, a bio-chemistry graduate from St Joseph’s College, Bangalore, that brought her to Munnar. But Deepika Medappa, 21, a Mount Carmel College, Bangalore, Mathematics graduate, wasn’t sure

what she wanted to do in life till she saw that Tata Tea advertisement for lady assistant managers in the papers. And Babini Uthappa, 23, who was pursuing a company secretary’s course after her B Com. in Udupi, Karnataka, wanted a job that would give her "peace of mind". With their roots in the coffee-planters’ district of Kodagu— formerly Coorg— in Karnataka, the three Kodavathis had a fair inkling of what they were getting into. Unlike the two 24-year-olds, Anuradha Maheshwari, a Delhi School of Economics product, and Archana Khatri, a graduate from Roorkee, Uttar Pradesh, who "didn’t even know what a plantation looked like". Yet they applied, along with 2,000 others, for that simple universal reason: the need for a job.

AND perhaps, getting in was the easier part considering it was a corporate blue chip like Tata Tea that had decided to end yet another male monopoly. The selection process: a written test, a group discussion, an interview and three days on a plantation with a manager’s family to get first-hand experience of what the job— and the accompanying life— was all about. Apart from the criteria that they were interested in outdoor activities such as sports or N C C. "If women can work as I A S or I P S officers and Air Force  pilots, we were fairly sure they could work as plantation managers," reflects M.H. Ashraff, executive director of Tata Tea, who endorsed the idea of Managing Director R.K. Krishnakumar to recruit the girls. "And there was absolutely no resistance to the idea though we were worried how the men on the plantations would react to the prospect of having women managers amid them. "

The apprehension was indeed justified considering the size of Tata Tea’s operations in Munnar. The largest integrated tea company in the world, Tata Tea has about 9,550 hectares of plantations under tea cultivation in Munnar besides about 7,000 hectares of man-made forests or ‘energy plantations’, raised for providing fuel to the estates and factories. The entire area is spread across 24 estates and the administration of each estate is the responsibility of an estate manager and one or two assistant managers. The estates are further divided into divisions of about 100 hectares each, with assistant managers holding charge of one or two divisions each. Assisting them are field officers and supervisors— all men— who oversee the hundreds of tea pluckers, about 70 per cent of whom are women.

While the last section of the workforce was indeed a major factor in the decision to break gender barriers on the estates, the ability and access to interact with the tea pluckers had to beacquired by the girls through an arduous training process spread over a year. Officially on probation for a year, the girls were paired and placed on estates to learn on the job under the manager and the senior assistants. Their curriculum: know the field, its agricultural practices like plucking leaves, pruning bushes, manuring, pest and weed control, besides crucial labour management. Also thrown in are Tamil lessons since the labourers are all Tamilians from across the border; and motorbike riding, the official mode of transport for assistant managers through the narrow and winding estate paths.

"Initially, the men didn’t expect us to stick on for more than a week. Then it was a year. And now that we’ve lasted more than a year, they’ve given us five years," says Archana, who after completing her probation with Kaveri on Chokanad estate is in charge of two of the four divisions there with about 450 employees to manage. A responsibility entrusted after the one-year-old assistant managers succeed in a field-work exam. Another exam tests their proficiency in Tamil 15 months after starting Tamil lessons, while office and factory work exams are conducted on completion of three years in the job. The real test for the girls, however, was to prove to the men, and themselves, that they could not only last the job but also do as well as the men if not better. More so after completion of probation when the pairs were separated and the single girls were placed on estates away from Munnar town.

DURING their probation, we were careful to place them on estates closer to town and also allow them to share their accommodation with another girl," notes Ashraff. "But now they have been posted out and they are coping very well with the very, very tough job of plantation management." There is hardly any exaggeration in Ashraff’s description of the job, considering he has himself spent 25 years of his career on plantations. Rising at 5.30 am, be it winter or monsoon, the assistant managers are in their divisions by 7 am during normal plucking seasons when plucking begins at 8 in the morning and goes on till 5.30 pm. (During the high plucking season work begins at 6 am.)

"Physically, it is a very exacting job," says Anuradha who tore a ligament and a vein and was in a cast for 20 days after a fall during her first days on her Yamaha.

"We need to be really fit to get on with the job." Bike mishaps, which all the girls have experienced more than once— and yet zoom around the hill roads— are, however, incidental hazards. Just like the wild elephants that charge Deepika once in a while when she hits the road to her Arivikad estate, 18 km from Munnar town, through tusker territory. One evening recently, Deepika had to stop her Yamaha after a wild elephant blocked the road ahead. And another behind her blocked plans to turn around and scoot. What saved the 21-year-old was a slight movement to the side by the pachyderm ahead. A narrow opening was created on the road and Deepika squeezed the wheels through before the elephant could react.

It is mental toughness though that makes the difference between those who make it as plantation managers and the ones who fall by the side. And it is hardly surprising that the girls weren’t given more than a week on the job. "During my first year on the job, my estate registered 350 inches of rain, times when rain-coats and the like become useless. And then we fall off  the bikes and yet have to work," says Vishal Mankhotia, 26, senior assistant manager at Periavurrai estate, under who Deepika and Anuradha trained. "Forget girls, even guys aren’t able to survive here. Three-and-a-half years on the job and I’m still pushed to the wall."

And transcending gender barriers wasn’t even there on Mankhotia’s agenda. "It isn’t easy for men to accept orders from a woman," says Kaveri. "These men have an old boys club kind of set-up and it isn’t easy for a woman to break in. So the men have an advantage as they are able to interact better." Adds Deepika: "For quite sometime the men on the estates weren’t sure of how to talk to us. If they had any problems they would bypass us and approach the manager directly." "When I had to pull up workers on estates, the men would be taken aback and grumble that even their daughters hadn’t dared raise their voices against them," recalls Archana. "Even some of our male peers resented us as we shot into limelight for being the first women plantation managers."

But taking it all in their stride through the tea bushes is now paying off for the girls, and their employers too. The women pluckers are able to relate to the girls or, as Deepika puts it, are "thrilled" to have a woman for a boss. Says Anuradha: "The men are harder on  the employees and I can see the fear in the eyes of  the women when Vishal talks to them. But they do not hesitate to approach us and are very clear in their communication." Mankhotia, in fact, reveals that there is a perceptible difference even in the behaviour of the male employees where the girls are assistant managers. "It is not just the women who interact better with the girls. The men, to my surprise, approach the girls only when there is a serious problem that can’t be solved. In the past, the male managers would be flooded with all kinds of minor issues."

The irony of the success, however, is the fact that it comes with a price: loneliness. Relegated to their estates and colonial bungalows for most part of the day, socialising for the girls means mingling with colleagues and their families at the High Range Club. Recreation involves pursuing a sport, like Archana who learnt to play squash after coming to Munnar. Television, music and books from the club library are modes to relax. Which is perhaps why the girls are a closely knit group sharing a special camaraderie. "I go berserk when I go to shop in a city after being here," says Anuradha. "Every time my parents come here, they want me to return to Delhi as they are still unable to accept me in this profession. " Then what is it that keeps them going, one is tempted to ask. "Work," says Deepika, much too mature for her 21 years, and acting manager for 45 days as her manager is on vacation. "The work is so enjoyable, it makes us stick to our jobs despite the loneliness."

For how long though is something none of the girls is sure of even as Ashraff reveals that the company is to recruit more girls in six months. "We ’ re here for now and are enjoying it. The future would depend on circumstances," is the line that runs through. "Honestly," says Babini, "a woman can’t work all her life. We don’t know if the company will keep us after we are married, whenever that is." Ashraff knows: "We’ve thought about it. We hope they marry within Munnar, probably another assistant manager, and continue here. If not we are willing to take the risk of employing women despite the lakhs it costs to train an assistant manager." For the moment, though, marriage is the last thing on the girls’ minds. Says Archana: "Right now, we want to be here and want to prove that women can do it just as well as the men." Amen.