Bada madam breaks 200-year-old tradition

GUWAHATI: It's always been the 'bada sahebs' who have headed Assam's tea estates, but now there's a 'bada madam' managing an estate here, nearly two centuries since the British set up tea estates in the region in the 1830s .

Manju Baruah is the manager of Apeejay Tea's Hilika Tea Estate in upper Assam's Dibrugarh district. Baruah, 43, who started as a welfare officer, says, "I am often addressed as 'bada madam'. It is the alternative to 'bada saheb', the way the boss in a tea garden is traditionally addressed. Sometimes, the workers call me 'Sir'. I rather enjoy it. "

Baruah rides a motorbike across the 633-hectare tea estate to carry out her duties every day. "A woman manager is certainly a disruption of the traditional management structure in a tea garden, but it's a disruption of a good kind," she said.

Work on a tea estate is mostly outdoors and requires physical strength, she said. "There are more women workers than men here. The tea industry is labour intensive, so I think the challenge is the same for both men and women," she said.

An official of Tea Board of India said there have been women senior assistant ma-nagers and welfare officers but no woman was appointed manager until Baruah was promoted in August.