I was not familiar with the residential suburb that was my destination. The cab drove me along a labyrinthine route for quite a while till at last it pulled up at a tri-junction. The cabbie looked back at me enquiringly, uncertain as to which way to take. I did not have the ghost of an idea. It was a fine day and I decided to take a leisurely walk up the hill through the posh locality. I alighted, picked up the small parcel that I was carrying and paid the cabbie off.

As I trudged along the winding path, I savoured the scenic beauty of the place. The panoramic view of Hyderabad from that part of the Banjara Hills was indeed incredible. The road was clean and comparatively free from traffic. The odd vehicles that were either going up or coming down were driving almost discreetly. The pedestrians were nice and cordial, but they could not help me with the address that I was looking for.

At last I came to a cul-de-sac arrayed on either side with beautiful Scottish villas. As I took a few steps forward up the path, I saw a tall, wiry gentleman with an athletic gait coming towards me. I had a vague feeling that he must be the gentleman I had come to see. But before I could say anything, he called me by my name and clasped my outstretched hand in a firm grip. Notwithstanding his 70-something-years, his grip made my knuckles twinge.

“I am Ram”, he said in a soft tone that belied his physical attribute.

When I had called his home earlier in the morning, his wife had told me that he was out playing his regular round of golf. I was told that he should come back by lunchtime. But I was in luck. I could not have come back later to deliver the parcel, which his one-time assistant Rajesh Mishra had sent for him. I had to leave the city early next morning and I had a lot of work to catch up with before that.

He warmly greeted me and led me inside. I noticed a slight embarrassment on his face as we walked up the stairs, which were littered with paints and brushes since the house was getting a fresh coat of paint.

I sank into a comfortable sofa and looked around the well-furnished living room adorned with elegant artefacts. The volumes in several bookcases testified that the owner was not an ordinary planter.

C. Ramachandra Rao was a post-graduate in Political Science from Presidency College, Chennai, and also had a Bachelor’s degree in law from Madras University. Apart from being a retired chief executive of a coffee plantation, he is also an accomplished writer. He has written a collection of short stories in Telugu, which were published in a volume titled Velu Pillai. This book had won him wide acclaim.

But he is not just a literary person; he is also an accomplished tennis player. I learnt later that it was tennis which had brought him to tea. The year was 1956. After his MA and the degree in law, he had not made up his mind yet as to what to do next. One day, after winning a decisive victory in the All India Hardcourt Championship in Madras, a British planter, Neville Hanke, congratulated him and asked him where from had he learnt his tennis.

In those days, tennis was losing its popularity among the southern tea planters, so much so that the president of the United Planters’ Association of Southern India (UPASI) Sports Club became concerned with the dwindling number of entries for the various tennis events and hoped the management would encourage their managers and assistants to make the club livelier. The club members met once a year at Wellington, where they would establish proper contacts and an espirit de corps, very essential in planter affairs. However, after a couple of years’ efforts, the club, which had in recent years fallen into a state of slumber, started picking up.

Hanke asked Rao if he would be interested in working for a tea estate. After some hard thinking, he decided to join. He was offered an appointment at Waterfalls tea estate, owned by the Kothari group. The patriarch of the family, Chandulal K. Kothari, was the first Indian planting member in the Madras legislature. His son, D.C. Kothari, became the first Indian president of the UPASI in 1950.

Tennis was in Rao’s blood. His elder brother, who was a successful banker in Dubai, suddenly gave it up and came back to India to start a tennis academy in Chennai. He himself was a keen tennis player and he imparted his best to his son Mahesh, who grew up to become Mahesh Bhupathi of Leander Paes-Mahesh Bhupathi fame. Rao also played a role in building up the champ in his nephew.

Rao, who had briefly gone out of the living room leaving me alone, returned with a dignified lady whom he introduced to me as his wife Valli. I had heard about her from my friend Mishra. I told her how embarrassed I was for having disturbed them at such an odd hour, but she instantly put me at ease by her gentle manners. I handed over the packet of Assam tea that Mishra had sent them and begged their leave. But they would not let me go.

We started with a polite conversation over tea and snacks. But soon the conversation drifted on to old times and tea. One topic followed another and both of us got so completely lost in our thoughts that we did not realise how much time had elapsed. He offered me a drink, and after some hesitation I settled for a Tom Collins. He had a glass of beer. The atmosphere became heavy with reminiscences and on occasion he became quite emotional.

I had heard some interesting stories about him as a planter. Once, while he was out on a visit to the garden in his jeep, a number of agitated workers gheraoed him over some silly matter for which the management was not responsible. He pleaded with them to clear his way, but the workers were in no mood to listen. So he decided to use his legal knowledge. He wrote a note in a small piece of paper and sent it with his driver to the local police outpost.

Normally police never bothered to come quickly to the rescue of the tea garden managers. But everyone was surprised when a posse of the guardians of law landed up pronto and the “gherao” was dislodged.

It appeared later that he had actually written to the local officer-in-charge stating that he had been wrongly detained and was not being allowed to go to work. These were offences under Sections 339 and 340 of the Indian Penal Code. On receipt of the letter, the cops decided that it would not be wise to ignore this incident involving a trained lawyer and hence they promptly came to his rescue.

Rao was a very successful coffee and cardamom planter as well. In the golden jubilee publication of the Planters’ Association of Tamil Nadu, titled Half way to a Century, K. Ahmedullah, former chief of CWS (Tea Estates, India) and Harrison Malayalam Plantations wrote, “The names of C. Ramachandra Rao and K.T. Mathew came to my mind for their innovative thinking”.

Ram transformed the little known Waterfalls tea estate in the remote corner of the Nilgiris into a world class producer of cardamom and coffee with the guidance and freedom given to him by N.C. Kangkani. By utilising the enormous resources of irrigation — which had surprisingly been invisible to his predecessors — he diversified into a new crop and set internationally competitive standards of efficiency and quality of the product. As we were talking, Mrs Rao had organised a sumptuous lunch prepared in a matter of minutes. Our conversation, however, continued. Rao had joined the Kotharis in 1956. After four years he left and joined Pierce Leslie and Co, which had 30,000 acres planted with tea, coffee and rubber. It was a unique experience growing three crops together in the same garden. He also worked for the Manjushree group, which the Birlas had purchased in the fifties.

He went on to relate a mysterious experience while he was working for the Prospect group owned by Matheson and Bosanquet. Prospect tea estate was regularly covered in a thick frost. At that time, a general manager called Jim Atkinson was in charge of the estate. He was very regular in his habits and would not change his routine even for a day. Rao would often observe him in the distance with his binoculars and it was the same routine — he would have his breakfast at 8 am sharp, then at 8.15 he would go to the field, at 1 pm he would have his return for his lunch and at 2 pm he would again set out for work.

Once he went on a short leave. After a few days of his having gone on leave, Rao was scanning the garden with his binoculars. Suddenly through the frost he saw the familiar figure of Atkinson in his black mackintosh coming on his motorbike. He was foxed since he knew for sure that Atkinson was at that moment enjoying his holiday. He looked at his watch. It was sharp 8 in the morning — breakfast time for Atkinson. An eerie feeling crept into his mind.

He followed Atkinson’s usual routine through his binoculars. There was absolutely no mistake. It was the same routine the next day. Curious, he finally decided to go down himself to see what the matter was. As he arrived at Atkinson’s bungalow gate at 1 pm, he saw the familiar figure coming on his motorbike. When the mobike reached the gate, he had a close look and found that it was Atkinson’s butler in his master’s clothes riding the mobike. This, the butler said, he did on Atkinson’s instruction so that the workers remained alert and regular at work during his absence from the garden.

By the time lunch was over, it was three in the afternoon. I wished we could continue with the session. But it was perhaps Rao’s siesta time. I thanked the couple profusely and finally got up to leave.

I had no transport and was going to walk down the hill and take a cab. But Rao asked his vivacious daughter Prema to take out their car. I protested, but they wouldn’t listen. Prema, who works for a financial company in Singapore, was on a sabbatical and I didn’t want to trouble her. But she almost forced me into the car and drove me back to my hotel.