One tea collector immediately rises from her chair. She is older than many, maybe fifty, and is dressed, like all the women, in the colorful, patterned sari she wears to work the tea plots. Aritra jumps up to bring her the mic, but she doesn’t need it. Her anger is an amplifier. The mustache showroom shifts in its seats. Aritra resumes translating. “You tell us to change crops,” the woman says, referring to the small gardens kept by the workers. “From corn or rice to something like ginger or chilis, which elephants don’t like. But we grow corn and rice to feed ourselves. Also, once the tractor
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