The Telis are a very enterprising caste, and the great bulk of them
have abandoned their traditional occupation and taken to others which
are more profitable and respectable. In their trade, like that of
the Kalar, cash payment by barter must have been substituted for
customary annual contributions at an early period, and hence they
learnt to keep accounts when their customers were ignorant of this
accomplishment. The knowledge has stood them in good stead. Many of
them have become moneylenders in a small way, and by this means have
acquired villages. In the Raipur and Bilaspur Districts they own more
than 200 villages and 700 in the Central Provinces as a whole. They are
also shopkeepers and petty traders, travelling about with pack-bullocks
like the Banjaras. Mr. A. K. Smith notes that formerly the Teli hired
Banjaras to carry his goods through the jungle, as he would have
been killed by them if he had ventured to do so himself. But now he
travels with his own bullocks. Even in Mughal times Mr. Smith states
Telis occasionally rose to important positions; Kawaji Teli was sutler
to the Imperial army, and obtained from the Emperor Jahangir a grant
of Ashti in Wardha and an order that no one should plant betel-vine
gardens in Ashti without his permission. This rule is still observed
and any one wishing to have a betel-vine garden makes a present to
the patel. Krishna Kanta Nandi or Kanta Babu, the Banyan of Warren
Hastings, was a Teli by caste and did much to raise their position
among the Hindus. [675]