Romancing the Himalayas and experiencing the Tea Estate stay

 

Traveling was always in the blood of our small family. 

Whenever there is time we flee to the mountains or jungles, two very favored destination well maneuvered till date.  Staying in well maintained budget hotels or home stays was always an average experience to a budgeted family but this time wife suggested to get an experience onto a stay in a tea estate bungalow. We both are a tea lovers preferably green teas in order to burn the extra flesh of our body and satisfy our mind and soul and drinking beautiful fresh manufactured first flush teas especially during the plucking of the season in early April fresh from the garden is refreshing. Accordingly she browsed through the net and figured out few lovely picturesque sketches of tea estates in north east Darjeeling district. As contemplated, I took an off from the work and get ready with the baggages.

 

We selected a retreat called Chamong tea estate

which is almost 2.5 hours away from the bagdogra airport.  We come out of the airport and there waited our driver kamal with a placard with my wife’s name typed neatly to greet us and help us with our baggage on boarding the well maintained clean Tata Sumo vehicle. Sumo as suggested by our trip advisor Mr Bikram from the retreat is the best strong vehicle to ride the steep mountains with broken roads and precisely we found his advise quite healthy.  The first impression of the tea estate staff start off with our smiling driver cum guide kamal who led us to the top of the hill with maximum guiding of the surrounding places as covered during the sojourn.  The beautiful tea gardens all perched steeply in the mountain roads and the women folks plucking teas with big basket strapped in their forehead is a view which always adorned our mind and soul. The robust tiny hamlets or bungalows or small houses perched alongside the mountain roads is interesting to eye upon. Nepalis with small eyes are busy with their usual day either in shopping or buying vegetables from the market and going up and down the mountain roads as our vehicle keep moving upwards is a moment well cherished during our steady ride.  We took the Mirik road in order to reach the tea estate.

 

Finally when we entered the estate, the greeting from the entry point and getting inside the bungalow rooms, meeting the retreat manager Bikram is a memory well nourished during our brief stay forever. The bungalow room allotted were not only have a mesmerizing mountain view from our window but also the room was cozy with ample space consisting of big double beds, a side bed with a writing table and a fantastic toilet attached inside.  The service staff of the retreat were all very hospitable and never turned our requests on food or whatsoever whenever asked for.  Culinary part was not up to the satisfactory level. The food was bit oily and the taste was not very homely. We bring this to the manager’s notice but it was not well dealt upon during our stay. The first grievance we noticed inside the retreat.  The retreat was surrounded by lush green meadows on a 350 acres land with a small Shiva temple perched inside the meadows which is 3 mins away from our room. The mountains were eye soothing and the weather was glittering during the part of April. The massage parlour or the spa designed and maintained by the well experienced keralite staff is worth mentioning. The massaging of the body by the experienced hand was so relaxing that you get transcends to a tranquil world for a brief moment.  We happened to visit the estates tea garden which is 10 mins away from the retreat. Bikram was kind enough to arrange a vehicle to visit the tea factory and watch the making of teas

which was well explained by the instructor of the factory in charge Mr Naresh. We purchased good amount of green and first flush teas accordingly.   Next day of our stay we planned to visit the mighty Darjeeling which is now well populated and polluted too. We visited the ghoom monastery

and zoo and the Himalayan mountaineering institute.

The experience was nice and the street food mainly the momo and thuppa was a great mouth refresher during our visit to the Darjeeling town. The time of travel from the retreat to the town is almost 2 hours.

 

We finally come to the end of our 2 nights stay in a tea estate bungalow which was filled with thrill and a memorable experience amidst the bounty of nature and a serenity that prevails in the surroundings. We bid farewell to the retreat manager and the rest of the staffs for giving us such a wonderful hospitality and promised to return back again besides reminding on keeping the quality of culinary details. Getting assured on the same, we finally boarded the same sumo with kamal as our nice suave smiling driver who whizzed us off the tea estate towards the bagdogra airport.

Raising in a joint family and its steep decline in changing society

 

I was born in a joint family of 80 members in south Calcutta during the early 70’s. The days were filled with fun and frolic, social mixing and respecting elders in the family and its branches of various relative elderly cousins. I grew up playing with cousin brothers and local friends and there was no restriction in socializing with friends after play or with their families unlike today’s strange behavioral pattern of parenthood in choosing friends and their families. Those days most of the houses didn’t have the privilege of having Television sets and very interesting TV serials like Tamas, Chunauti, Starwars, He Man and the Master of the Universe, Malgudi days, Tom & jerry or Donald duck cartoons were few serials which obsessed the minds of little hearts. Going to the friend’s house in the morning or evening  and watching those interesting mind blowing serials were fun followed by friend’s mom’s serving of delicacies while watching during those childhood times.

The sweet memories lingers afresh which helped in growth of mind, soul and body. The innocence and honesty of childhood and independent decision making in a child’s mind never restricts a child from their parents in choosing their friend which actually helps to form a mental strength and moral growth. During any auspicious occasions like birthdays or durga puja festivals or marriages, all family members gather to celebrate the occasion with simple cheers and accolades. These simple parties or get together misses the beauty of gathering in today’s party concept where jealousy prevails heavily of someone’s benevolent spending on any occasions. Studies was not only controlled by our respective parents but also monitored closely by our cousin elders. Asking riddles by few elder cousins or brothers to test our intelligence form an interesting sessions especially after our child’s play and each of us used to cherish the twist in riddles. The big ancestral houses with ample number of rooms with spacious toilets consisting of bathtubs are a thing of the past in today’s world.  Maintenance of those edifices has become too high in today’s perspective which has now been replaced with flat concept with concise family members. Socializing nowadays has drastically changed compare to the yesteryear ways. Money becomes an integral part of today’s life which transforms the generosity of humanness in narrow mindedness. Life has turned into more complicated and cumbersome manner. Thus the steep decline on old big houses is in queue and the sweet innocence of childhood has lost into a remote control  whose button is on our mothers hand whose fingers pointed to our child’s nose in whatever ways the child wish to spend their own innocent lives.

 

 

Erstwhile Calcutta in her septuagenarian and Octogenarian era and my experience of growing up:

 

The morning shone bright and sunny in the summer of 1971. An enlightened joint family of south Calcutta was waiting in the waiting area of our nearby locality of a renowned government hospital for the big announcement of my beautiful mother’s pregnancy news. The big clock on the lobby wall stroke 0845 am. Doctor smilingly breaks the excitement of the waiting family and asked them to visit mother and the new born baby boy. Doctor pronounced the boy as healthy, fit and fine from all angles. Grandpa, Grandma and dad and other visitors from family blessed my mother for giving a natural healthy birth and used to visit her while in hospital with home cooked food on a daily basis. As ill luck would have it, an impending doom fall upon the baby boy on the fourth day of his healthy birth in hospital. The Nurse on shift duty was given the responsibility to feed the babies lying on the series of cot side by side. The Nurse fed all the babies with one spoon instead of feeding with separate spoons. Sadly one of the babies infection contaminated my stomach and affected badly for which I have to pay a heavy price for this grave mistake committed by the Nurse on duty. I suffered for 6 long months as my stomach goes for a toss in whatever food I used to take at that time. I was not even allowed breast feed as milk becomes difficult for me to digest. Later I learned that I used to soil my clothes 65 times a day and my mother along with family members become skeptical about my survival as I almost turned like a lizard. It was so horrible and a difficult moment for my family indescribable. Finally my Granddad’s elder brother who was also a physician recommended Dr Khirod Mukherjee, the only child specialist in town at that time of the era. Prior to that my grandpa’s elder brother suggested a medicine before taking me to the specialist. Fortunately that medicine spelt magic and I survived the torment instantly with much relief to my mother and family members. Now I am blogging to tell the rest of my upbringing in a joint family and the Calcutta of 70’s and 80’s.

I had a memorable childhood consisting of cousin brothers sisters aunts and uncles. Friends played an integral part of my life’s growing up moments. Cricket, football, badminton, volley ball, hide & sick were the memories clusterd upon my mind body and soul. Reading books which till date is an interesting habit imbibed from my father which helped restructured the thought process and social mixing. Cinema of those era has trickle the nerves and enthuse the funny bones especially the western films starring Gregory peck, Charlton Heston, Audrey Hepburn or Alfred Hitchcock movies. The type of movies of those era has cast a evervescent impact and motivated the gesture of the dreamed heroes of those times. Musical soiree of both western, hindi and bengali numbers of any type be it movies or modern songs has always illuminated the inner soul and put the mind in a tranquility without abeyance.  We used to have gramophone and the long playing records whose mono sound has a terrific musings at that time. I witnessed the funny moments of various small time earners used to throng our residential premises be it bear charmer or snake charmer or gymnasts or monkey charmer and we pride the moments of their visit by giving 50 paise or a rupee for their show. Holi was the unforgettable moments of the season which congregates all family members along with my friends whose preparation starts a day earlier for readying up with the balloons and other color items to start the next day with our readied stock of colors.

Calcutta those days was so open and empty that one can walk the streets without much steering of crowd. I always knew Calcutta as a city of culture and thriving intellectuals.  Humbleness and soft spoken Bengalis always enthuse the day asking each other’s well being over a cup of tea and biscuits. People talk to each other of any class without judging the weight of the pocket.  Honesty and helping attitude thrives amongst the people during anytime of the day. Corruption amongst the people was minimum. Number of good souls feels the atmosphere than the bad ones. Caring and the warmth was imbedded inside the character of yesterdays Bengalis. Elders were respected and anyone caring for a smoke will always hide the smoke if confronted with the elders. That’s the respect for elders always existed. Football was the heart and soul of Bengalis of those days with the famous clubs like Mohunbagan and Eastbengal.  Eden gardens cricket match was much awaited and was always filled to the brim as Bengal was mad about games specially cricket and football.