By the time we reached New Jalpaiguri station, almost always refered to by it's Indian Railway code (NJP), the sun was getting ready to set in a couple of hours or so. Deepak (Deepak Tamang), a local son of the mountain village had been awaiting to drive us up to the hills since morning but our train had been delayed over six hours, like many others on the route because there was a fire in an engine up ahead on the tracks somewhere. We were expecting Sunny, our usual friend and driver but this time it was Deepak because Sunny had prior engagements.
Soon we were speeding up the Rohini road and I took in a deep breath of the mountain air feeling grateful and happy that I could make it again in a space of a month to the area, Kurseong sub-dvision where I practically grew up in as did Amitda (Amit Bose) who sat in the back seat feeling perhaps the same excitement and contentment.
Amitda practically kick-started the social welfare projects we are now engaged in and best puts its aims this way: "to give back something to the people and place which cradled us from a young, impressionable age to the person we are today, no matter what we do or what we have been".
The road from Kurseong town up to Dowhill and beyond to Deorali village followed by Lower and Upper Chimney is full of the quintessential and hairy hairpin turns and is in a condition that can be best described as a perfect candidate for some adventurers' ultimate mountain bike rallying track. No wonder we saw three mountain bikers one afternoon a day or two later. Yet this essential road from further north starting at Dowhill along the ridge that extends to the borders of the Kurseong range at Lalkhuti is called the Old Military Road and was once one of the main thoroughfare that led to Ghoom and Darjeeling. Today with substantial rise of populated settlements in the forested region, there is a taxi syndicate service right up to Chimney, and one can easily hike or hire a car to other places like Tung or Bagora from there in the course of a day just as normally as one goes about their daily work.
There is not much to do in Chimney except farming and chauffeuring, and even the primary school is further down the road at Deorali or the village of Majuwa which can be reached on a road that drops down near Chimney at a sheer angle which only powerful four wheel drive cars can negotiate.
This is my second visit and I hope to install a PC that can eventually become a community resource for the young and the children. In the rear sits Amitda, and Sreedarshini, an international relations student at Calcutta University and the youngest member of our team. Our "NGO" (non-governmental organization) also has other members who could not make it this time, among them Jitendra Nagar, a chartered accountant and Munmun Sikdar Roy, an interior decorator who also knows the area somewhat because her daughter is an ex-student of Dowhill Girls School, the sister institution of my alma mater, Victoria Boys' School.
In the last visit we were happy to meet a Chimney resident's child who studies at our school. This time, later, we would also meet another young child from Chimney who studies in Dowhill Girls now. And we can't explain how it makes us so happy to meet them: perhaps it's so special because it is the kind of nostalgia that has too many happy, and not so happy memories inextricably linked to us,- perhaps it's just missing our own childhood, now irretrievably fading away while the yearning to relive it increases. Whatever it may be, we are really above all helping to bring some good cheer in the once remote, still neglected village and it's inhabitants. It's the least we can do.
A few bends later after going past the Dowhill School campus, Deepak fails to drive up a steep incline where the little evidence of asphalt on the broken road has been mostly eroded away by weather and use. Finally after two more unsuccessful tries and backing away, he asks us to get down so he can attempt to negotiate the incline with a lighter load. Although we saw some road repair activities just a few bends up the Dowhill road from Kurseong town, the road gets progressively worse as the car travels higher up beyond six and seven thousand feet above sea level. The verdant forest full of pines and thick undergrowth of ferns take over on the slopes instead of the houses. Occasionally there are a few houses, some ramshackle and some with neatly painted exteriors and with a car or a bike parked on the road before them. Traffic may have increased by 500% these days and Chimney or Bagora is no more the remote mountain villages any more, that's for sure. The forest and the views up there could make the place another Mirik, or actually better. But it is definitely higher, and therefore colder, so it never makes it on any tourist map. In a way I am thankful for that because here you can still hear the silence as it used to be decades ago, and roam the whole day in the mild winter sun, and do pretty much nothing but listen to the buzz of the crickets or watch the chicken peck at invisible grains of food and insects strutting all over the courtyard with their small ones in tow.
Life at Chimney is slow, but not without its trials and heavy work schedules. Almost all adults have a little vegetable plot to work on, or help others on their land. Agriculture is back breaking work and so is looking after the domesticated animals. The chickens must be fed, the grass or other fodder for cows have to be carried on the back from the forests all around; the plots have to be ploughed, seeds or cuttings planted, manure must be mixed and finally harvesting work takes the whole day from dawn to dusk. The last time we went there in October, we saw how every household harvested loads of turnips. For city slickers, this is the kind of work that can drive one to nuts because not only do you have to unearth the roots but give them a thorough makeover with cold tap water over and over again and pack them up in large gunny bags by evening when when one of the town's pickup owners can load them up and transport the produce for the market auction at Kurseong town or Siliguiri city in the plains. And depending on the vagaries of supply and demand, you can expect a bumper sale or not for all your toils.
Although Chimili, as Chimney village is called fondly in the local accent, may not be on the tourist map, it's not entirely devoid of tourists. On the very first afternoon the last time I spotted a whole family, a Bengali one too (the Madeshis or plains people), in their woollies, shawls and caps making their way downward to the only holiday homestay called "Himalaya". "No, no", I exclaimed with a sense almost like I had found my rights quite unceremoniously overlooked or violated. Of course, tourism could be very good for the village folk but how much good it will do to the environment, especially the lovely woods filled with the buzz of the crickets and fragrance of pine oil and grass is anybody's guess.
As we advance several self help programmes for the local inhabitants split into groups to build and manage mushroom cultivation or poultry farming centres as well as sewing and knitting workshops, we hope we will be able to create enough new opportunities that preserve the village's unique environment and way of life along with providing its inhabitants modern conveniences and unique gainful opportunities at home. I am also hopeful that we can train enough youngsters, unemployed and staring at an uncertain future in the eye, so that they can overcome the lack of resources with some generous help from our group, and other donors. The PC I installed can be valuable if I can train them to learn professional skills like graphic designing and programming, and perhaps with better connectivity, the internet may help to convert the little settlements to centres of design and development serving clients all over the world. Well, it's a big dream, and it will take many, many small steps until we get there. Meanwhile, it's time to record this in these blogs. So welcome reader, and I hope that in the future, you are also inspired just like us by the our activities and join hands with us, or even start off similar projects where your hearts are. For us, I know, we may spend only a little time up there in the mountains and doing precious little for the people out there, but it is quality time, and it's our hearts which are all there with the friendly and warm people of the little mountain villages we love so much.
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| The old chimney that gives the name to the village. |
Amitda practically kick-started the social welfare projects we are now engaged in and best puts its aims this way: "to give back something to the people and place which cradled us from a young, impressionable age to the person we are today, no matter what we do or what we have been".
The road from Kurseong town up to Dowhill and beyond to Deorali village followed by Lower and Upper Chimney is full of the quintessential and hairy hairpin turns and is in a condition that can be best described as a perfect candidate for some adventurers' ultimate mountain bike rallying track. No wonder we saw three mountain bikers one afternoon a day or two later. Yet this essential road from further north starting at Dowhill along the ridge that extends to the borders of the Kurseong range at Lalkhuti is called the Old Military Road and was once one of the main thoroughfare that led to Ghoom and Darjeeling. Today with substantial rise of populated settlements in the forested region, there is a taxi syndicate service right up to Chimney, and one can easily hike or hire a car to other places like Tung or Bagora from there in the course of a day just as normally as one goes about their daily work.
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| Reaching Kurseong from the plains takes better part of an hour via Rohini road |
There is not much to do in Chimney except farming and chauffeuring, and even the primary school is further down the road at Deorali or the village of Majuwa which can be reached on a road that drops down near Chimney at a sheer angle which only powerful four wheel drive cars can negotiate.
This is my second visit and I hope to install a PC that can eventually become a community resource for the young and the children. In the rear sits Amitda, and Sreedarshini, an international relations student at Calcutta University and the youngest member of our team. Our "NGO" (non-governmental organization) also has other members who could not make it this time, among them Jitendra Nagar, a chartered accountant and Munmun Sikdar Roy, an interior decorator who also knows the area somewhat because her daughter is an ex-student of Dowhill Girls School, the sister institution of my alma mater, Victoria Boys' School.
A few bends later after going past the Dowhill School campus, Deepak fails to drive up a steep incline where the little evidence of asphalt on the broken road has been mostly eroded away by weather and use. Finally after two more unsuccessful tries and backing away, he asks us to get down so he can attempt to negotiate the incline with a lighter load. Although we saw some road repair activities just a few bends up the Dowhill road from Kurseong town, the road gets progressively worse as the car travels higher up beyond six and seven thousand feet above sea level. The verdant forest full of pines and thick undergrowth of ferns take over on the slopes instead of the houses. Occasionally there are a few houses, some ramshackle and some with neatly painted exteriors and with a car or a bike parked on the road before them. Traffic may have increased by 500% these days and Chimney or Bagora is no more the remote mountain villages any more, that's for sure. The forest and the views up there could make the place another Mirik, or actually better. But it is definitely higher, and therefore colder, so it never makes it on any tourist map. In a way I am thankful for that because here you can still hear the silence as it used to be decades ago, and roam the whole day in the mild winter sun, and do pretty much nothing but listen to the buzz of the crickets or watch the chicken peck at invisible grains of food and insects strutting all over the courtyard with their small ones in tow.
Although Chimili, as Chimney village is called fondly in the local accent, may not be on the tourist map, it's not entirely devoid of tourists. On the very first afternoon the last time I spotted a whole family, a Bengali one too (the Madeshis or plains people), in their woollies, shawls and caps making their way downward to the only holiday homestay called "Himalaya". "No, no", I exclaimed with a sense almost like I had found my rights quite unceremoniously overlooked or violated. Of course, tourism could be very good for the village folk but how much good it will do to the environment, especially the lovely woods filled with the buzz of the crickets and fragrance of pine oil and grass is anybody's guess.
