Geetanjali Krishna: A picture-perfect town?

PEOPLE LIKE THEM

Driving down from Darjeeling to Siliguri ten days ago, it seemed to us as if picturesque tea bushes covered the entire mountain, way down to the valley below.

Shreds of mist fluttered daintily between the primly perfect rounds of the tea bushes, like fine cambric handkerchiefs in the hands of Victorian beauties. Just when we got so used to the stunning scenery that we could pass by entire pine forests without clicking a single picture, we reached Mirik.

Giant cascades of ferns, green meadows amidst the pines, and a huge lake with panoramic views "" this place had them all. When we returned to our mundane Delhi home, I met Kumar, a BSF soldier who belonged to Mirik.

"It must have been a wrench to leave your home "" what made you leave a place as stunning as Mirik to come to Delhi?" I asked him. He replied, "it may have looked like paradise to you "" but it's anything but that for people who live there!"

"When I grew up, I too thought that I'd never leave the mountains, and live in my ancestral home till the end of my days," said he. But Mirik, said Kumar sadly offered little by the way of employment options and schools to tempt her sons to stay on.

The Darjeeling hills, he told me, were tea country, and tea picking, the only real career opportunity. "To tourists, tea pickers look so quaint, they make a perfect photo opportunity "" but in reality, there's little money to be made picking tea leaves!" said he.

Were the wages exploitative? I asked. "No," he replied, "though they could be higher. The problem is that in these parts, we have to pick just two leaves and a bud at a time. This is what gives Darjeeling tea its trademark aroma. But this also restricts the amount that tea pickers can pick in a day "" and that is what determines how much they're paid. In Assam, pickers pick more leaves at a time "" so they manage to earn much more than Darjeeling pickers can!"

Instead, Kumar began working as a boatman, ferrying tourists across Mirik's huge lake. "Even though the lake attracted a lot of tourists, the money was not so good "" the boat was a hired one and cost me far too much to run," said he.

Even then, he said, he stuck on for more than five years, supplementing his family's frugal diet with the large fish he caught in the lake.

"The Buddhists in the monastery above the lake had actually forbidden us to kill any of the lake's creatures "" but what could I do? I had to fill my family's stomachs!" Kumar said. He added, "not that we enjoyed eating that fish "" it was some large variety that ate reeds, and wasn't even very tasty!"

It was only when Kumar's son reached school-going age that he realised that he would have to look beyond his idyllic hometown if he wanted his son to get a proper education.

"I was lucky to get a job in BSF, and have never looked back ever since," said he. His children now study in Delhi, but his old parents still live in Mirik.

"Every now and then," said Kumar, "I shut my eyes and I can see my home above the lake "" I ache to go back and stay there forever. But I know I can't, and that sometimes makes me sad."

I thought of the countless pictures we clicked, trying to capture the beauty of that small town, and realised how little we'd actually seen of it.