A five-star treat for children of north Bengal tea gardens

Amitava Banerjee, HT, 6 Oct 2016,  DARJEELING: At a time when tea gardens in north Bengal are hogging the limelight for all the wrong reasons — closure, irregular salary, series of deaths related to malnutrition, trafficking — the puja days are about to transport 10 children from the troubled gardens to a fantastic world for a few days. A few NGOs are bringing them to Kolkata for pandal-hopping and during their stay one of the city’s premier luxury hotels, Taj Bengal, will treat them to lunch.

The chief of Peerless Group, S K Roy, has invited the children to his residence. Taj will host them for lunch on October 8. They will also be treated to biriyani from Aminia, a biriyani specialist of Kolkata.

The trip has been organised by Concern for Human Welfare (CHW), a Kolkatabased NGO with the support of Ramakrishna Mission Nivedita Educational and Cultural Centre (RKMNECC), Darjeeling. The trip was held in 2014 and 2015, but the five-star treat has been added this year.

The tea gardens of north Bengal are in trouble for a number of years. With gardens limping, children have been the worst sufferers with little food, education, medicine. This makes them vulnerable to trafficking, say NGOs.

“Puja Parikrama in Kolkata usually involves celebrities. For us, the tea garden children are the real celebrities as their parents toil round the year to spread cheer with the cuppa every morning. This event is dedicated to all the tea garden workers and their families,” said Amlan Biswas, general secretary, CHW in Darjeeling.

For the children, it is the maiden visit to the state capital, and land of glitter far removed from the despondency that the world of troubled gardens offer.

“I am so excited that I could not sleep last night. I want to visit the puja pandals. It is a dream come true for me,” said Sruti Chettri, a Class 3 student hailing from Rangneet Tea Estate.

In Kolkata the children will visit some of the landmark pujas — Ekdalia Evergreen, Tridhara Sammilani, Bhowanipore Swadin Sangha, Chetla Agrani,Suruchi Sangha, Naktala Udayan Sangha along with a visit to Belgharia Ramakrishna Mission and Belur Math.

Their stay in Kolkata has been sponsored by Uddyom, a Kolkata-based NGO.

The children are leaving Darjeeling for Kolkata on Wednesday and will return on October 10. “CHW requested us to select 10 children. It was a difficult task to select 10 from 55 who are beneficiaries of Gadadhar Abhyudaya Prakalpa (GAP, a programme in which regular education, moral education, cultural education and physical training are provided to needy children) of Ramakrishna Mission in Darjeeling. We chose the best performers who are from an economically-deprived background,” said Swami Parananda, in charge of GAP.

“I am truly lucky to be selected. I worked hard throughout the year so that my performance is good. I have seen such hotels in movies only. Now I shall be able to tell my classmates that I had lunch at a five-star hotel in Kolkata,” said Shohansil Ram, a Class 7 student hailing from Chota Rangneet Tea Estate that was closed for quite some time before it reopened recently.