`Tagore rock' fuels hill tourist rush hope

VIVEK CHHETRI , TT, 16 Nov 2019,Darjeeling: The Bard was watching from high up the mountains and few had noticed until recently.

A rock formation resembling the face of Rabindranath Tagore has been found recently in Sitong, about 45km from Darjeeling in a discovery that has the potential to change the local economy.

The rock at Ahal Dara -- a vantage point in Sitong -- "resembles" Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore so much that owners of homestays are describing the formation as "Rabindra peak" to tourists.

Bikram Rai, owner of Bisesh, one of the first homestays to come up in the area, said: "Sometime back, a tourist from Calcutta, who had taken a photograph from a particular location, showed us the rock formation. It, indeed, resembles a face of an old man".

"We now tell the tourists there is a Rabindra Peak here and we take them there," said Rai.

The Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA) now wants to cash in on the discovery.

Suraj Sharma, assistant director of tourism of the GTA, said: "We have recently come to know about this formation. So far, only tourists visiting Sitong were going to see the rock formation but we now want to bring tourists to Sitong to see the rock formation so that the benefits percolate to the villagersThe GTA has started preparing a report to set up a selfie zone from the place where the formation can be seen as a human face. "We will call it the Rabindra park," Sharma said. The area belongs to the directorate of cinchona and other medicinal plants plantations.

Call it coincidence but the rock is a mere half-hour drive from Mungpoo, a place Tagore frequented in the hills.

(Top) The site in Sitong; (left) the rock that resembles the face of Rabindranath Tagore. Picture courtesy: Bikram Rai and Barun Rana Tagore had first come to Mungpoo on the invitation of Maytree Devi, wife of M.M. Sen -- the then quinologist of the cinchona plantation -- in 1938. Tagore again visited Mungpoo from May 14 to June 27 in 1939, and returned the same autumn. In 1940, Tagore came for the fourth time and celebrated his birthday at Mungpoo. The state has already started constructing a guesthouse in Mungpoo and, with this discovery, a Tagore circuit could soon be in the offing. Jeetu Giri, director of Enchanting Himalayas Adventure, said nearly 70 homestays had come up in Sitong in the past three to five years.