Right View, Wrong Side
Kurseong, halfway between Siliguri and Darjeeling, is best reached through the steep Pankhabari Road. Though decreed a one-way road (open only to vehicles coming down, not going up), I flaunted my press card to get a police constable to wave my taxi through. The driveup -- the steep gradient can be imagined from this: we ascended more than 4000 feet in just about 40minutes -- is thrilling, to put it mildly. The road, broad enough to carry just our SUV and a bicycle, takes sharp, hairpin bends and snakes its way up through verdant Himalayan forests. At least two score times, descending vehicles came perilously close to our SUV; and at least a dozen times, head-on collisions were averted at the last nanosecond. I sat on the edge of the back seat, checked my seatbelt every time my vehicle approached a bend, and often wondered if it was worth taking this road instead of the staid and gentle Hill Cart Road that vehicles going up usually do. But every time I looked out of the window to take in the breathtaking view-the wide expanse of the plains far below, the paddy fields, clumps of forests and therivers -- I knew it was well worth it. I’ll definitely drive up Pankhabari Road the next time, and the next time, and the next….More so since Kamal, the driver of the SUV, told me that accidents are an extreme rarity on Pankhabari Road.
Destination Makaibari
Makaibari needs no introduction to readers of Outlook. The first tea garden in this part of the country, the first one to go organic, the garden whose leaves fetched the highest-ever price at a tea auction, the garden that has spawned a multi-faceted revolution -- from environmental protection to women’s empowerment … Outlook documented it all last year. Makaibari has, since then, received a lot of publicity and even the BBC has featured it in a documentary. The well-deserved kudos the garden has earned has been leveraged by Rajah Banerjee, Makaibari’s visionary maalik (owner, though the enlightened man insists he’s just a trustee of the garden that actually belongs to all itsworkers), to benefit the 600-odd employees. And the garden’s factory, which sits pretty on the Pankhabari Road just before it enters Kurseong, has emerged as a tourist spot. Visitors to the hills, Indians and foreigners alike, stop by the factory, take a tour around, exchange a few words with Banerjee (he never tires of meeting visitors, who inevitably get floored by his ready wit and charm), buy some tea from the small retail outlet beside the factory’s gates before resuming their journey to the plains, and to the daily grind.
Picture-Perfect
The tourist lodge at Kurseong is unlike any other government property in West Bengal, and perhaps in most other parts of India. The wood-panelled rooms offer a panoramic view of the hills and the valley below. The staff are courteous, the food’s good, rooms are comfortable and rates are reasonable. But even if one isn’t planning to stay, a quick beer at the cozy bar could offer a memorable experience. The large glass windows open to let in a cool breeze, and, if one’s lucky, the drifting clouds. Everything at thebar -- from the floors to the walls, the ceilings, the furniture and thefixtures -- is of wood. Varnished to perfection. No wonder, then, that the bar is almost always crowded. Even for the locals, a stopover here at least once during the day is an honoured, and never-to-be-violated, ritual.
First Class, Solo
For city-dwellers like me, rail stations are synonymous with litter, filth, urchins, beggars, crowds and chaos. So, a visit to the Kurseong railway station was an eye-opener. A low platform (you don’t need any to get on the toy train, anyway) runs the length of the station that houses a museum (full of British-era ticket machines, signal lamps and many other objects as well as rare photographs), the usual offices of the railway staff and a cheerful outlet of Glenary’s (a confectionery chain of the hills) that serves heavenly pastries and the best Darjeeling tea. Passengers and visitors loll around in careless disregard of the hours passing by. As do thetrains -- they’re never on time. But the rail station is definitely worth a visit. I braved a dawn shower to be there for a ride on the 6 am train to Darjeeling. Foolish me! The rail staff sauntered in at 6.30 am, the steam engine chugged in 15 minutes later to get attached to three coaches and the toy train finally started moving past 7 am. I asked for a first class ticket; the bewildered clerk ran out to the platform to consult a large fare chart fixed there and returned to issue a receipt for Rs 98 (the fare) since first class tickets are no longer printed! I was the sole soul on that coach during the entire length of the journey to Ghoom, the highest railway station in India at an elevation of 7407 feet.
Taken For A Ride
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The much-hyped ‘toy train’ or the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway (DHR) -- a ‘world heritage’ site, as proclaimed by theUNESCO -- may look charming from the outside, but a ride on it isn’t. The coaches, including the first class one I traveled on, are filthy. The small loo reeked of a horde of drunken men’s piss, the glass windows hadn’t been cleaned for ages, the upholstery of the seats would put a public urinal’s doormat to shame and the floor was a huge puddle. Small pieces of coal (used in the furnace of the steam engine) were all over and at the end of a ride, would cover passengers as well. As I saw it, the DHR needs to be stripped of its status unless the Northeast Frontier Railway (which runs the DHR) pulls its socks and gets its act together. The toy train literally takes people for aride -- after having read so much about it, the journey on it was a huge letdown.
Eye Sore
The Northeast Frontier Railway (NFR) also stands accused of defiling Kurseong, or at least one small part of it. Nestled in the gentle slope of a hill is a Raj-era, two-storied chalet that, till some senior officer in the railway decided to put to go wild with colours, was a pleasant structure. Today, it stands out like a sore thumb, its walls painted brown and canaryyellow. The interiors are ghastlier and offer a lesson on how to convert a beautiful house into an extremely ugly one. Gaudy fittings, gaudier furniture, upholstery and draperies, once-varnished wood panels covered with enamel paint, ugly linen…all these go to make the NFR Officers’ Rest House a truly hideous sight. Alicia House, the former residence of the DHR General Manager that’s further up the same hills, has just been restored and refurbished by the NFR. The restoration work is good and the two-storied structure looks good. But in its questionable wisdom, the NFR has decided to house the DHR office there. Alas…Alicia House will go the way of all other government offices: paan stains, piles of dusty files, cobwebs, ugly furniture et al. The NFR should have housed its babus in some barracks and converted the renovated Alicia House into a heritage hotel. It could have earned a lot of money and saved the heritage structure from certain ruin then.
Paradise On Dow Hill
The Dow Hill, which overlooks Kurseong, is just the ideal getaway for a harried city soul. Pity there’s only one place to stay in this lovely locale covered with pine trees. The forest department, which has a training school there, also has a bungalow to house visiting officers. This can be rented out to tourists, provided there aren’t any officers visiting at that time. There weren’t when I reachedthere … the monsoons aren’t, conventionally speaking, a good time to visit the hills. The rest house is a log cabin with two large suites, a living room and a dining hall. The caretaker, Deepak daju (elder brother in Nepali), is a gem of a person who cooks perhaps the best chicken curry in this part of the world. With a large, manicured lawn bordered by begonias and other flowers resting again tall pines, this place is paradise. Take a few books, some music CDs and a few crates of beer…and you’ll be in seventh heaven. And to top it,it's ridiculously cheap: for my two-day stay, I paid Rs 240 as room rent and another Rs 300 for the mounds of food that I gorgedon. At times, the good things in life aren’t expensive at all.
Once Upon A Time…
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Not in the too distant past, Kurseong was famous for its excellent boarding schools, through whose portals many illustrious peoplewent out to conquer the world. The well-heeled and cultured families from the plains used to send their children to the boarding schools here. Goethals, Victoria, St Helen’s etc were the top names in educational institutions in eastern India. But over the past 15 years, there’s been a steady decline in standards. Many new schools have mushroomed; they have strange names that sound like convent or missionary schools, but are just money-spinning ventures. And mostly, they cater to the nouveau riche from the plains who feel sending their kids to these dubious boarding schools would ensure a faster climb up the social ladder.Lots of Bangladeshis also send their children to Kurseong’s schools nowadays.
Wily Brits
For a place that was founded by the Brits and is steeped in Raj history, Kurseong has surprisingly fewchurches -- just two of them, in fact. That, I’m told, is because the British planters in the Darjeeling hills discouraged the clergy from proselytizing the tea garden workers. Why? Because Christian tea garden workers would be easily controlled by (and would owe allegiance to) the clergy, and not by the sahibs of the tea gardens who used to rule over the workers with an iron hand. Makes sense, doesn’t it? And imagine the gora sahibs, owners of these gardens and masters of the army of labourers, sharing the pews with the natives! No wonder….
A Last Bite
Milon Restaurant, in the town’s main market (it’s a one street town, anyway), can lay claim to serving the best pork dishes in eastern India. The place isn’t much to write about, but the chef has a magic touch. I concluded my stay in Kurseong with a hearty meal of steamed rice, fried pork, roasted pork, pork curry and minced pork. And on the way down (through Pankhabari road, what else?), stopped by at Makaibari to pick up a few packets of the prime second flush tea…left a big hole in my pocket, but I brought away a rich slice of Kurseong with me.
