Letter from Kurseong ( West Bengal) 1981

School children with me in Kurseong
 

After a few days of sleep to catch up from the sleepless nights from the journey to the South, I headed off to the West Bengal and this time to the district of Darjeeling. I boarded the train from Delhi to New Jalpuriguri and then to a little town of Kurseong. An affluent Rajasthan family in Kurseong agreed to provide me some voluntary work in their local private school.

The Rajasthan family with four grown up sons and no daughters, welcomed me with open arms and their hospitality was just what I had expected from the great and the mighty of India. For a change, I had my own bedroom and for another change, they had their own pundit ( Hindu preacher) coming everyday, twice a day to say prayers for the family wellbeing. As morning prayer was recited in the room next to my bedroom, it use to wake me up every morning at five, I use to wonder if the pundit knew what he was reciting? I had no clue and yet I had to listen to it before it was time for me to get out of bed!!! I learnt from my host that there are 38000 god and goddess in Hindu religion and each one represented human emotions, I certainly had no idea that human carried 38000 emotions? The  family of six lived in an old and beautiful mansion, which was once occupied by a British family. As an orthodox Hindu family, they continued to practice their traditional way of life which included sitting on the floor to eat their daily food. Though I was provided with a table, chair and knife and fork, I continued to sit on the floor with the family and eat with my fingers and came to no harm!!

I arrived in Kurseong, during the monsoon and the rain never really left me throughout my stay from June to August. After a week of stay in the beautiful mansion, I moved to the boarding school where I had to share a room, my food and company of lots of children with the rest of the staff. It was a change for me to be in a work mood and the children certainly found me amusing with my English accent. Whilst at school, I woke up at five in the morning and went for my daily walk in the morning mist, down the green paddy fields and returned in time to have my daily warm shower, bucket job again, where the hot water had been brewing up for me, on the open fire. I managed to stay in the cramped space with lots of people around me for six weeks or so. During my stay, I could not avoid listening to all the problems the women had to face whilst living in such an idyllic place on this planet. The stories were mostly about domestic violence, leaving home for a better life as a prostitute, and leaving husband for a single life and there I was looking for my very own man in my life?

My short stay in Darjeeling and then to another hill station in Kalimpong and finally to the Kingdom of Sikkim, in Gangtok were all very adventurous and I lived my dreams travelling to these remote places. The next three post cards gives a short glimpse of my stay in the places mentioned above.