Rambles in the Darjeeling Terai 1 : The Birth of a River

 

The Darjeeling terai is part of the larger Terai region that extends across the southern foothills of the Himalayas, encompassing parts of northern India and southern Nepal. It is the area lying between the Teesta and Mechi Rivers. It is characterized by the Himalayan foothills, scrub savannah, sal forests, and clay-rich swamps. The region is crossed by several rivers, some of which are perennial and the rest seasonal. This region with all its huge diversity of plants and animals are very accessible to anybody living in Siliguri. However, one needs to have a guide. Those who have lived all their lives in Siliguri are familiar with most of these landscapes but for us Johnny come lately’s it is useful to have someone familiar with the tea gardens and rivers and forests of the region with us.

Last year, the monsoon was delayed. In fact, there was practically no rain right from October 2022 until almost the end of June 2023, unlike this year where the rain gods have been kinder. The heat was relentless and the rivers of the Terai were all pale shadows of their usual self and, some, indeed were as dry as dust.  On the 11^th of June, Avijan Saha, who is a well- known conservation activist as well as an expert on elephants, leopards and birds of the region and I went to explore the Mahananda River in its upper reaches that were accessible to us.

The Mahananda river originates near Mahaldiram and flows through the Mahananda Wildlife Sanctuary before it passes under the Gulma rail bridge and comes down into the Siliguri area. Above this, in the sanctuary, it is not accessible without Forest Department permission, so we arrived at Gulma (see here) at around 1 PM on the 11^th June 2023.  The Mahananda flows under a Railway bridge here and then leaves the Sanctuary. The riverbed is wide here, almost 500 meters, but dry as a bone. The forests of the Mahananda sanctuary are on the opposite bank, green, verdant even in this dry weather and inviting. On our side, the left bank of the Mahananda, there is a picnic ground, occupied by sundry groups of young me, cooking over open fires and drinking cheap liquor.  Avijan recalls that in his schooldays, they used to come here for nature walks.

We park the car on the river bank. A Forest Guard comes bustling up to shoo us away, we are encroaching on Wildlife territory, apparently. I see a board, newish, on the riverbank proclaiming this as well. We retreat to the picnic ground and park there. We can see several trucks, loading huge amounts of boulders and sand from the riverbed to add to a mini mountain that has been created about 250 meters downstream from where we stand. There are several crushers here in action, noisily crushing the boulders and definitely doing nothing for the sanctity of the so-called wildlife area. We challenge the guard about it. He says that “higher” authorities have allowed it, within 250 meters of the Sanctuary, mind you.

Huge trucks on the river bed.

We walk about 750 meters downstream.  Here, we can see a puddle of water, the first water that we have seen in the dry bed. We stop to investigate. The water is coming from a tiny spring, the subsurface water is coming to the surface here, enough to create a puddle, but not to create a continuous flow as yet. About 30 meters further downstream, there are several other such springs, which are generating enough water to form a tiny stream, which unites with other streams to form a continuous flow: the first beginnings of the Mahananda river. The stream here is about 6 inches deep and perhaps 3-4 feet across. But even this amount of water has attracted greenery and several species of birds. We see two types of lapwings, plovers and mynas who now find the water deep enough to have a bath. Skittering frogs, well, skitter away as we come by.

The river is born

The birth of a river!!