Reflections

  Reaching there would have been easy, maybe a 1-2 km distance if we could walk cross country and across the river, but with the car we have to retrace our steps to the main Highway, cross over to the Western bank of the Diana and then again turn southwards. The route is picturesque as we enter the forest. There are tea gardens, myriad streams and birds galore. We can, however, also see the devastation caused by the floods that occurred here in October. Houses have collapsed; some houses have parts missing or transformed into rubble. We reach a north south road and stop at the T junction and enquire about our next destinations. Flood Devastation  Both the victims had lived in this stretch. We first drive southwards to the house of Sushila Goala at Toribari. A bright young girl, about 10 years of age, Sushila was bought up by her mother Puja, who is a cultivator. She grows jute and paddy. Her eldest son is 18 years old she also has one daughter aged 15. Sushila was her younge...

At dusk in Kalabari Tea Garden, doors now close earlier than they once did. Fires burn longer in courtyards. Mothers call children indoors before the light thins into grey. Conversations pause when dogs bark. Across narrow mud roads, beyond bamboo fences and tin-roofed labour lines, the tea bushes stand quiet and waist-high. Somewhere within that green geometry, unseen, something moves. The Dooars — from duar, meaning “doorway” — stretch across the Himalayan foothills, forming the gateway to Bhutan and India’s Northeast. From the Teesta River in the west to the Sankosh River in the east, this is a landscape of transition: floodplains giving way to sal forest, braided rivers cutting through grassland, tea estates spreading across gently undulating terrain. Protected areas such as Gorumara National Park, Jaldapara National Park and Buxa Tiger Reserve anchor the region’s conservation map. Yet between them lies a vast working landscape — tea gardens, revenue land, riverbeds and small settl...