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Five star treat for children of north Bengal tea gardens during Durga puja
Taj Bengal and Peerless Hotel will lay out a spread for 10 children from Darjeeling gardens.
At a time when tea gardens in north Bengal are hogging the limelight for all the wrong reasons -- closure, irregular salary, series of deaths related to malnutrition, trafficking -- the puja days are about to transport 10 children from the troubled gardens to a fantastic world for a a few days. A few NGOs are bringing them to Kolkata to for pandal hopping and during their stay two of the city’s premier hotels -- Taj Bengal and Peerless -- will treat them to lunch and dinner.
Taj will host them for lunch on October 8.
Another gastronomic landmark of the city is awaiting the children apart from the five star treat. They will also be treated to biriyani from Aminia, one of earliest biriyani specialists of Kolkata.
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The trip has been organised by Concern for Human Welfare (CHW), a Kolkata-based NGO with the support of Ramakrishna Mission Nivedita Educational and Cultural Centre (RKMNECC), Darjeeling. The trip was held in 2014 and 2015, but the five star treat has been added this year.
“Puja Parikrama in Kolkata usually involves celebrities. For us, the tea garden children are the real celebrities as their parents toil round the year to spread cheer with the cuppa every morning. This event is dedicated to all the tea garden workers and their families,” said Amlan Biswas, general secretary, CHW in Darjeeling.
For the children, it is their maiden visit to the state capital, and land of glitter far removed from the despondency that the world of the troubled gardens offer. “I am so excited that I could not sleep last night. I want to visit the puja pandals. It is a dream come true for me,” stated Sruti Chettri, a class 3 student hailing from Rangneet Tea Estate.
In Kolkata the children will visit some of the landmark pujas -- Ekdalia Evergreen, Tridhara Sammilani, Bhawanipore Swadin Sangha, Chetla Agrani,Suruchi Sangha, Naktala Udayan Sangha along with a visit to Belgharia Ramakrishna Mission and Belur Math.
Their stay in Kolkata has been sponsored by Uddyom, a Kolkata based NGO.
Read: Tea owners running ‘closed’ gardens at Rs. 35-a-day wage in Bengal
The children are leaving Darjeeling for Kolkata on Wednesday and will return on October 10.
“CHW requested us to select 10 children. It was a difficult task to select 10 from 55 children who are beneficiaries of the Gadadhar Abhyudaya Prakalpa (GAP, a programme in which regular education, moral education, cultural education and physical training are provided to needy children) of the Ramakrishna Mission in Darjeeling. We chose the best performers who are from the economically deprived background,” said Swami Parananda, who is in charge of GAP.
Read: Miraculous escape for tea garden worker in Darjeeling landslides
“I am truly lucky to be selected. I worked hard throughout the year so that my performance is good. I have seen such hotels in movies only. Now I shall be able to tell my classmates that I had lunch at a five star hotel in Kolkata,” stated Shohansil Ram, a class VIII student hailing from Chota Rangneet Tea Estate that was closed for quite some time before it reopened recently.
Other NGOs from Kolkata such as Bajoria Charitable Foundation have also pitched in.
“Taj Bengal, Kolkata was very eager to help as soon as we approached them. It could be that for the first time that children hailing from the tea gardens will be having a meal at a five star hotel,” added Biswas.
