Tour from Tinsukia to Darzeeling 2003

Its already been too late. I had been to Pedong 9 years ago for a mountaineering trip conducted by TOURISTA, Neora Velly park. I don't know if TOURISTA exists today.

It was in the year 2003 and I still remember I was in class 9th in K.V. Dinjan.  That was the day when I first learned to be punctual. But it was of no use. We were supposed to catch a train from Tinsukia Junction to New Jalpaigudi. The train was Bhramputra mail. The train's departure time was around 11:30 PM. But we were asked by our teachers to reach school in early morning at around 7AM. I was the first one to reach school that day, because I was so exited. I had a big luggage bag with me. I was surprised when I found nobody was there. We were 9 guys those had to go for this trip. Let me see if I  remember everyone's name, Amardeep, Azad, Somnath, Prakash, Suman, Luminous, Apurba and two more I just remember their faces.

After waiting whole day at around 7 pm we reached at Tinsukia station. Then we were introduced to teacher of K.V Duliajan and 16 other student those were coming with us for this event. We 9 guys were from K.V DINJAN and other 16 students were from K.V DULIAJAN.  At around 12 midnight our train Bhramputra mail took departure. I had never traveled by train until then. 

Next day around 11 30 am when we reached Guwahati station then we realized that its a general compartment we have boarded in. We did not have our proper reservations in sleeper class at least. Our compartment got too crowded and we students had to face lots of problem. After having a journey of around 26 hours we reached to New Jalpaigudi station in night at around 2 AM.

One unexpected thing of this trip was, we were told by our teachers that we are going to go Darjeeling for this mountaineering activity but we were not going to Darjeeling. We had gone to Pedong which is around 60 to 70 KMs ahead from Darjeeling and it was towards Sikkim. 

And what all happened in all ten days of trekking camp would write in my next post...

Baganiyas

Well I was just going through my last post and as I had mentioned that I would write more about life in tea gardens.

As of now I am writing about the tea gardens of Assam. There are several unknown things to people. Specially the culture of  the people those work in tea gardens. The people those work in tea gardens in Assam are popularly know as "BAGANIYA." This word "BAGANIYA" is derived from "BAGAN" which means garden. So BGANIYA means people those are in BAGANS or in TEA GARDENS. 

Well these are very poor group of people. An epitome of exploitation done to the labor class of people especially in India. These people are not well educated so don't know about their rights. They are very hard working and innocent so they are easily getting exploited. These "BAGANIYAS" never realize up to what extent they are getting exploited. This exploitation is been happening over century now. The owners of these tea gardens are making millions out of it while exporting tea world wide. 
A labor of tea garden or "BAGANIYA" earns around Rs700 to Rs1200 per month for his family. And this happens to all tea gardens in upper Assam, especially in districts like Shivsagar, Dibrugarh, Tinsukia, Sonitpur.  If you are a tourist and traveling in this place you would definitely admire the natural beauty of these places but if you see the hard life of these BAGANIYAS you would feel pity about them. More then 90% of BAGANIYAS live Below Poverty line. 

Well now I would like to throw some light on their cultural life. Three things
1) JHOMOOR (2) BAGAAN BAZAAR (3) HADIYA

(1) They have their Folk dance called JHOMOOR. They enjoy doing JHOMOOR to the fullest. They organize JHOMOOR dance in their localities. Assamese film industry or small film studios has started making Audio and Videos of JHOMOOR and they release these CDs in Market now a days.

(2) BAGAAN BAZAAR is a weekly market. It means group of merchants settle down once in a week or once in two weeks in a particular place and they do trading (most of them are FMCG). BAGANIYAS go their and buy their stuff. BAGAAN BAZAAR   I always used to go to BAGAAN BAZAAR. The nearest BAGAAN BAZAAR used to happen two Kms ahead from my home and I used to go their to buy pork. 

(3)HADIYA:-  A kind of rice "KHUDDI" pour water in it. Add a kind of stuff thats only thing I know about it. Keep it for two days. And it becomes rice beer.  People enjoy rice beer a lot.

CHEERS !!!!!

Introduction

Hi,

I am kind of person who loves to travel, loves music too, passionate about bikes and cars. Like other boys of my age(22) I too love sports.

I am going to share my travelling experiences, would also write about events, people etc. Feel free to share your opinion.

Its a common tendency or behavior of people that they would ask you, "Where are you basically from?" 

And I often came across this question when I was in Mumbai. I used to reply I am from Assam. And as soon as they get this answer they would ask me more questions. They are curious to know about Assam. I was shocked when few of them asked me, " Assam, Assam, uh.. is it in Guwahati?" Some of them related Assam with Orrisa, then I had to explain the facts. Totally shocking when found well qualified people asked me all these.They might not be aware of the geographical location of this place or they might never been to this place. Often people did not know anything about Assam, neither the geography, nor history or anything.

However, there was one thing common which every body knew. If you are reading this post then you can also guess.

Yeah, its "Assam Tea." Well friends, the state of Assam is the worlds largest tea growing region. I here don't want to explain the factors why is it so or don't want to get into the technicalities however just want to tell you that it happens because of certain qualities in soil and appropriate weather conditions.

I grew up seeing all these beautiful tea gardens. These are so very beautiful, I can't explain in words. If you ever happen to go North East India please go to upper Assam and after seeing them you would not believe in your eyes... get lost in the breath taking beauty of Tea Gardens. But please do not expect much hospitality.

Well guys this is about a bit of introduction. I will write more about this tea gardens, the workers out here their culture. And many more amazing facts of Assam.