kalimpong forever (4)
The Younghusband Trail
I confess I am a slave driver.
The only slave I drive being me.
So each day, in a bid to briefly escape the sounds of civilization and in the process shake off some calories, I trundle down a steep, bamboo thicketed slope to a little village called Bhalukhop or which means "the bear cove". But today as I walked down the mist shrouded, cobbled footpath I literally journeyed back in time into the foggy past...
I was just 6 years old then and as I ran down that steep slope, catapult in hand, I heard a familiar sound -the clanging of cattle bells and soon there appeared 20-30 mules grunting up those 45 degree slopes, laden with wool from Tibet. Along side these heaving beasts walked wiry and wild looking Tibetan shepherds accompanied by their fierce and notoriously unpredictable mastiffs.
Unbelievable though it may seem, almost half a century before Prime Minister AV Bajpai's visit to China and the much anticipated reopening of the trade route through Nathu La, this tiny mule track on which villagers from Bhalukhop still trudge up and down, was the famed Silk Route from Tibet or more correctly the historic Younghusband trail (which passed through Kalimpong, Rhenock, Jelep La, the Chumbi valley onto Lhasa). With these mule trains and the loads they carried, came prosperity to Kalimpong. Wool and musk came in and just about everything- starting from salt, medicines, tea and clothes to rice and Rolex watches went back to
Tibet.
Thus in the 1950s Kalimpong literally waltzed with luxury ;albeit too briefly. In those halcyon days, Kalimpong boasted a Chinese population of almost 3000 and even had a sort of mini-consulate, in the form of a Chinese Trade Agency, which today lies as ghostly ruins just a few hundred meters from my house in Tirpai.
The business with Tibet was almost totally dominated enterprising Marwari traders, many of whom left Kalimpong for greener pastures soon after the Tibet trade collapsed - post 1962. But some of their legacy still remains in the form of monstrous buildings and godowns constructed to store the goods they shipped in and out of Tibet. The most imposing of these structures is the massive building at 11th mile (yes, in Kalimpong we still stubbornly continue to name our landmarks in terms of “Miles from the Teesta”) which today is rather aptly, the Central
School for Tibetans.
I confess I am a slave driver.
The only slave I drive being me.
So each day, in a bid to briefly escape the sounds of civilization and in the process shake off some calories, I trundle down a steep, bamboo thicketed slope to a little village called Bhalukhop or which means "the bear cove". But today as I walked down the mist shrouded, cobbled footpath I literally journeyed back in time into the foggy past...
I was just 6 years old then and as I ran down that steep slope, catapult in hand, I heard a familiar sound -the clanging of cattle bells and soon there appeared 20-30 mules grunting up those 45 degree slopes, laden with wool from Tibet. Along side these heaving beasts walked wiry and wild looking Tibetan shepherds accompanied by their fierce and notoriously unpredictable mastiffs.
Unbelievable though it may seem, almost half a century before Prime Minister AV Bajpai's visit to China and the much anticipated reopening of the trade route through Nathu La, this tiny mule track on which villagers from Bhalukhop still trudge up and down, was the famed Silk Route from Tibet or more correctly the historic Younghusband trail (which passed through Kalimpong, Rhenock, Jelep La, the Chumbi valley onto Lhasa). With these mule trains and the loads they carried, came prosperity to Kalimpong. Wool and musk came in and just about everything- starting from salt, medicines, tea and clothes to rice and Rolex watches went back to
Tibet.
Thus in the 1950s Kalimpong literally waltzed with luxury ;albeit too briefly. In those halcyon days, Kalimpong boasted a Chinese population of almost 3000 and even had a sort of mini-consulate, in the form of a Chinese Trade Agency, which today lies as ghostly ruins just a few hundred meters from my house in Tirpai.
The business with Tibet was almost totally dominated enterprising Marwari traders, many of whom left Kalimpong for greener pastures soon after the Tibet trade collapsed - post 1962. But some of their legacy still remains in the form of monstrous buildings and godowns constructed to store the goods they shipped in and out of Tibet. The most imposing of these structures is the massive building at 11th mile (yes, in Kalimpong we still stubbornly continue to name our landmarks in terms of “Miles from the Teesta”) which today is rather aptly, the Central
School for Tibetans.
posted by praful at 2:10 PM
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