This job is my first official and professional commitment with an organisation where I had to shoulder a great degree of responsibility and accountability for the benefit of the downtrodden and underprivileged people. I’ve been employed here since August, 2022 but over my eleventh months here, I’ve learned and experienced a lot.
Currently I am posted in Kalimpong district. Kalimpong is a very beautiful place where many tourists came to visit for vacations. We came and go thinking normal life of here must be very pleasant. After joining in Hills as Executive I realized how hard the life of hilly people are. I was required to go for a one-month village stay in a rural village named lower Tamang Goan in Gorubathan block under Kalimpong district. On the very first day of my village I was introduced with a Nepali community which was totally new community for me. Their culture, food habit, daily activity was fully different from Bengali culture.
During that time, I met Sangita di & her husband Sanjit da, two incredible persons in my life. Every day I used to go any house of this village, one day Sangita di told me to visit her relatives house in sourini basti which was 24 km away from the only main bazar Gorubathan. I got excited as I will go to a new village. Next day when I was ready to go, they told me that they went there by foot. I agreed & started my journey with them, after nearly 3 hours trekking through forest I finally reached sourini.at first, I was very tired and devasted by the journey but when I saw the village encountered with beautiful hills and forest it gives me admiration. But each house of the village was made of broken wood which is very difficult to live in during winter and monsoon.
As I was new to her house, didi from this house tried to feed me something delicious but she was not able to arrange due to unavailability of food, she made wiwi soup from one packet and gave it to us with a very huge smile on her face. All the villagers are economically dependent on agriculture but they used to grow vegetables only one time at a year. This small amount money doesn’t feed their whole household throughout the year.
There was a water source 4 km away from village, so they don’t have any irrigation facility in their village. Each day they struggled a lot to get two times food in their plate. I was very shocked to see that there are still some places exist like Sourini basti. Later that day I came to know that there was no government facility for health, education and all.
Girl child didn’t attend school during their menstrual cycle as school was 10 km away from the village and no transportation facility availed there. This was the first time I experiencing the harsh reality. I had never imagined the hardship they are facing in their livelihood. Working closely helped me understand so much about the obstacles and challenges that our farmers face. I will be very fortunate if I could do something for their upliftment.
