Tea is an universal drink and boost for almost everyone. But, does anyone know, what is required to make 1 bag of tea? It is a true story of Bangladesh in Sremongol district. Here are the intriguing and excting facts that we explored;
- The tea garden was planted during the British empire’s time
- The original habitats are from the surrounding Indian Border Area-Tripura, Asham
- The lanhuage mostly used is “Bhujpuri”
- Wild boar, snakes, pack of wolves roam in the night
- A mysterious lake with water lily never dries up and always full of fishes. Once, a landlord caught a “Rui” fish of 35 kg. Also, our bhujpuri guard told one day he caught a snake which was 30 foot long. The snake could not move as it consumed many fishes.
- In the summer, the hill abounds with “Ghokra’ snake.
On our voyage to this tea garden, we learned a lot of ordeal faced by the tea leaves pickers. They are just being tortured economically and physically. For instance: On an average 23 kg leaves are required every day to earn USD 1.5 i.e Tk 120.So they can at most earn Tk 3600 i.e. USD 30 in a month. On top of tjat they are poorest of the poorest. Plucking leaves under the high scorching sun is a daunting task and mostly the leave pickers are women. I was surprised how they are being underpaid in this modern era.
The tea garden is also famous for a hill titled “Baghmara”. The Engish of Bagh means tigers. It is a colloquial that the British and the land lords used to hunt tigers in this territory.
We were excited to hear such ancient story attached with 200+ years historic tea garden, however, apalled by the story of “bhujurians”.
Still such discrimination exists and the authorities are mum about it. Their hardship and ordeal as the beautiful landscape would mesmerize any curious traveller. Also, I would ask every tourist to contribute a little money to the inhabitats.
ATM SHIRAJUL HAQUE
Specially, I would like to express my gratitude to my colleague Zahid for his tremendous photoshoot and support.
explorelife@365 