A Border Free Life, photo essay by Dipanwita Saha
For all of us border means partition which lies between two countries or states. But what i had seen, I did not feel that bookish meaning of border. India and Nepal are two adjacent countries as our government maintains a friendship with Nepal. So for us the Indians we don’t need any passport for travelling to Nepal.
Just we need to provide the Voter Id card no. There is always A fragrance of friendship flows between the citizens of both the countries.
When i went to Sandakphu for trekking. We started our journey from Manebhanjan. Manebhanjan is a small town, in the Darjeeling district of West Bengal, India and it lies between India and Nepal.
After reaching at Manebhanjan the very first experience was that all our mobile networks turned to NCEll, a Nepali mobile service provider.
The two countries are separated by just a small culvert, which was really a very interesting experience for me. I have an interest to know about different cultures.
The very first person i met during my travel was a very pretty girl, named Meghma and with her friends. She reads in class 10.
I am really thankful to my little friend Meghma. She is a Nepali but her school is in Darjeeling. She came to her house for Christmas holidays. Meghma took me and showed her society which had maximum of 20 to 25 houses.
Our hotel owner, named Jibon Chetry, famous in his locality as ‘Masterji’. Masterji was very polite and decent in nature.
He is a teacher at the Government school of Manebhanjan. 30% students of him is Nepali And another interesting thing is that Every evening he goes for his Adda (Chitchat) with his friend’s house which is located at India but the sewerage system was at Nepal. We all went there with Masterji for our evening snacks. We all ordered thuppa, but for masterji a special local drink came. I asked masterji “what is the name of this drink?”. He laughed and replied “Same to Rum”.
The whole route of sandakphu is via Manebhanjan. Sometimes you have to cross Nepal, sometimes India. But one will never feel that he/she is crossing the geographic lines.
Though there does not have so much facility but still they live very happily with each other. They all are very pure by heart as beauty of nature. And I can bet you that they will easily make you as one of their own just like a family member and u will forget that you are a tourist.
I really wish, one day all partitions of the world will be vanished and people will live like one huge neighbourhood where they don’t have to maintain any geographical barrier or fall prey to any riot or terrorist attack.
(by Dipanwita Saha)
