Darjeeling: A Foothill Town

Evocative travelogue exploring life at the foot of the Himalayas, including tea gardens and a Buddhist shrine

This evocative travelogue transports us to the hill station of Darjeeling at the foot of the Himalayas - a favourite escape from the heat of Calcutta (Kolkata) during the British Raj. A vivid journey on the tiny Darjeeling Himalayan Railway offers views of the vertiginous tea gardens with their army of female tea pickers. Once we reach our destination we see a Buddhist shrine; the busy market with visitors from nearby Bhutan, Nepal and Tibet; and a band of police bagpipers outside a heavily-guarded Government House. The sight of two Brits being heaved up a steep slope in a rickshaw by four locals is perhaps the most telling sight.

Made for the Secrets of India series, the travelogue was later re-edited into an educational film titled A Foot-Hill Town (1937). Tejinder Jouhal