The Travel that Changed us - Happy Valley Tea Estate , Darjeeling

After a week of celebrating Christmas in the magnificent views of the snow-capped Kanchenjunga, lovely tea gardens, green landscapes, friendly people and a modern yet colonial charm, that is Darjeeling, we yearned to spend the first day of the new year in some quietude.

Watching the sunrise amidst the sprawling tea gardens of the Happy Valley Tea Estate and spending the day hanging out with local tea pickers , plucking around the famous Darjeeling tea leaves and rolling them out to dry as directed was the agenda of the day.

The whistles of toy trains passing through hills below was an added bonus.

Generally middle aged women , and if I may ,some slightly more experienced ones are pretty much running the entire show here and of course this fact was a morale booster to my wife who got us both invited to lunch at her place.

Hajur’Ama , they called her, which in Nepalese loosely translates to Grandmother and it suited her too as she was probably the oldest and most experienced Tea picker amongst all other women around that day. Also , maybe because she fed us Churpees , Sael Rotis and Thukpas in a way only grandmothers can.

We thanked her for feeding us and she happily blessed us on our way.

“65 years of picking Tea leaves, each day at the same estate, on the same hill with the same enthusiasm, yet , Happy beyond measure , Content beyond imagination”.

Makes you wonder , in this digital age of constant upgrades , What does it mean to be Content? Is it your next phone? next job? next car? next house? How do you measure it?

Thankfully to Hajur’Ama , we now know that ,

Being Content isn’t a Feeling , It’s a State of Mind…

LIFE IS LIKE A CUP OF TEA, ITS ALL IN HOW YOU MAKE IT