Experience Legacy is every visit
is a story
Nature has blessed Baradighi with its best gift. Explore the parks, museums and estates around Baradighi.
Every Visit is a Story
Baradighi
The Bungalow
130+ Years of Stories
When the British landed on India’s shores, they knew little of the vast expanse of land they would soon claim and use to produce the Chinese drink they would soon swear by. As it were, the-soon-to-be fantastic discovery of tea would give work to generations, change the landscape of forests in areas like North Bengal forever, and create a titanic industry, and give birth to heritage tea bungalows… All while leaving behind the scenic tea gardens – abodes for seekers of tranquil, and saviours from the hustle of the future metropolis.
Experience
Timeless Beauty
Where Every Corner Tells a Story of Elegance and Tradition
Embrace
Nostalgia
Hat Racks, Ancient Telephones, and More
to Explore
Baradighi
The Bungalow
507-Hectare Tea Sanctuary in Dooars' Lush Expanse
Amenities & Experiences
At Baradighi – The Bungalow, experience the little pleasures of life amidst the enrapturing nature. Get a taste of the beautiful scenery as you stroll amidst the tea gardens, or go camping by the river side under a starry blanket of nightfall.
Most of the food served at Baradighi is grown, organically in our Kitchen Garden. Plant a tree in your name, or pick your choice for a scrumptious meal.
Kitchen Garden
Timeless books are an ideal retreat for hours of tales in the middle of my best solitary moments, and a personal guide at all times, for secretes beyond words.
Guide & Library
A riverside camping arrangement can be set up, with tents for 6 people on a wooden deck or open tents or deck chairs, facing the river. Rafting may also be arranged.
Riverside Activities
Accommodating 30 people, our modern boardroom is ideal for those willing to combine business with leisure or for a homely reception party.
Banquet Hall
Experience the recluse of Dooars with the connectivity of an Urban City, enjoy all modern amenities with a heritage charm at Baradighi - The Bungalow.
Wi-Fi & Connectivity
A well-equipped sports complex within the bungalow premises that allows you a day of Table Tennis, Badminton, Carom, Chess & Archery.
Sports Facilities
National Parks & Monuments Close To Baradighi, Dooars
Where are you? Of the many wonders of fusions of nature's virgin innites and man's enveloping creations,I am proudly one of them. I reside 45 kilometres away from the enchantingly small railway station at New Jalpaiguri, the garden mingles into the surrounding landscape in the rich green of the unending tea gardens that border National Highway - 31. Nestled in the many riverbanks of the region, I boast a sprawling 507 hectares of tea plantations.
GORUMARA NATIONAL PARK
The Gorumara National Park has fifty recorded species of mammals, 194 species of bird, 22 species of reptiles, 7 species of turtles, 27 species of fish, and other macro and micro fauna. The Park is rich in large herbivores including Indian rhinoceros, gaur, Asian elephant, sloth bear, chiral, and sambhar deer. Tigers are occasionally spotted here. It also has numerous small carnivores including various civets, mongoose and small cats.
Birds at the Gorumara National Park include submontane forest birds like the scarletminivet, sunbird, Asian paradise flycatchers, spangled drongo, and Indian hornbill.The Park is also home to a large number of snakes, venomous and non-venomous, including the Indian python, one of the largest snakes in the world, and the king cobra — the world’s largest venomous snake.
CHAPRAMARI WILDLIFE SANCTUARY
The Chapramari Wildlife Sanctuary has a total coverage of 960 hectares of forest. A large variety of flora and fauna are found here. Chapramari is known for its elephant population. Gaurs are not uncommon in the region. Rhinoceros, deer, boars, and leopards are also found here. However, Royal Bengal Tigers are not found here. The place is popular with bird watchers, with parakeets, kingfishers, and green pigeons found in abundance.
JALDAPARA NATIONAL PARK
Established in 1941, the Jaldapara National Park is situated at the foothills of the Eastern Himalayas in Alipurduar District of North Bengal and on the banks of the Torsa River. The nearby Chilapata Forest is an elephant corridor between Jaldapara and Buxa Tiger Reserve. The forest is mainly savannah covered with tall elephant grasses. The main attraction of the Park is the Indian one-horned rhinoceros. The Park holds the largest rhino population in India after Kaziranga National Park in Assam. Other animals in the Park include Indian leopard, Indian elephants, sambhar deer, barking deer, spotted deer, hog deer, wild boars, and gaur.
Jaldapara is a paradise for bird watchers. It is one of the very few places in India where the Bengal florican is sighted. The other birds to be found here are the crested eagle, Pallas’s fish eagle, shikra, Finn’s weaver, Jungle fowl, peafowl (peacock),panridge, lesser-pied hornbill. Pythons, monitor lizards, kralts, cobras, geckos, and about eight species of fresh water turtles can also be seen in abundance here.
BUXA RESERVE AND FORT
The fort is located at an altitude of 867 meters(2.844 feet) in the Buxa Tiger Reserve, Alipurduar district.It is located 30 kilometers from Alipurduar, the nearest town. The Bhutan King used the fort to protect the portion of famous SilkRoute connecting Tibet with India, via Bhutan.
The Buxa Reserve ranges in altitude from 200 feet in the Gangetic Plains to 5,740 feet bordering the Himalayas in the north. At least 284 bird species inhabit the reserve. Mammals include Asian elephant, gaur, Sambar deer, clouded leopard, Indian leopard, and Bengal tiger. There are a number of trekking routes through the jungle. There is a 4 km further trek to Rovers’ Point or Romney Dara (the land of beautiful birds at 4,500 feet.
MURTI RIVER
The Murti River originates high in the mountains of the Neora Valley National Park. Starting its journey from near the Bengal – Sikkim – Bhutan border, the river runs downs the hills to enter into the Dooars region. For much of its route, the Chapramari Wildlife Sanctuary falls to the eastern side of the river and the western side sees some of the best and most picturesque tea gardens of Dooars. After crossing Dhupjora, the Murti River flows through both the Chapramari Wildlife Sanctuary and the Gorumara National Park. The riverside is one of the most picturesque and serene sights in the Dooars Valley. The river is fed by monsoons, and during the dry months, it can be easily crossed by foot.Many of the watchtowers of Gorumara and Chapramari forests are built on the banks of the MurtiRiver.
Baradighi Tea Estate,
a world in itself
Baradighi is home to a fascinatingly diverse array of people. Differing in their origins, cultures, work and lifestyles, these people unite and live in harmony under the banner of the Baradighi Tea Estate. Life at Baradighi is driven by deep-rooted religious, cultural, practical and community customs, and by the demands of the climate and status. But the overarching umbrella of purpose and unending work at the estates, and the many cultures on it, blend in the wok that Baradighi is, in its timelessness, and its youthfully energetic daily routines.
The nearest post office to us is Matelli. The heritage tea house is sandwiched between three villages, the nearest village, the Baradighi village, right across the river, and Disco Bazaar village. The first British settlers at the estate brought in workers from the neighbouring villages in the old Unified Greater Bengal, and now Jharkhand. The cheapest labour was found amongst the adivasi, or tribal clans, of southern Jharkhand, and that’s how the estate got its first guests, in the 1890s.
Years since, the descendants of the original workers have maintained their ancestral love for the land, and 90% of the few thousands of workers on estate are Adivasis, or tribals.
Lifestyle
The original Adivasis were (and those in Jharkhand remain) hunter-gatherers. Over the years, as hunting became illegal, they switched to sustaining on poultry and farm meat, and a healthy crop of farm animals sustain the current families. They are particularly distinct in their diet of wild roots and plants, their main food. From the estate and surrounding forest areas, they gather leafy vegetables including both those known to urban dwellers, and some unknown ones. Locally known as jungle saag, or wild vegetable, plants like kulekhaada are commonly found, and children right from the ages of 9 or 10 are trained in the art of collecting their food from the natural neighbourhood.
Ningro, another plant indigenous to the area, is found in increasing numbers as one drives up the slopes to the hill station at Darjeeling, and the elevation of a tea estate determines the amount of Ningro representation in the natives’ diets.
The Baradighi natives drink a heady and strong form of liquor, closest in composition to rice beer. It is made locally and stored in dekchis, or boxes and is known for its quick fermentation and mass distribution. Drinking as merriment, custom and on holidays is an indispensable part of the social life.
Particularly skilled in the art of collecting wild mushrooms, a major part of their dinner plates are mushroom dishes. A keen eye and years of conditioned observation lets the Baradighi native differentiate edible mushrooms from non-edible or poisonous ones. They also consume some mildly or semi-poisonous mushrooms, which their years of conditioning to consume it makes them partly immune to. Perhaps harmful to visitors, to natives, it results in non-fatal and at times deliberate intoxication.
Adivasis are nature-worshippers, and believe in animal sacrifice. Like all faith, their customs relate to the nuances of their immediate environment, and the prayers for rain, crop, safety and prosperity, along with popular state-wide festival celebrations, dot the calendar. In what is perhaps their most important time of the year, every monsoon-end, they pray to the karam tree.
The Karam puja (worship)
Origins of this legend remain unclear. While some claim it began while the current dwellers’ ancestors were escaping their British tormentors, landlords or slave-masters in recent centuries, others claim it dates back to the time tribals were driven out of their forest dwellings to be labourers for the Mughal Empire. But they agree on the significance of the prayers. In times when they had to escape enemies, the tribals hid, en masse, in the hollow barks of the massive karam trees, found in large numbers in the nearby forests. Once safe, they would celebrate their escape and developed reverence for the tree. It resulted in periodic prayers to the tree by the refuge-seekers. They would pass down this tradition to their descendants, and up to this day, the dwellers celebrate the tree’s presence pompously, with the tree being decorated like an idol, people dressed in finery, elaborate religious ceremonies, offerings and general merriment.
The tree is still regarded as a metaphorical protector of the natives, and is prayed to in times of crisis and as a problem-solver. The natives are majorly Christian, but mix such popular beliefs with organized religion to lend it an ingenuity of their own.
Sub-divisions
Based on their language evolution, the Adivasis are divided into two segments- the Mundas and Oraons.
Generally, the local populace speaks Sadhri, a slightly difficult tongue for even Indian guests to the estate. Further complexities to the basic language appear due to dialectic divisions. The Mundas, living right behind the heritage tea Bungalow, speak Minder, an older tongue, while the Oraons speak a more recent tongue called Inderminder.
Utilities
They provide for themselves with locally found equipment, or clever craftsmanship of local resources. They live in temporary or permanent single storey structures, with clusters, called ‘lines’, that were 100-year old demarcations based on the area of the estate the people from a particular family originally worked in. Housing was provided such that it had high proximity to the part of Baradighi that a family worked in. Social relations remain community-oriented, based on their ‘lines’, but inter-line cultural practices, events and schooling and welfare systems thrive. Clubs, places of worship and a common hospital make lifestyle common, and socially active.
Haat
The quintessential Indian roadside market, with its antiquity, has stayed on at Baradighi.
In recent years, the haat, or local market, has seen much traction, and sellers come from afar. Baradighi is home to 3 haats or markets, where utensils, household equipment, school utilities, work utilities and individual-need products abound. The nearest village, Disco Bazaar, hosts a market every day in its ready-made stone marketplace structures and is a buzz with activity on Sundays with the sellers displaying their wares on the pavements, and buyers coming in droves….negotiating, checking quality and buying in bulk. The Sunday market is a popular draw in the area.
The Mangalbari haat is open on Thursdays, while Baradighi’s own haat is organized on the day of wage disbursement. Savings form a small part of the planning considerations, and sellers sync calendars to ensure their presence in the area at the time of wage disbursement at the estate. All commodities are sold by weight, including utensils– where the individual units do not carry any value in the shops.
Other Clans
Another clan existing on the heritage tea house estate is the Gorkhas, the natives of hill states and of Nepal, famed as both warriors and agriculturists. While they have world-renowned, deeply researched and elaborate cultures of their own, they form a small part of the population on estate. They are both Hindus and Buddhists, but prefer a loud form of worship including chants and elaborate ceremonies. Their diet of meat and vegetables, and comparatively more financially planned lifestyle, well-made and well-purchased home equipment and ability to blend in have made them an important part of the village here.
Baradighi hosts a significant population of the Kumhars and Majhis, residents of Bihar mainland and brought here for work as assistants in plumbing, cleaning and civilian jobs in first decade of the 1900s. Small populations of Mohammedans, and a single, warm, Chinese family, known and loved for the diverse practices they bring to the culture of the estate, form the remnant of the family here.
Like with our Chinese residents, now in their second generation in Baradighi, our natives are descendants of workers brought to work here by past managers on estate, and having loved the hospitality, opportunity, or both, of Baradighi and its people, have chosen to stay here for generations, having gradually become part of the family. Baradighi is a wok of these diverse cultures.
That aptly represents the warmth of Baradighi. Every visit is the beginning to a story. Those who come knocking are quick to call it home and add their own flavour to it.
The Curious Fishermen
The residents of the 120-years old Rungamattee line in Baradighi have developed a curious method of fishing. The line has been close to the river, and has thus depended on it as a primary source of food. But poverty has prevented them from using elaborate techniques or equipment to capture their fish.
Starting from the banks of the river, 10-15 men move in a line, each with his shoulders on the others’ arms, and feet tightly together, wading through the river very slowly. The aim is to catch bottom dweller fishes that rest close to the sediment beds on the shallow banks. Catfish and Loches are common prey. As the men move ahead slowly, these fishes, obstructed or hit by the feet of one person, try escaping by swimming to either side, but are still met with human feet, for a long distance. Those who feel the fish under their feet tell their neighbours, and try and keep it locked there, while those to the left or right bend down, capture the fish with bare hands, and throw it into the large common net the group carries with it, before moving back in place so the group can resume its travel.
This economical and effective method has sustained the innovative people of the Rungamattee labourer lines for decades, and they learn it early on, with even the children playing their part in carrying nets or forming their own amateur fishermen lines.
Flora & Fauna Of Dooars
Introduction to the Rich Flora & Fauna of Baradighi
The Baradighi Tea Estate is home to a diverse range of flora and fauna, making it a haven for nature enthusiasts and wildlife lovers. Nestled in the rolling hills of the Dooars region, the estate spans over 507 hectares and is surrounded by lush tea gardens, rivers, and forests. This unique location provides the perfect habitat for a wide range of plant and animal species, including some that are rare and endangered.
The Vibrant Plant Life of Baradighi
One of the standout features of the Baradighi Tea Estate is its verdant gardens and lush forests. The estate is home to a wide variety of trees, shrubs, and flowers, many of which are native to the region. Some of the notable plant species found on the estate include:
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Sal trees
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Eucalyptus trees
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Tea bushes
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Orchids
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Bougainvillea
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Hibiscus
In addition to these, the estate is also home to a range of medicinal plants and herbs that are used in traditional Ayurvedic treatments. The gardens and forests of Baradighi provide a haven for birds and other wildlife, and are a popular spot for birdwatching and nature photography.
The Fascinating Wildlife of Baradighi
In addition to its rich plant life, the Baradighi Tea Estate is also home to a diverse range of animal species. The estate is located in the midst of the Gorumara Forest, which is home to a wide range of animals, including elephants, rhinos, deer, and a variety of bird species. The estate itself is home to a number of animals, including:
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Peacocks
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Pheasants
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Hornbills
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Kingfishers
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Mongooses
The Baradighi Tea Estate is a popular destination for wildlife enthusiasts, as it offers a rare opportunity to see a wide range of animal and bird species in their natural habitat. The estate is also home to a number of endangered species, including the Indian one-horned rhinoceros and the Asian elephant, making it an important site for conservation efforts.
Exploring the Flora & Fauna of Baradighi
There are a number of ways to explore the rich flora and fauna of the Baradighi Tea Estate. One of the best ways is to take a guided tour of the estate, where you can learn about the various plant and animal species found on the property. The estate also offers a range of activities, such as birdwatching, nature photography, and forest walks, which provide an opportunity to experience the beauty of the estate up close.
Whether you are a nature enthusiast or simply looking for a peaceful retreat, the Baradighi Tea Estate is the perfect place for you.