changing climes
In the little village of Pubong Fatak, 13 km from Darjeeling in West Bengal, sits Phul Bahadur, 97, weaving baskets to earn his living. He wears thick glasses tied to a rubber band around his head. On his wrinkled wrist is a Seiko watch that stopped functioning 20 years ago. The old man, however, is a living chronicle of time in the famed hill station. "When I migrated from Nepal in 1926, the thick forests of Darjeeling were covered with snow for more than three months,' he remembers. "Now it just gets blown by the wind like bits of paper. With no snow and no trees to shelter me from the harsh winds, I feel like my house is getting blown away,' he fears. Most senior residents have similar stories.
The enormous guide map at the Mall in Darjeeling mentions that the maximum temperature recorded in the district is 14.89