Sukna - My Little Paradise on Earth

For me, Sukna is paradise on earth. Sukna is that place where I have spent many happy moments of childhood. It’s that place where I have lots of memories of bright sunshine, warmth, grass under my feet, smells of the forest, sounds of the highway, coziness of the monsoons, and above all, my first conscious memories of life. For me life began at Sukna.

For those of you who have not heard of this place, Sukna is a small hamlet about 20km from the North Bengal city of Siliguri. It is the gateway to the plains for the hill people of Darjeeling, and the gateway to the hills for the rest of India. Situated at the foothills of the mighty Himalayas, this small little village has loads to offer in terms of natural beauty. I, of course, saw it all from the best of the places. From the Forest Department campus. Sukna has three prominent landmarks – this Forest Department campus, the Sukna Cantonment and the Sukna Railway station.

In those days of the far off seventies, when the world as not as small as it is today, Sukna was quite way beyond “civilization” so to say. It was a small village, surrounded by dense forests of the Terai, full of wild animals, with a quaint little railway station of its own. From the 2 floor wooden Forest Bungalow, you could see the village and the railway station, and you could, at two times in the day, when the Unesco Heritage Darjeeling Himalayan Railway (DHR) were scheduled to run, hear the whistle of the distant train and watch with rapt attention as the tiny steam engine drawn four carriage train chugged by. It was all very old world. All very romantic. It still is. To a large extent.

The village has grown to a small town now. Haphazardly though. The station still remains, and so do the trains. The steam engines have been replaced by a few diesel ones, robbing the trains of some charm. But the steam engines were expensive to run I guess. The forest campus still remains. And despite the charity of a few ex and court-martialed Armymen, the cantonment still remains in all its glory. Sukna continues to be the entry point for the Mahananda Wildlife Sanctuary, which stretches from Sukna to the Teesta River in the East. Through it runs the beautiful Mahananda River. When we were kids, the charm of this forest was the presence of the Royal Bengal Tiger. While I am not sure about tigers any longer, wild elephants still rule in these forests and they still are extremely dangerous. So much so, the human habitation is separated from the forests by electric fencing. That of course, is no protection from the leopards, who occasionally make their presence known when they raid the villages around the sanctuary for cattle stock.

This land is beautiful. Rugged, rough, with tall evergreen trees, rain forests, and with countless beautiful rivers and streams running through them. Other than the Mahananda and Teesta rivers running through them, to the West is the Balason river. Wonderful places for picnics on the river banks between October to February. Still rmember the countless picnics we did while growing up on the banks of the Mahananda river. Learning to swim in Mahananda and Panchanoi rivers. That beautiful small dam on the Mahananda river, which ultimately got washed away in nature’s fury one monsoon. When we used to live in Darjeeling, often we used to come down and spend a weekend at Sukna. The warmth of Sukna after the perpetual cold of Darjeeling hills was always welcoming. Always wonderful. In short, Sukna is a place of my dreams. Sukna is a place which keeps drawing me to itself over the years.