In Dooars, a room of books

“Didi, can we really read our own language here?” Ansh Oraon, 15, asks me as he holds a Kurukh book in his hands.

We are in a school attended by the children of tea garden workers in West Bengal’s Jalpaiguri district. The garden where Ansh’s parents, and mine, work is located by the Leesh river.

Our families, like those of most workers here, belong to the Oraon tribe. Our ancestors came from the Chhotanagpur Plateau region – Ranchi, Gumla and Simdega districts in what is now Jharkhand – four generations ago. At home, we still speak Kurukh, the language of our community, but outside, we speak Hindi and Bengali. So, Ansh has never seen a book in our mother tongue.

I grew up here, in Patibari inside the Leesh River tea garden. The Census handbook spells the name as Lishriver, but the villagers and the local administration use the spelling Leesh River.

Every morning you can see women carrying baskets to pluck tea leaves, men walking to the factory, and children going to school in their old blue-and-white uniforms.

My parents work in the garden, where the tasks change with the season – plucking tea leaves, pruning bushes, spraying fertilisers or clearing vegetation. A day’s wage for eight hours of work is around Rs. 250. My father’s role is that of a sardar or supervisor.

The younger children attend the government-run Patibari Primary School – Class 1 to 5. The high school stands on the same campus.

On November 30, 2024, I initiated a library in an empty room in the school. It’s open twice a day, from 9 a.m. to 12 noon and 3 to 6 p.m.

On the first day, I read a story aloud in Hindi, Dadaji Ka Chhata. It talked about the many uses of grandpa’s umbrella – such as plucking fruits – other than shielding from the rain. The moral is that if used wisely, a single object can serve many purposes. At the end, I asked, “What did you learn?” A little girl pointed at a picture and shouted, “The monkey is funnier than the teacher!” The whole room laughed. In that laughter, the library came alive.

Leesh River, in the western Dooars, is among the first gardens to be planted in north Bengal. Patibari is one of its three divisions – Leesh and Hope are the other two. The river from which the tea garden gets its name originates in Kalimpong district and flows through three villages before merging with the Teesta.

In the tea garden, the day begins early. The women wake up around 4.30, prepare a meal, often rice or roti with salt and a vegetable if available, and head to work. By 6:00 a.m., groups of workers can be seen walking towards the tea bushes with their jhola (cloth bag) strapped around them.

Since school starts at 10 a.m. the children get ready on their own, also performing household chores before they leave. Not every home has access to water, and it falls upon the children to collect water from a neighbour’s house or from the community hand pump.

Some children come to school only for the midday meal. Many drop out after Class 8, and most do not study beyond Class 12. They take up jobs in the tea garden, or move to other states to work for daily wages. Very few go to college.

My schooling was at St. Mary’s Girls’ Higher Secondary School, Gayaganga, in Darjeeling district. My mother had sent me to live with my grandmother at Hansqua tea garden, 72 km away, so that I could go to school there. Our school had proper classrooms, trained teachers and a library. But it was during thrice-a-week group study sessions with Dahhar, an organisation that helps students from tea garden communities to prepare for university entrance exams, that I truly began engaging with books.

Keen to go to college, in August 2021 I started giving tuition to children in the garden to cover my expenses. Many couldn’t read or write properly. In July 2023, I left for Bangalore to do my master’s in development studies at Azim Premji University.

I wanted to open a community library. Not just for exams, but for reading, stories, and happiness. I wanted children to love books, not fear them.

There was one room on the school campus that had been in disuse since the current building was constructed. The headmaster, Sajan Moktan, was very supportive. “Yes, take the room. If it is for children, it is good,” he said. Then I visited two panchayat members, who listened carefully and said, “You have our full support.” Their encouragement gave legitimacy to the library in the eyes of the wider community.

The room was very dirty, with liquor bottles and glasses inside. The area outside was overgrown. We started cleaning. Boys and girls from the village came to help. For two weeks, we swept, washed, painted, made a bamboo fence and put up shelves.

One man walking by asked, “What are you making here?” I said, “A library.” He laughed and said, “Who will come to read?”

I went to the godown in the evening, when the workers bring back the tea leaves. It was an open and busy space filled with the smell of fresh tea leaves and the sound of conversation. I spoke to them about the idea of a library and why it was important for their children.

The response was warm. A woman said, “If my daughter gets a place to read after school, I will be happy.” A man asked, “Who will run it when you go away?” Someone else joked, “If you get books, I will give you a chair.” People started helping. Some gave coins or Rs 20 or Rs 100, whatever they could afford. We collected about Rs 6,000. Some people gave old books. And some gave their time to help set up the space.

In order to fill the shelves, I wrote to many civil society organisations. Some sent a few books. A local youth, Jackrias Bara, donated books, Open University material and resources useful for those preparing for government exams. I had books of my own from school. We now had Hindi, Bengali, English, and Kurukh books.

When Ansh saw the Kurukh book, he asked in surprise, “Didi, our own language in a library?”

Kurukh, a north Dravidian language, is an oral tradition tied to the culture, folk songs, and rituals of the Oraon community. It is now being written as well. Spoken by less than 20 lakh people in India, Kurukh is listed as a vulnerable language in Unesco’s Atlas of Endangered Languages.

We also did cultural sessions. One evening we showed Koda Rajji, a film about the migration of Adivasi people from Jharkhand to West Bengal and Assam to work in the tea gardens. It reflected their struggles, the way they pluck tea leaves, and how families have settled here. Everyone watched in silence. After the film ended, an old man stood up and said, “This is our story.”

Another evening, we sang folk songs and played the mandar drum. The traditional tribal drum, cylindrical in shape and made of wood with leather stretched on both ends, is played with sticks or sometimes with hands. The sound of the mandar is central to Adivasi gatherings and dances. The space felt like an akhra — a cultural gathering where knowledge, stories, and traditions are passed from elders to the young.

The library had become more than a reading room. It was also about remembering who we are.

Children have started coming to the library after school – to read and attend tuition sessions. Every weekend there are activities — storytelling, reading circles, folk songs and group study. “The library motivates our students to read and gives them access to books they otherwise wouldn’t have,” the headmaster said.

Most parents are encouraging. As one worker, Hemlata Toppo, said, “I want my children to study and have a better life than me.” The teachers, too, are supportive. As Pramila Tirkey told me, “Many of our children don’t have books at home. If they can spend time in the library, it will really improve their reading habits.”

Rain Ride, Charwaha aur Bhediya, and Carry Me, Mamma are popular titles. I had hoped to start with 100 books but we began with more than 150. Our library has now grown to over 300 books.

When I left Patibari, youth from the village took charge. They open the library every day, maintain the books and encourage the children to keep coming. Parents tell me, “Our children are actually reading now.”

The library is small. It runs on donations and people’s time. But it has already become more than I had hoped. It is a place where children laugh, women gather, and our culture is remembered.

The small bamboo-fenced room, filled with books, is alive to the people around. Every time I see children reading or singing here, I remember why we built it. Books are not just paper. They are doors. And for the first time, we have one.