Kalimpong Town of Maruti Vans

VANLIMPONG

TOWN OF THE MARUTI VANS

By Sandip Jain

During a recent brain storming session between like-minded friends in Kalimpong, which was directed towards arriving at a consensus over providing a catchy slogan to be attached to the name of the town, several interesting suggestion came out. Needless to say but at the end of the two hour session, we were still where we had begun i.e. Kalimpong still did not have any slogans to be attached to its name which was commonly accepted by all. But a session like this in Kalimpong ending without any conclusions is in no way surprising, after all the saying “Paray ko Salla Kharani ko dalla” holds a lot of in our lovable little town, doesn’t it??? But like I said, the session left us enriched with several very very interesting and some downright hilarious suggestions. One such suggestion, which came from a very respectable doctor of the town, was “Land of the Lollipops”. Coming from a doctor was interesting enough but even more interesting was the response that it evoked. The response from the majority of the people present was that if Lollipops were associated with Kalimpong, all tourists with a diabetic problem, the world now being full of it, would shun Kalimpong like plagun.

Another suggestion was “Land of the Neora Forest”, this too was not accepted as it was felt that now Lava, having become a tourist destination by itself, had full monopoly over the Neora forest plus Neora Forest is now no longer an official part of Kalimpong after it was transferred to the Jalpaiguri forest range . A fellow journalist threw out the most interesting suggestion that I thought was in a way actually what Kalimpong symbolizes at the present times. This journalist who behind his bored looks and thick specks holds a ultra quick wit and wacky sense of humor, suggested the name “Town of the Maruti Vans” more appropriately Vanlimpong. Though of course this suggestion was made off the record and was made more as a mood-lifter, I felt this could have been the ideal name for the town, which in the present days seems to be chocking on Maruti vans. This I am sure many would agree fully exemplifies the situation that Kalimpong is at the moment.

At a conservative estimate about 800 Maruti vans are decorating the roads of the town. For a small hilly town like ours that has at place, roads narrower than Bitney Spears waists, this is far too many a number that can be accepted without any fuss. With about 5 new cars entering the town every month, the situation turning worse with every day that rolls by. The situation has attained such serious proportions that now even a stroll down can be a life threatening act. My guess is that Kalimpong has more Maruti Cars in relation to the total number of cars than probably any other town of its size in the entire nation. One visitor to the town, a senior IAS Office posted with the Indian Postal Services, after getting over the initial shock of seeing the flood of Maruti vans, joked that if the Managing Director of Maruti Udyog Limited was to ever set his eyes on all these Maruti vans, he would either resign his position as the head of this company due to the shame of seeing the havoc that his creation has caused in this beautiful town or he would be so delighted that he would order his Sales Department to give a 33.33% discount on all cars sold to Kalimpong residents. Maybe, he would even use footage of the Maruti Vans swarming at Kalimpong, in one of the many commercials that his company runs on air.

Some may say that the numbers of vehicles on the roads of any particular place is a good yardstick to gauze the development of the place. While this might hold some water, shouldn’t the quality of the roads to be taken into account if any such assessment is to be made?????Must not the road available for the proper running of these vehicles be better prepared and maintained for the town to be actually labeled as a developed one. With every Tom, Dick and Harry now buying a car to further develop(??) the town, is it not expected that all the revenue raised from the vehicles owners by way of taxes, should have gone towards maintenance of the presently pot hole littered road on which these very vehicles runs on? A news item appeared in several local publications including the Himalayans Times , which reported a demand by the Darjeeling Hill Transport Joint Action Committee, now a part of the Gorkha National Drivers Front. The demand was that the Motor vehicle Department currently under the State Government be transferred to the Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council for the better management of the funds that is generated by the department from the Hill District. Looking at the lack of funds at the disposal of the local bodies for the purpose of road maintenance, this demand I feel is fully justified.

But wouldn't better roads again mean more Maruti vans???