How green is my valley

 

This is a drain in front of my friend, Luri Das' house. The black thick sludge sort of stuff you see is crude oil exuding out from the ground, naturally. They even say they have a corner in their bedroom where the oil just seeps out on the floor battling the concrete on its way up from the soil. Just goes onto show, Digboi, which is a part of larger Dehing Patkai Elephant Reserve, was the perfect place for the Italian engineers to start drilling for oil. In 1867, the engineers were commissioned by the Assam Railways and Trading Company, to build a railway line from Dibrugarh to Margherita. Accidentally in the efforts of setting up railway lines, a part of Dalhousie's efforts of bringing railway to every corner of the country, oil was struck 10 miles from Margherita, which boasts of the repertoire of earning the moniker of 'Coal Queen of Assam'. And thus Asia's first and world's second oil refinery was set up here in my hometown in 1901. Digboi has lead the march in India's oil history.

All of this of course comes with a cost, clearing of many forest areas, home to the clouded leopard, elephants, deer and scores of other mammals and birds, who still roam our gardens. Like seriously, five elephants just visited our home the other day and had their share of banana plantations in our garden. A scrumptious dinner for them. But as development slowly molds itself into a threatening beast, such beautiful flora and fauna falls prey under its claws.

As I am about to leave my hometown due to dad's retirement in a few months, it makes me sad. Rather more because I'll miss my beautiful, green and exotic home. But also a considerable share of the grief I hold in me is because it makes me ponder, what shall it look like in the years to come, when I revisit. Would the forest reserve in my backyard turned into a housing complex or another site for a 'developmental project'? Or would it still be green, pretty and breathtaking like it is, or let's say was. I think we all know the answers.