I recently travelled to the stunning terrain of the Sundarbans, and as soon as I reached, I felt like I had stepped into a postcard, surrounded by lush greenery and picturesque rivers. Arriving in Kolkata, I felt relieved to be away from Delhi, and its traffic and pollution. But who would have thought that, on my way back, I would carry a different set of experiences. An experience that has altered my life and my outlook towards beautiful landscapes.
Sundarbans, one of the largest mangrove forests in the world (140,000 hectares), lies on the delta of the Ganges, Brahmaputra and Meghna rivers at the Bay of Bengal. It is adjacent to the border of India’s Sundarbans World Heritage site inscribed in 1987. The area is known for its wide range of fauna, including 260 bird species, Bengal tigers and other threatened species, such as the estuarine crocodile and the Indian python.
But the reality? The people here are trapped in a cycle of poverty so severe, it takes your breath away. Every river is a saltwater river. That’s the curse of this land. It’s a disaster-prone area where crops can only grow for three months in a year. And god forbid there is a flood - all that saltwater enters the fields, making the land infertile for the next three years. Without a stable income, they are forced to migrate, pushed into even more vulnerabilities.
The human trafficking rate here is heartbreakingly high. Many daughters have gone missing; while a few have been rescued, most families can only hope to see their daughters again someday.
There are so, so many survivors of violence — from domestic violence to rape to human trafficking. Fourteen-year-olds with three-year-olds in their arms, carrying the burden of being accepted back into their villages. They bear the weight of stigma, the whispers, and the judgement that follows them, all stemming from a narrow-minded view that labels them as impure because of what they have gone through.
When we think of offenders, we usually imagine a man — older, hardened, maybe even vicious. But here, the offenders can be women, men, boys — anyone. Why? If you ask me, it’s because they don't have a stable source of income. They just want food on their plates. (And in no way am I justifying it.)
To add to their suffering, the police refuse to file FIRs, choosing instead to engage in slut-shaming and victim-blaming. These families, already so vulnerable, face further harassment if they dare to seek justice.
And then there is the jungle. People are eaten by tigers — yes, you read that correctly! It’s a very real problem here. You might wonder why they venture into the jungles despite knowing the risks better than any of us. The answer is simple: they have no other source of bread and butter. They have no choice.
And again, who is the most vulnerable here? The widow and the child. Because there is no man to “protect” her. Some women, despite knowing that their husbands are gone, continue to apply sindoor and perform every ritual, waiting for their husbands to return someday. Or perhaps it is because appearing as a married woman makes them “more respectable” and hence less vulnerable in society.
I came to this beautiful terrain, and it still is a very beautiful terrain. But the next time I visit a place like this, I will look beyond the beauty. Maybe because no beautiful terrain will ever be "just beautiful" to me again.
There’s always a story hidden behind what we see — a story of hardship, survival, and resilience. And the next time we admire the beauty of a place, we should remember that there might be hidden narratives, waiting to be heard.
