Sonia Jabbar

WILDLIFE CONSERVATIONIST NAXALBARI, WEST BENGAL

inheriting the 1200-acre Nuxalbari Tea Estate, Sonia noticed that the number of elephants visiting her tea estate was growing with each passing year. Elephants have a traditional migration route travelling between Assam and Nepal and back. With Nepal erecting a fence along its border with West Bengal, the elephants were hitting a roadblock and getting diverted to her tea estate and neighbouring farmlands. Plus, intensive infrastructure development meant the traditional elephant corridors were being disrupted, bringing them into direct conflict with humans. Realising that elephants had very little forest cover left in the area and were chased wherever they went, Sonia decided to welcome them whenever they entered her estate. Her efforts have been directed towards creating peaceful coexistence between humans and wildlife. She has also engaged in a re-wilding project to create a 100-acre native species forest on the estate, both to conserve biodiversity and to afford shelter and forage for the elephants. Through the Haathi Saathi Nature Club for the children of estate workers, she has helped spread awareness about the importance of peaceful human-wildlife interactions.

Being in Siliguri meant we were in the Eastern Himalayan foothills, tantalizingly close to the underappreciated treasure trove of natural beauty that is Northeast India. The want to head into the mountains was high, especially given the extremely capable SUVs at our disposal, but the purpose of this drive went far beyond indulging us automotive enthusiasts in a spot of spirited driving and sightseeing. Instead, we charted a route against the flow of traffic, driving past a seemingly unending queue of vehicles heading toward the upper reaches of North Bengal and Sikkim, making our way to Naxalbari for our rendezvous with the next driver of change. Tea estates straddling roads we drove on served as a reminder of the region’s contribution to India’s tea industry, with West Bengal and Assam together contributing to over 80 per cent of total production. Tea is a primary driver of the region’s economy as evidenced by the presence of sprawling tea estates, but that also means a very high potential for human-wildlife conflict. Sonia Jabbar, a wildlife conservationist and owner of Nuxalbari Tea Estate, has been effecting change by turning human-wildlife conflicts into peaceful human-wildlife interactions. The day was spent touring parts of her 1200-acre estate engaged in insightful conversations about the need for conservation and why it’s imperative for humans to move forward along with the environment and its stakeholders instead of racing ahead with a shortsighted approach that comes at the massive cost of irreparable damage to the ecosystem. The narrative about development needs to shift to one that doesn’t just focus purely on economy, but factors in ecological aspects as well.

Towards the end of the day, the conversation shifted to cars, inevitable really given our presence, and the short drive in the XUV700 was enough for her to remark how impressive it was, commenting on the refinement and the feel-good factor of the cabin. With a fair few Mahindra vehicles employed at her estate, she got a chance to pick our brains about the next one she should get.

into a poor family in Bengal’s Jalpaiguri district, Swapna Barman was pushed into sports at a young age in the hope that this would help her in getting a job to support her family. Her inspiration simply being able to put food on the table. Being born with six toes on each foot, she found standard shoes ill-fitting and couldn’t afford customised footwear, but practised for hours nonetheless powering through the pain. She won gold medals at the 2017 Asian Athletics Championship and the Patiala Federation Cup. The following year, she became the country’s first heptathlete to win a gold medal at the Asian Games. In 2019, she was honoured with the Arjuna Award for her achievements. Her success has given her a platform to champion the cause of improved infrastructure to nurture talent in the field of athletics.

We weren’t done with North Bengal just yet as the next hero of our story was a resident of Jalpaiguri. This meant that this section of the journey was one of those rare occasions where we spent more than a day in a single city enabling us to indulge in another aspect of our country’s nearly infinite diversity – local cuisine. The other benefit was a break from day after day of long hours on the road. That’s not something we’re complaining about, driving is something we never get enough of and having great cars to do it in only makes it better, but still, a break from hours of, for a lack of a better word, fighting Indian traffic was a welcome change.

Jalpaiguri is around 50km from Siliguri towards the east. It sits along NH27, a critical connector between the Seven Sisters and the rest of the country, resulting in fairly heavy commercial vehicle movement. Bringing us here was athlete Swapna Barman who resides on the outskirts of this small town. Born into a poor family, her story of overcoming life’s hurdles and reaching the highest levels of success as an Asian Games gold medal winning athlete is as inspirational as it comes. It puts into perspective the privileged lives most of us have led and, more often than not, taken for granted. While she hosted us at her newer residence, we got a chance to visit her childhood home as well and interact with members of her family who couldn’t be more proud of her achievements. Her infectious smile and a level of grit and determination that manifested in her at an age as early as it did left a lasting impression. While one team spent the day in Jalpaiguri with Swapna Burman, another went off to answer the call of the mountains to get a taste of the Eastern Himalayas’ natural beauty. It also gave them a chance to experience yet another aspect of the XUV700’s vast breadth of capabilities as they made their way through winding mountain roads. Once back in Siliguri, the teams reconvened to chart out the route for the next leg of the journey that saw us head south driving along the Bihar-West Bengal border into Jharkhand.

DRIVING IS SOMETHING WE NEVER GET ENOUGH OF AND HAVING GREAT CARS TO DO IT IN ONLY MAKES IT BETTER