The strike has left hotels counting losses with Puja season in ruins.

DARJEELING: The Hills on Friday entered the 100th day of indefinite strike , marking a dubious century that has paralysed life, crippled tourism and driven the famed Darjeeling tea industry to the brink . As the rest of the state gets ready to plunge into festivity, people in Darjeeling remain in mourning with the principal demand for a separate state still a pipe dream.

Anil Kumar Das, an employee at a department store, hasn’t received a salary since June. The store had shut down on June 15 when all establishments in the Hills closed shutters. He doesn’t know when the store will reopen and when he will get his next pay cheque but expenses continue to mount. “My brother fell ill and I had to take a Rs 50,000 loan to meet the expenses for treatment in Vellore. I want my son to be admitted to a decent English medium school once the strike lifts. But I don’t know from where I’ll get the money,” says Das.

Strangely, he doesn’t want the strike to be lifted, perhaps because he will then have to confront the stark reality that is in a state of suspended animation since mid-June. After 100 days of no work and lazing around, the strike is becoming for many in the Hills a way of life . Each day pushes the people a little more into inertia.

Not that there isn’t any action. There are the morning rallies demanding Gorkhaland. They, too, have become a norm with passion beginning to wane.

But young men and women still insist they are ready for more hardships and will see it till the end. “We have sacrificed a lot for the greater cause. Having come this far, how can we give up now?” says a college graduate.

That question haunts everyone in the Hills. Even though some want the indefinite strike to end and normality to return, there is yet no compromise in sight that will give the people a symbolic victory for the struggle.

With no clients these past 100 days, Nirmal Sharma has been living off his savings. Now, he is scraping the bottom of his deposits and has no idea what he will do next month when money finally runs out. Like Sharma, the strike has reduced many to near penury.

There have, till now, been no starvation deaths in the Hills. But there is no denying the suffering.

The strike has left hotels counting losses with Puja season in ruins.

Not just big hotels, small eatery owners are also broke. They supported the strike for Gorkhaland but now want normalcy restored at the earliest. “We will never recover the losses incurred in the past three months. But if we are back in business soon, at least we will survive,” said Laden Tamang.

With shops closed and the spirit of celebration nowhere on the horizon, people have been forced to cancel or shift marriage ceremonies to other states. “Due to the strike, one of my regular clients had to cancel her son’s marriage ceremony scheduled on September 2. Since she had booked the place, she had to forfeit the advance amount and shift the event to Shillong from where the bride hails,” said Arun Verma, who runs a jewellery shop in Darjeeling.

With less than 10 days to go for Dussehra and Tihar, the lack of buzz and excitement in the air is conspicuous. Alka Rai, a working mother who has been out of work for the past 100 days, says: “How long can we carry on like this?”

