A taste of the Himalayas in Kolkata

This year's festival featured highlights such as agrotourism, crafts, culture, cuisine and heritage.

- Photographs by ANWESHA SANTRA

With the onset of winter, the chilly air carries the sweet and tangy aroma of oranges a staple whether you're strolling through parks, enjoying picnics or travelling in hill stations.

This season, Kolkata played host to the Himalayan Orange Tourism Festival, a vibrant event where men and women from northeast India and neighbouring countries gathered to promote tourism to their picturesque homelands while showcasing their organic and handcrafted products.

The Himalayan Orange Tourism Festival, initiated four decades ago, is a sustainable tourism initiative aimed at preserving the rural Himalayan lifestyle.

Raj Basu, the convener of the Association for Conservation and Tourism (ACT), explained that the festival emphasises the harmonious coexistence of life and nature, promoting traditional practices that maintain pure air, soil and water.

"The initiative uses tourism as a tool to sustain the self-reliant Himalayan villages, which are independent of industrial products. By organising training programmes, bird festivals and cultural events, the festival has become a platform to connect rural Himalayan values with urban audiences, particularly in Kolkata. Inspired by Rabindranath Tagore's vision of uniting the people of the hills and plains through festivals, the event began in 2014.

After a series of village leaders' meetings and local festivals, "Himalayan Orange" was chosen as the title to unify the villages participating in the festival.