Feeble, frail, rail-thin Jahira Khatung, 45, whose face wears a pinched, dazed look and who lives in a bare, shabby hut, is facing slow starvation.
"My husband, who worked at the tea estate, died of an illness in 2006. I support my 14-year old son."
Khatung works at the dolomite factory in Bhutan. Weakness, and lack of physical strength, means she manages just about 10 working days a month; she thus doesn't make enough to keep body and soul together, and is uncertain what the future holds.
A few days ago Joseph Munda, who works at the stone quarry in Bhutan, was afflicted with a severe case of diarrhoea and had stopped working -- and earning.
Sanjay Gurung, who lives next door to Munda, lost his wife Bishni to tuberculosis some years ago, when money for her treatment ran out; his little children do not have a mother.
Some huts away lives Bahadur Gurung, who was a supervisor at the estate, and who now supports ten members of his family on a slender income of Rs 1,800.
"If people were eating two or three meals a day, they are now eating one meal less," says Ramesh Sharma, a member of the Bagan Bachao Committee (Save the Garden Committee) and a social worker of the area. "Their health is quite delicate."
A 2004 survey conducted in the area by the West Bengal Right to Food and Work Network showed a 241 per cent increase in deaths after the closing of the estates in this area; a horrifying statistic for a wealthy industry that contributes one of the largest amounts of tea to the world market.
Image: Poverty-stricken Jahira Khatung, holding a relative's child, breaks stones for a living in Bhutan.
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