The participants of the adventure course at the HMI. Picture by Suman Tamang

Darjeeling, Oct. 9: Asikul Islam has never been to a school nor did he ever think that clambering up rocks involved technical knowhow.

For that matter, he has never even heard of Darjeeling or seen snow-covered mountains. But the 12-year-old today realised that the world was so much different from the green stretches of paddy fields of his Paschilagram village in Murshidabad, thanks to Governor Gopal Krishna Gandhi.

Thirty-five children from economically weak families, the monthly income of whom does not exceed Rs 1,500, were today given an opportunity to use one of the best rock climbing facilities at Himalayan Mountaineering Institute in Darjeeling. The seven-day programme is part of the institute’s effort to reach out to every cross-section of the society and four of the students are being sponsored by Gandhi.

No wonder the participants, including eight girls, aged between nine and 11 years, believed that they were in a whole new world. “It feels amazing to leave the village and go somewhere,” said Asikul, whose father is a daily wage earner.

The adventure course for each student will cost Rs 2,000 and Asikul is being sponsored by the governor, but he does not even know who has made his dream trip to Darjeeling come true.

“During his visit to our district, the governor had promised to sponsor a trip for underprivileged children to Darjeeling and pay for their mountaineering course,” said Samsher Ali who has come with the children as their guardian.

“While the governor is sponsoring four students, Edith Willkins Street Children Foundation, an NGO based in Darjeeling, has taken the charge of four others. The rest are being sponsored by the HMI itself,” said Chandranath Das, curator, HMI.

“The HMI believes that it should open its gates to everyone. J.S. Dhillon, the principal, took a lot of initiative to start the course,” Das said.

Over the week, the students will be taught the basics of rock climbing and will also be taken for a trek to Tiger Hill.