Mamata, rock legend Kee Marcello have a date with Darjeeling Melo-Tea fest

The Darjeeling hills are set to come alive with the second edition of the Melo-Tea festival, which will this year have a VVIP touch—West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee herself to inaugurate the four-day affair. Mamata will do the honours virtually from Kolkata on December 19.
The festival, jointly organised by the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA) and the Darjeeling police as part of a community-inspiring initiative, debuted in 2023. This year, it promises to be a grander show what with Mamata flagging it off. In fact, her interest to participate led to its rescheduling by a day.
During her recent tour to Darjeeling district, Mamata was informed about the upcoming festival, planned for inauguration on December 18. Sources said she showed keen interest, likening it to an ‘international rock festival’, and asked her team to block her dates immediately. The chief minister will be inaugurating the festival from Park Street in Kolkata, from where she will simultaneously kick off the Christmas Carnival.
On Day 1 of the festival, Darjeeling will welcome Swedish rock legend Kee Marcello and his band. The 64-year-old star is a former guitarist of the rock bands Europe and Easy Action. Marcello, along with John Norum as the original player, had strum the strings for band Europe’s biggest hit single ‘The Final Countdown’, released in 1986.
“It is going to be an honour for us to be opening for Kee Marcello,” said Praggya Lama, guitarist for the Darjeeling-based band Mantra. Lama’s band played a crucial role in reaching out to Marcello through another musician, who runs an event management company and organises events with international celebrities.
Besides Marcello, Nepal’s folk ensemble Kutumba and Nagaland’s rock band About Us will also be performing. Starting with an open band competition in two categories, English and Nepali, for which some 100 bands have registered themselves, the festival will also include the annual Darjeeling Hill Marathon. It will be held on the final day, December 22.
Across the multiple events, cash prizes worth over Rs 40 lakh will be up for grabs. And as part of plans to offer a gamut of unique tourism experiences, some 14 hiking routes are being offered.
Darjeeling superintendent of police Praween Prakash explained that for all events, sub-committees had been set up and tasked with bringing the plans to fruition. For Prakash, the festival is as much about creating employment for the local youth as offering a platform for people to explore the beauty of Darjeeling.
For instance, the hiking trails identified will be guided by local boys; homestays are getting ready to host visitors. “Neither the police nor the GTA is getting any money from the registrations. We are not even charging the local people for the stalls they put up or for other businesses they get from the tourists,” Prakash told INDIA TODAY.
The Melo-Tea Festival aims to nurture Darjeeling’s musical and artistic talent, having already turned singer Saraswati Rai and runners Sombhadur Thami and Hemant Limbu into celebrities of sorts. The festival seeks to bring local artistes to the professional stage, much like the Darjeeling Hill Marathon has given runners national recognition and fostered pride and passion within the hill community.
Last year, the event was organised on a smaller scale and for two days of music fest, with the third day dedicated to the marathon. It generated a wave of interest among tourists and massive business for the locals. Around 40 stalls were set up across the Chowrasta-Darjeeling intersection and these, by one estimate, together did business to the tune of Rs 25-30 lakh.
This has inspired other stakeholders to get involved. Tour operators and hotel owners are now planning packages and itineraries to encourage tourists to come to Darjeeling during the festival. “We are likely to have three separate itineraries and plan to merge the new and the old trekking trails,” said Samrat Sanyal, general secretary of the Himalayan Hospitality Tourism Development Network.
Sanyal, who also runs the Oakden Hotel in Darjeeling, informed: “We plan to offer the new trails that are part of the festival as well as the old sites, such as a trip to the Tiger Hills, to the zoo or the tea gardens. There could be discounts and special gifts for the tourists.”
The Darjeeling police and GTA plan to turn the Melo-Tea festival into a calendar event. “An ecosystem has to be developed to tap the unexplored tourism and employment potential in Darjeeling. There are so many surprises the hills have to offer; we are merely trying to streamline it all,” says Prakash.
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