Tajpur - the ghost town

Red ghost crabs of Tajpur

 Digha, Mandarmoni and now Tajpur. Bengalies love to travel and these places have given them all the more reason to do so. Digha has developed into a tourist heaven; good beaches, decent hotels and all the things that Bengalies love to do when they are on holiday. Moreover they are within driving distance from Kolkata which makes it a fantastic weekend destination. Added attractions for Mandarmoni and Tajpur are virgin beaches and the wild life. A nature lover's paradise if you know what to look for and when to look for. As I am a nature lover let me give my account of why I call it a nature lover's paradise.

We arrived from Kolkata to Tajpur at around noon on a private hired vehicle and soon went to the beach. By we I mean my family. Water at that time have receded due to reverse tide and the beach was more than 100 meters of sand and some mud if you are too far away into the beach. Mind it Mandarmoni and Tajpur are estuary of a river. Only few people were around not that it is crowded at other times. The first thing I noticed lack of organic debris as if some one has combed and cleaned the entire area and a lot of broken shells. Then I saw one or two red crabs, ghost crabs, scattered here and there scouring for food. These were quite decent sized ghost crabs. As a Bengali I am obliged to take a dip into the sea and after the dip we came back to the hotel. In the evening we went back again this time I saw the reason for lack of organic debris. The entire beach has turned red. I don't mean due to blood but due to red ghost crabs. It looked like an Animal Planet documentary. The feeding habits of these crabs makes them come out when tide comes in which brings organic debris. They are also known for eating shell fishes and hence the reason why it is full of dead broken shells. One spot looked like grave yard of shells where I dug in and found shells up to a foot deep in sand. The crab population seems to comprises of mainly of two varieties or may be species of crabs (I am no expert on crab taxonomy); one red which accounts for about 95 - 98% of population (this an eye estimation and not a research data) and the other is a more commonly found gray colored one. These crabs seems take turn to visit the sea water in batches. A group of crab starts to decent to the sea water which are followed by a entire cross-section of the beach. Once they are done feeding they comeback and next cross section decent to the water. It is really a spectacle to see. We were stunned by this event and wanted to spent the entire evening on it watching the spectacle. But the sun gave us a rude awakening as it set and we needed to come back to our hotel. I did manage to get some pictures. But as it is just an ordinary Power Shot, I failed to capture the essence of the spectacle in its full glory.

My word is; go and see for yourself you won't be disappointed. To add; I propose instead of using the Digha model for both Tajpur and Mandarmoni development one should adopt Eco-tourism concepts. More precisely, I think a setup like shown in the figure may be suitable for both tourist and crabs. Tourist should be limited to the corridor for swimming area only and could observe the crabs and their activities on number of raised platforms across the beach. This way both tourist and crabs could live side by side and the local people could earn from their resources.

My model for Tajpur Eco-tourism

Bengalies I have a word of advice try the local sea crab (not the ghost crab). It is something worth traveling to Tajpur for; alone.