Darjeeling

Darjeeling

Darjeeling, now popularly known as Darj, is my destination for the 2^nd time after exactly 10 years. My first visit to Darjeeling was in the summers of 2010.

I always wanted to go back to The queen of the Himalayas with Maa, as Maa is extremely fond of mountains, 

   Thus, after a quick planning, Maa, me and our extended self, little Cookie, started off to conquer the Queen of the Hills in the summer ofree 2016. Flights booked, Hotels reserved, itinerary made, packing done and leaves applied for. An hour’s flight took us from Kolkata to Bagdogra. A short tiff with the local taxi guys who would drive us through the 3 hour long journey from Bagdogra to Darjeeling led us to a friendly driver and his Sumo, thus started the scenic road towards Darjeeling. Though peak of summers, we expected the road towards Darjeeling warm and humid, thus we opted for an AC car. Very fortunately, within a few minutes of crossing the defence area of Bagdogra, the weather got pleasant. At 2.30 in the afternoon and we were already crisscrossing the tiny portions of tea gardens and huge expanses of greenery. I was deeply amazed at nature’s myriad behaviour, a different terrain, a different weather, different lifestyle and different people all in just an hour’s flight distance. While people were sweating it out at Kolkata’s blazing heat, we were lucky to have escaped for a short trip to the heavens.

  For quite some distance the landscape was only that of army and Air force trucks, defence areas under strict vigil, Indian Army buses plying with officers and school children. The roads were clean, infrastructure good and traffic duly followed, all courtesy the huge defence area of Bagdogra.  As we started uphill houses and civilization were slowly diminishing, while the shades of green was getting even more darker and denser. There was an area which we crossed, which was only but tea gardens both on the right and left side of the road. Huge water sprinklers watering the shrubs which derive the costliest beverage of the country. Immense care and caution has been taken to pluck the 2 young leaves and a bud. Women of all shapes, sizes and age were busy plucking the leaves with utmost care with deft fingers and aiming it back at the huge baskets hung on their heads till their back. A few were enjoying their afternoon siesta under huge trees or tending to infants. Little children with big round faces, tanned over the bright sun, small yet sparkly eyes and brownish red cheeks were being naughty with friends, playing or eating under the colourful umbrellas planked on the grounds, while their parents were busy at work. They were all busy harvesting the ever so popular Darjeeling tea which would have to go through a few more processes to yield big money to the owners. I was wondering, the workers must be getting only peanuts for what the huge tea conglomerates earn from the world tea market, the most priced Darjeeling tea, which at times is even equalled to gold. Taking my thoughts along we traverse a few more tea gardens which is such a feast for the eyes which is habituated seeing only concrete grey buildings or polluted grey sky. It feels as if the eyes, body, mind and the soul is undergoing some kind of a spiritual detox which has already rejuvenated the mind with a completely serene feeling. None of us were talking while we were travelling except for the occasional “bah, ki shundor”…..we were unmindful that we had skipped our lunch and were happily munching on chips and biscuits.  After a serene journey for a couple of hours it was time to traverse the mountains one by one. Mountains with dense green vegetation and occasional chunks of rocks pouting out with a slowly streaming water running on it’s surface. Between the narrow roads and the moutains are a bunch of narrow aluminium and plastic pipes bunched together carrying water to houses and hotels in far away places up above the mountains. Except for the occasional tea joint a few more colourful houses added and a little denser greenery, Darjeeling was almost the same. The Darjeeling Toy train which is a narrow guage line accompanied us most of our way up till Darjeeling. The serpentine narrow guage line passes by several houses, shops, clinics, markets, temples, hotels, hospitals, gardens and forests tirelessly year after year and is also a part of the world heritage site. Almost every house in the mountains has a wooden balcony with a gamut of colourful flowering plants. Pink, purple, red, yellow, orange and blue hues of the flowers lined in front of every houses whether small or big makes the Darjeeling houses even more warm, attractive and colourful. Children with chubby cheeks, colourful sweaters, carelessly tied silky hair playing with their friends in front of their houses while the mothers in an attempt to finish their daily chores gossip away to glory.

    After a tiring drive, our driver takes a break and halts for a few minutes at a food stall in between the tea gardens for a really late lunch, while me and mom sip away some authentic Darjeeling tea. At around 4.30pm, the setting couldn’t have been better, perfect weather with an aroma of freshness and greenery amidst the tea gardens which covered the entire expanse of the sky scape, the weather just right for a light shawl or an extra layer lightly snugged. The ever winding roads entwining the gardens as the cars were crisscrossing each other enroute, Darjeeling, Delo, Gangtok or even further up. While we sipped our cuppa inbetween wafers and biscuits, we were soaking in the surroundings and breathing in some exquisite aroma of the freshly brewed beverage mixed with the mossy and wet aroma of the clouds. Cookie was woke up fresh after his siesta minus the lunch and was busy shopping for his chocolates and toys in the shop. While our driver quickly gulped a few morsels, we were all set for a couple of hour’s drive to our destination. The roads have been diverted as the major roadways were under repair before the monsoons started. Now the grey sky seemed even more closer and the tea gardens had a dark shade of green with almost nobody tending to the gardens and very few people on the road. A few really scary roads with almost no lights and reflectors and road rollers and heavy trucks lined on one side was supposedly taking us to the queen of the mountains. Maa started to worry as it was more than 4 hours that we were travelling, the surrounding was pitch dark by then and almost nobody on the road except for an occasional pick up truck or a sumo carrying tourists or locals. Ofcourse not to miss the indian biker without the coveted helmet to protect his cranium was found in numbers even in the hilly terrain. A few bikers were either returning back home from work with a packet of veggies stacked infront of the bike, one or two bikers were simply wooing their immaculately dressed girl friends for a joy ride, both without the helmet, hoping that the joyride doesn’t end up to a disaster. The new genre of adventure bikers were also to be found in good numbers. Heavily loaded Harley Davidson with equally heavy rucksacks and armoured till the teeth. It was a mix of both Indians and goras fulfilling their adventure trips combing across the mountains. Wish I too could spend a few days like them, with them, living in tents, scooping food out of white aluminium plates and carrying and using only the basics of life. The looked so cool, very fulfilled and had the expression of enjoying every moment of their drive in the chilling weather. While we were tensed sitting inside our 4x4 worrying when would we reach the warm decked up room of our hotel to a cup of aromatic tea, a cosy bed with layers of quilts and hot and steaming dinner of choice with an array of vegetarian food, with little oil and a taste to match our taste buds.. Too many expectations on a tour!! Can I ever lead a nomadic life with only the basics of life, if ever given an opportunity??

  Lo and behold, here comes the bustling city of Darjeeling, all lighted up, people rushing madly towards the Mall road, shops busy doing business, tourist cars plying in hordes as if all the tourists this summer are in darj, Traffic snarl!! Yes you heard it right, traffic jams in the narrow hilly roads of Darjeeling where one stretch of the road has a never ending line of 4X4 parked and two more cars trying to ply up and down the road, while the pedestrians jaywalking and at their wit’s end to solve a maze on the narrow road running, hopping and jumping while holding a chain of hands of their mother, father, children, neighbour, friends, in-laws and by mistake a passer-by too. Though it was a painful sight and quite a  pollution for the eyes, but it also gave us a relief thinking that our hotel is just a few minutes away from the bustling city centre. The drivers asks for direction and takes us to a really steep road leading to our hotel. I almost yelled thinking how would this huge car make to the really steep road which was almost touching my nose..But yes, nobody can beat their driving skills, proficient hands, manouevering the wheels with elan took us to the door steps of our hotel.

   Well the pictures in the internet spoke about the strategic location of this hotel almost on the lap of nature. I was expecting a house on the clouds, where i could only see mountains and greenery from every nook and corner and every creek and crevice of the hotel. But this too is not bad, wondering how did they manage such a huge structure on the this narrow road cutting the body of the mountains. The hotel was just perfect, it greeted with a wide white flight of stairs leading to the hotel lobby with a huge collection of orchids and exotic flowering plants all over. I could actually touch the cloud just before entering the lobby which was dimly lit with a all wooden structures, heritage furnitures, a huge grand father piano and many more interesting artefacts scattered artistically. Was wondering how many trees had to make their way for this one huge wooden lobby with teak flooring and ceiling and all the wooden spectacles?  After doing the formalities we were craving to enter our room and make ourselves comfortable after a nearly  an 8 hour journey from home. It was ok even if I could n’t see the Himalayas or the pristine white sheets of show covered kanchendzonga from the window of my room or the bed wasn’t soft as a feather.  All I wanted was a decent room with a clean bathroom and the basics, that was the need of the hour, here comes the basics of life!! Well the room and the hotel staff were more than elegant and courteous than the need of the hour. All three of us dashed towards the door as the bell boy opened the lock and we crashed at our comfortable zones. Maa and cookie chose the bed, while I chose the extra large arm chair next to the window. Cookie opened the TV, I checked for the camera, while maa digged a few currency, handed over and shooed the bell boy away. We all fell into a deep slumber where we were all up and awake but were too tired to speak or to react. I slowly crawled to the table and tried making 2 cups of pure indulgence, cookie came running, pounced and slurped away all the sugar cubes like a monkey would while on starvation. Maa and me enjoyed sheer indulgence convinced that Darj teas are best when un-sweetened, maternity adjustment to circumstances is it? While I was asking Maa to get ready for a short walk at the Mall as we had a couple of hours to go before the safe zone of 2 women traveller with a child in the hills. Maa was trying to convice me to get ready first. I was taking my own time to relish the warm cuppa amidst incessant chattering of Doraemon and Nobita. The world hasn’t changed much for Cookie in the last 8 hours as he still has Doraemon and Nobita for company, his red lightning Mc. Queen bag full of cars, Marvel comics, drawing books and crayons, mom as his punching bag and a packet of French fries which ranges from crispy hot straight from the over to cold, soft and mashy yellow pieces of starch strewn with white specks of salt and blood red ketchup. Do not know when will this little devil match up to the taste buds of his over nourished dad and mom and kick the shit out of the friends who bully him for his slurring speech. Cookie’s electric blue bag with neon borders and colourful ice creams pasted all over has been his companion for most of his tours for the past couple of years. He packs his own bag with colourful undies, socks, cars, toys, watches, comics and jeans. Every hour of packing he keeps adding his favourite gizmos only to be removed at night when he is deep asleep dreaming of his play things in a new destination.

After an hour of me cajoling Maa to get ready and Maa convincing me to leave the camera and phone aside, did we finally manage to set our foot out fully armoured till our teeth. Cookie was resembling like a tiny robot wrapped in layers of woollens just out of an extra terrestrial planet doing the lead role in a sci-fi movie, while me and maa had a modest layer of two woollens and a stole to accompany with and ofcourse woollen socks and gloves and a bag full of extra woollens if needed on the way. Slowly as we crawled out of our cosy interiors, out in the open, a gush of cool breeze cooled the tip of my nose and I realized it went numb after a few minutes. The extra steep lane from our hotel gate to the main road was wet and slippery with the water suppliers delivering tank loads of water to every house or hotel. The roads were dimly lit and was most conducive for Cookie to run, slide and glide along the lane straight till the main road where he used his manual brake to halt and look at us behind. Maa was trying to avoid sliding and gliding and was carefully stepping with an occasional right and a left twist of sides so as to avoid an embarrassing fall rolling down the road. I was quite perplexed, whether to run behind cookie and pull him by his woollen hoody or ears which ever I could catch hold of at first, or to hold Maa’s hand and tread slowly with a bagfull of sweaters, camera, food for cookie and my own layers of woollens to manage. I decided to go back and forth and while I was scolding Cookie at the top of my voice for gliding down the lane, I just realized Maa was scolding me to choose a hotel with an extra steep climb as Maa was worried about the ascent back to the Hotel. Life is all but a vicious cycle!!

Darj after a decade

The only distinct change now in Darj, was that a few parts of the roads were in a pitiable state. There was no safety measures, labourers were constructing new roads almost manually with no mechanical support. The beautiful landscapes of Darjeeling framed with pine trees were now clouded with thick black smoke bellowing out in a tryst to make fresh new asphalt roads. Wooden logs gathered in huge quantities and piled next to trees marked reserved with red and white paint, only to be burnt mercilessly to make way for the new roads to heaven!! A necessary evil, is there no other way to create new and safer roads which would weigh a little lighter on nature? Darjeeling, the quaint little hill station in the east is no more a tourist’s delight as the roads were cramped with a series of big cars ferrying passengers, tourists thronged the roads and were walking in hordes as if there was some kind of celebration in the hills, there were garbage and muck lying at almost every corner of the road. Little restaurants and shops with necessities were making brisk business. Little did it resemble a hill station with innocent and simple people with smiles on their lips and a helpful hand. My heart missed a beat when I saw the Old Post office building which has been done in a very old English stule with open bricks and mortar. Perhaps the only structure that I remembered and is still unchanged when me and Anindya stayed here for a night a decade back on our way to Kalimpong. The race which has won the “survival of the fittest” tag, the omnipresent Marwaris are to be found all over Darj flourishing with their business acumen teaching the locals a few thing or two about entrepreneurship . Garments, vegetarian restaurants, tea boutiques, novelty shops, sweet meat shops, you name it and you will find a Marwari with a huge belly bossing around his employees behind the cash counter. Where are the localites? What do they do for a living? Do the local men only drive cars and work as employees at shops in their own land and be happy with the little that they earn, drink and be merry and return back home with a soulful song to have dinner and call it a successful day? The only silver lining to the roads were heaps of silvery white snow piled at different places. Cookie saw heaps of snow for the first time in his life and ran towards it to make a snow man with a carrot nose. I had to snatch both him and his idea of building a snowman as the roads were piled with garbage and sewage and thick black water peeping and dripping from open drains. I was quite embarrassed to showcase this state of Darjeeling to Maa, as she had high expectations from this queen of the mountains. Slowly as we were walking on the road, crossing a dark and dingy bridge beside which was one of the oldest structure of Darjeeling with a huge clock hanging on it’s wall which was dysfunctional and was narrating the sorry state of the once beautiful hill station. A sudden power cut left us stranded on the road for a while as the entire area went pitch dark and we did not know if there was a muddy puddle ahead or a stair. All three of us huddled together and held our hands and stuck to each other for a while. The locals continued walking confidently even in the dark, god only save them from a fall. With the power back, we decided to just walk around the adjoining area and skipped the Mall road. We took the extremely narrow stairs which led us to the road below the bridge which seemed a little clean and a few decent shops. The stairs were so narrow, that I couldn’t place a single feet properly. Maa was again trying her left and right twists to avoid a fall and Cookie as usual wanted to take the flight alone leaving my hands in a jerk. I was again in a difficult situation, whether to accompany Maa, hld her hands and get her carefully down the flight of stairs or to chase Cookie and pounce on him to stop him from having a bad fall in the dimly lit streets. Nathmulls the tea boutique standed a testimony to time with it’s green and yellow banner with several new shops and establishments around. We zoomed into a snack shop selling Marwari sweets and savouries and bought a few of the delicacies to carry back home. We sipped on a cuppa exquisite Darj tea while cookie chose to have a plate of guess what? French fries for the Nth time during the day. We decided to return back to the hotel as it was almost 9pm and most of the shops were closing down and the roads were getting deserted. Cookie started peeling out his layers and so did we as we realised that now getting uphill will be a task that needs to be accomplished. Wading through pot holes, muck and muddy puddle we reached the lane leading to our hotel. Little did we realise that the little road which looked steep would actually be so cumbersome. Just a few steps and I was panting for breath already. With all the bags, packets, bottled water and camera, Cookie refused to walk the steep lane and ordered me to pick him up. I was in a fix, it was an impossible task to carry cookie on my lap as I myself couldn’t walk a few steps without huffing and puffing. Maa was in an extremely pitiable state and completely out of breath, I did n’t know how to help her scale the tiny little hill. We decided to walk 5 steps and rest for a minute and then repeat till we reach the hotel entrance. Our spirits were dampened when we saw a sixty plus elderly lady carry a filled LPG cylinder on her head and confidently walk straight uphill on the steep road towards the hotel and further up. This little incident helped Maa not to stop any further and walk straight till she reached the hotel. I was pleading Maa to halt as usual as she was already out of breath and might have difficulty in breathing once we reach up. Me and Cookie could not match up with Maa’s pace as she was walking condidently though with great difficulty. I could hear Maa asking me not to stop and do it at one go. I started doubting my fitness level. Was it exhaustion of the day, strength of one’s mind or sheer lack of oxygen? Maa reached first post which cookie greeted me to the sight of him evacuating his urinary bladder and watering the yellow flowering plants at the entrance of the hotel. I pretended to disown him for a while and started taking the stairs to the lobby. Though I was walking but my legs were frozen at the same place. Maa and Cookie already entered the lobby while I was still at the stairs with numb legs and heavy lungs which refused to move a single inch and thus I was pretending to appreciate the scenic view for a while. Too embarrassed to see eye to eye with Maa and cookie who were waiting for me in the lobby and enquiring about the itinerary for the next day, I picked the keys and entered the room in full speed.

We ordered for a soulful piping hot dinner and fell asleep even before the food could reach our stomach. Good night and good dreams as tomorrow is going to be a better day with a bright new sunshine and new places to be conquered.

Two leaves and a bud

At Darjeeling and not exploring a Tea garden? That is sin. Our driver took us to some remote tea gardens which had almost no tourist and were beautifully landscaped and manicured gardens. A shop or two within the garden estate were selling various blends of orange pekoe, CTC and green leaf at premium prices. The Happy Valley Tea Estate literally made us happy with the lush greenery around that we couldn’t stop admiring the beauty of the gardens on the lap of the mountain. An occassional whiff of clouds touching us with it’s humid feel and making us realize that we are at a place which is pure and divine. While the ambience gets a little dark and grey for a second while the thick mossy aroma of the clouds make a take a deeper breath. Nature’s blessings in various forms. Maa plucked two leaves and a bud from one of the garden to experience the feel of plucking tea leaves. I could sense Maa was deciding to sun-dry the tea leaves at home and try making a few cuppa of  tea processed in her terrace and kitchen. The tea connossiuer that Maa is, I often tell Maa that as kids are often lured with candies and kidnapped, so can Maa be lured with cups of tea at any time of the day. After visiting quite a few gardens and boutiques we stacked our bags with a half yearly supply of tea of different variety. A few to be gifted and a few for our own use. The taught us how to smell the tea leaves while they brewed the leaves with milk and without milk to offer us samples of their home grown tea. Take a handful of dried and processed tea leaves close your fist and make a small opening only to put in some hot vapour from your mouth once or twice and open your fist a little to smell the mild mossy aroma of their hard work. While we were trying to perfect the art of smelling the aroma of various tea leaves, cookie too decided to lay his hands on this newly learnt art and though that the crunchy leaves are to be chewed post smelling. The motherly instinct didn’t stop him from chewing thinking if at all these raw tea leaves can help him build his appetite. With disgust he spit it off and was wondering whether we too were munching on tea leaves…After a long sampling of teas we were happy with our buy and made a mental list of people whom we had to gift tea as souvenirs from Darj. On our way back to Bagdogra, our driver took a short cut and that is when I saw the factories and manufacturing units of Lipton, Carlton and Makaibari. All pretty old institutions with huge and sprawling campuses dedicatedly process tea for the world to savour.

Nature at it’s best

We headed towards the much awaited Padmaja Naidu Himalayan Zoological Park, a 67 acre zoo at an altitude of 7000 ft above sea level, the only zoo in the country at this height. The reason for a visit to any zoo is always because of the kid at home, but Cookie was least interested and bothered about the animals and snatched my camera time and again to capture frames of his likes. I was more than happy to hand over my camera to him for he can hone a skill at an early age. But my reason for discontent was the camera was bigger than his head, he would sling the camera around his neck, but carry it in his hand like a pro and run aimlessly towards the short wall of the zoo and point towards the gorge with hands wide open and shoot the mountains. I was worried about both the camera and cookie while Maa was shouting her guts out of fury at the child thinking that the zoo was full of people who would try and lift Cookie with the camera and elope. Neither Maa, nor Cookie were interested in animals. Maa was scanning every step of cookie while he was having a ball of a time with the camera and an occasional chase with me trying to save him and the camera. While I was trying to release Maa’s stress by narrating the know how’s of the Zoo and how clean a zoo it was at this height along the Himalayas. Maa was tired of the narration and the chase and decided to stop over at the coffee shop for a refreshing cup. I took this opportunity and almost tied Cookie to a chair in the coffee shop put a packet of wafers inbetween his two wiry legs and almost wacked the camera for my chance with the shoot. The little devil’s spirit is never dampened especially when iam in to some endeavour. He followed me till the lion’s cage and was least scared or bothered about the roaring lion which was marching past the net of the cage in an extremely aggressive body language. I could see Maa’s x-ray vision following me and Cookie from the window of the the Coffee shop till the very end of the zoo. I tried showing Cookie different animals that he only saw pictures of in books, the the snow leopard, the clouded leopard, the white leopard, jaguar, the Royal Bengal tiger etc. But who cares when he could shoot all with his black, bigger than his torso Nikon. A few on lookers were laughing away to glory looking at Cookie’s confidence in shooting animals with a body language of a proficient wild life photographer. A pocket size wonder he is indeed !! amazed at his ability to put me in distress by his antics always. I knew by now Maa must be crazily worrying that her daughter and grandson did not end up in the jaws of the animals bound inside the cages. I hurriedly ran towards Maa inside the coffee shop with Cookie on my toes only to find her

 Tales of Tibetans and locals

During most of my travels to the hills, I have either planned or was destined to encounter the Tibetans with their happy and friendly smiles. This self-sufficient, peace loving community have made Darjeeling their abode for several years since their escape from their mother land. Everytime I interact or face a tTibetan, it reminds me of the horror and the pain that every Tibetan had to go through to flee their birth place. They are so rich in their culture and heritage, where ever they reside, they make it a point to leave a mark with their rich art and craft, culinary skills, literary proficiency, sports and ever growing music and dance. The TIPA at Dharamshala has carved a name for itself and has been spreading the word of peace and culture through it’s various performance domestically and internationally. One fine afternoon, while Maa was sitting next to the woodden window side of our hotel room and gazing at the colourful Tibetan flags used to ward off evil against the backdrop of the mighty Himalayas and Cookie on his siesta, I excused myself for a short walk down the lane with my camera as a companion. I felt like a free bird for a couple of hours, I was one with myself and nature. It was a foggy afternoon with youngsters returning from college, children returning home with their parents, while an elderly couple were collecting small blocks of wood to arrange for their evening ritual. Neighbourhood women of different age group sat around the fire place to exchange notes on the talk of the town while drying their hair or chopping vegetables for their dinner. One thing common in all the locals was an innocent smile, pinkish red cheeks, a shy body language and an open heart. The only difference between an elderly person and a not so old person were several deep lines of wrinkles which grew in numbers while trying to talk or smile. While I was capturing most of the frames of their daily lives while chatting with them, I got to learn how simple their lives were. They still believe in the institution of a huge family with two to three generations living in the same home though I could also sense that the current political situation leading to lesser jobs and money and smaller houses with poor infrastructure were worrying them. The locals were pretty dissatisfied with the huge number of tourists thronging Darjeeling and polluting the environment. I walk further down Gandhi road and there it was, The Himalayan Tibet Museum. Without a second though I bought a ticket and entered the museum as a friendly Tibetan girl took me inside the building. The first floor of the building taught Tibetan language in various formats to both Tibetans and foreigners while the ground floor served as a newly opened museum showcasing Tibetan art and culture and selling various merchandise. My mind was refreshed seeing the colourful  displays of Tibet’s history, their religious inclination towards Buddhism, their blind faith and trust on the Dalai Lama, the living God, their rich and diverse culture. How hard working could a community be? Coming from a land of yaks and snow mountains, they have survived the heat of the plains and the hills equally well. I pick up a few miniature colourful flags of Om Mani Padme Hum, which I was searching for long along with a few incense and some hand-made pouches and sketches. How I wish I could buy most of the merchandise and help the Tibetan’s in their walk to freedom. While an hour’s stay at the little museum, I was the only tourist for the day. The lady at the counter caught my fancy and we picked up a really interesting conversation ranging from Buddhism to life in Darjeeling; Tibet and the art of living in today’s world. She seemed to be very well versed and proficient with the political affairs in different countries, including her’s.

  My brief visit at the Tibetan Museum helped me realize that the second resort where we are put up is also owned by a Tibetan couple. “Hawk’s Nest” is ver delicately nestled at the footstep of the Himalayas with a grand view of Darjeeling guarded by the ever magnificient Himalayas. Norbu and his wife both in their fifties own and take care of their property with their own hands. No wonder it has so much warmth and hospitality. The resort with close to 8 rooms reeks of a Tibetan home with a lot of personalisation and attention to details. Tibetans believe in living life king size. Perhaps we had the best room in the resort with the best possible view of the town. Hawk’s nest had a little portico with pot full of orchids and lillies of different colour. Swings of different shapes and sizes adorned the little garden which offered an unhindered view of the town and the mountains. While the colourful flowers greeted us to the mini lobby decked with flowers and a young girl with an equally bright and coy smile. The face of the young girl at the desk was surrounded by lovely flowers arranged all over the table and the counter. Thus she herself looked like a bright flower with some tiny speck of pink lips and red cheeks and two tiny black dots as eyes. She showed us our room and ensured till the last minute that we found comfort in that two roomed home. Both the rooms has victorian fire places with huge wooden bay windows. It was a woodden bunglow with age old teak adorning from the roof to the floor. Thick teak wood furniture with a british finish were laid all over the rooms. One could just sit by the window side and spend the entire day enjoying the scenic beauty of nature, the changing colour of the sky and the mountain, the endlessly fluttering colourful Buddhist flags. They had a tastefully done kitchen and dining hall which served fresh out of the oven home made rotis, rice, ghar ki daal and a basic aloo and paneer ki sabzi served steamingly hot in humble crockery, food tasted like home, just that this was a home far away from my home. The taste of organic vegetables cooked fresh by a humble cook lingered long in my mouth and mind. The cook too learnt the art of making desi French fries which was a hybrid of the aloo bhaja and the American crispy frenched potato to appease Cookie’s taste buds. The menu for the day was set before hand and had very little choices as most of the residents of the resort preferred eating out while they stayed outdoors most of the time. I noticed Maa too was enjoying the basic cuisine and was drawing comparison so as to how we too cook the same stuff at home. To my utter surprise, our next door neighbours at the resort were known residents, who too stay at the same apartment and we had built quite a rapport during our Durga Puja Fashion Show rehearsal at Hiland park. Partha da was travelling with his pretty wife and daughter and they had just returned from Delo after a brief stay at Kalimpong. As night was setting, the curtains had to be pulled and the window closed as there was nothing much on offer now. On call a friendly staff came to re-fill the coal and wood and light the fire at the fireplace. Yet another struggle to hold Cookie so that he doesn’t go close to the fire place and start digging the wood. Cookie was exchanging his stare between his toys and the fire place. Even before he could execute his brilliant idea I switched on his favourite epic drama on television, Doraemon and his sordid saga with Nobita. Momentarily cookie’s attention was on the idiot box while the wood started crackling and drew his attention again. Maa, unable to handle the stress of Cookie inching towards the fireplace every minute, decided to pour a few glasses of water on the amber inferno which was at it’s peak and keep the child safe. Now neither was there fire nor the risk of Cookie attempting to toss his toys on the fire. Cookie was surprised as to how a few glasses of water could stop the fire. Thus started a new set of experiment, he filled all the glasses, his water bottle and started pouring water by gallons on the fire place. To prevent him and the resort from further damage, I dragged him to the bedroom which was by then as warm and cosy as a cocoon and put him to sleep under layers of quilt. While I was reading out stories from The jungle Book and The Lion King, his silence gave me an impression that he was fast asleep. But there he was playing with the wings of a moth as he thought that it was the wings of a brown butterfly which met with an unfortunate accident. I assured that if he kept the wings undisturbed, early in the morning the moth would get new wings and fly to a new destination. Maa joined us soon post her rituals of having medicines and lotions. Maa was quite unwell during our Darjeeling trip and I was almost on the verge of cancelling our trip. But Maa decided that she would battle it out and manage to travel and enjoy our trip to the Hill station of te east inspite of a painful Herpes infection which had her down just a week back. I was amazed at Maa’s tenacity to endure pain and then enjoy every moment with us during our trip. Mrs. Norbu diligently enquired us about our choice of food for our next meal, ensured that the bed and bathroom were clean and comfortable. I wondered from where did this elderly lady gather all her strength and stamina. She was omnipresent in supervising and at times even executing almost all the duties at the resort. Be it managing accounts at the resort, keeping a tab on all the guests who were in and out of the resort, menu at the kitchen, tending to the manicured garden and attending to the laundry at the resort which is quite a task in hilly areas. I always found her climbing up and down the stairs of the resort to access various palces of this amazing resort. We spent most of the post lunch hours at the artistically done up library which was more of a huge balcony surrounded with glass on all the 3 sides with an amazing collection of books, magazines and paintings. One could actually lounge around for hours on the comfortable seating arrangements and surf through the collection. The library was just next door to our room, thus I spent quite a few solitary moments in the library leafing over magazines while Cookie was in and out of the library with his mischievous antics. Maa found a comfortable corner in the library too and made herself at ease with the books while the glass windows offered sufficient light.

Peace pagoda

The Peace pagoda in Darjeeling is quite famous, as almost every tourist coming to the hills makes it a point to pay a visit at the Peace pagoda. This little Japanese temple believing in Nippon Buddhism is quite an interesting place. The small wooden stairs leads you to the first floor with a huge structure of a bronze Buddha decked with colourful lights, flowers, candles and various offering, Maa and I were very excited to see the chant, ”Nam Myoho Renge Kyo” written there at various places. We being practitioners of the the Nichiren daishonin’s Buddhism, we too chant the same sutra. While we were taking rounds of the huge white globe at the peace pagoda, our visit coincided with their evening prayers. I could see five ardent Japanese devotees beating the gong and chanting the sutra in rhythm walking towards the peace pagoda. We were very astonished to see that during their walk from the japanese temple to the pagoda, they picked up every little thing that caught their eyes. A pack of used packet of chips, a few dried leaves and cones from the huge pine trees, dried flowers and every little thing. The campus was immaculately clean. They opened their slippers and also kept the slippers and shoes of tourists in proper place and direction while chanting their sutras parallely. They took a round of the white globe, bowed their head and went back to the temple to resume their ritual. It was a divine feeling indeed, filled our hearts with a lot of positivity and vibrance.

The Mall

Every hill station has a mall and they say if you haven’t met friends or neighbours for long, there are chances that you would catch up with them at the Darjeeling mall.  The inhouse driver dropped us till the mall. While we walked the stretch, I noticed the ever famous keventer’s, thus without a hitch we entered keventer’s for a frothy cup of filtered coffee served in basic brown cups and Cookie maintained his standard by ordering French fries of a different hue. This tiny little triangular coffee shop was abuzz with tourists and locals. A huge group from the northern part of the country were having fun and frolic with their friends and children and almost occupied all the tables and chairs laid out in the little terrace. Children were running around with balloons, while the mothers were discussing at which angle Ranbir Kapoor and Ilena D’cruz were shot for Barfi at Keventer’s. After a refreshing cuppa we resumed our walk towards the mall which now was very colourful and lively with shops and establishments. Dominoe’s and Pizza Hut were doing brisk business though the old timers like Glenary’s was still live and ticking with their age old cookies, biscuits, rum balls and liquer chocolates. Glenary’s with it’s rustic white and red interiors has ramped up with time, thus could survive the competition with the most wanted brands of the youth. I also saw the huge shop of Das strudio which reminded me of getting our Kalimpong reel printed while our way back to Kolkata a decade back. The shop stands testimony to time. Das Studio is one of the oldest studio of the east which has captured rare frames from the Raj era to visits of several Hollywood stars and ofcourse a panaromic shot of the sunrise at Kanchendzonga. Hundreds of people were walking cheerfully towards the mall looking at times towards their left and their right in astonishment as if it was time for a first day first show for a typical Bollywood release. I was just wondering is there no other place to be in the evening except the mall? Well even before we reached the Mall which was a little uphill, I had to bribe Cookie with a yellow car, plastic fan, a drawing book, a bike and a few chocolates so that I didn’t have to carry him on my back. The child was still unhappy as he did not get a red remote control car as promised and threw tantrums and threatened to skip his dinner. At last we reached the Mall, the most happening place in the town where vehicles and two wheelers are prohibited and every person was scrutinized with a heavy security system. A huge LCD screen displayed the Nat Geo channel showing different breeds of chimpanzees. Our one got too excited looking at giant images of Chimpanzees and kept glued to the screen for a while which again gave us an opportunity to sip on to some road side green tea. Men and women vendors roamed around the mall with cans of tea and coffee to offer some relief in the cold and breezy evening. Tourists of all shapes and sizes were all silently enjoying their trip to the mall. All the benches were occupied and there was hardly any action on the podium which was made for some special occasion. We walked down the adjoining local market and got a wrist band custom made for Cookie with his name weaved in wool. The makeshift shops sold only woollens at a very reasonable price. Shawls, coats, sweaters, jackets, leggings, monkey caps and more, they were all selling like hot cakes. We did a quick round of the market and went back to the city centre to have a hearty Chinese dinner at the Lunar mall. Though expensive, but by far the best restaurant in Darjeeling serving an array of cuisine presented neatly on one’s plate. The interioirs were as good as the service offered by the staff. Cookie as always, ordered for another plate of French fries(this was his 3^rd ortion of French fries for the day) while me and Maa devoured some heavy starters over a cup of exotic Orange Pekoe. Our friendly and responsible driver was eagerly waiting to ferry us back to our resort and call it a day.

Sunrise at Tiger hill

Well, the panoramic view of sunrise at the Tiger Hill never happened because of several voluntary and involuntary reasons. Our Gorkha driver who was booked for a memorable sunrise at dawn called us the previous night to say that his 4X4 broke down and had to spend a couple of days getting it streamlined. Maa was the happiest person to get the news as she was quite concerned from the beginning when she got to know that we had to start at 4am and travel for an hour towards Tiger Hill for the sunrise. Maa was concerned about the drive which involved hairpin bends amidst dense fog engulfed roads. So that was the beginning and end of sunrise at Tiger Hills. Thus all the pictures of sunrise at The Tiger Hills are restricted to the pictures which I get to see in many a travel magazine and on social sites.