Idea Log 25112011

Fragrant hills

by Chitralekha Basu

This is Kiran Desai country. Early on a wintry morning in Kalimpong, if you manage to drag yourself out from under layers of duvets, blankets, and quilts and stand beside the bay window (most hotels, either refurbished old-style colonial bungalows, or modelled on them, have a room with a view), you would get a feel of what Desai meant when she described the Himalayan range as bathed in “pornographic pink”. The sprinkling of fuchsia on the contours of the mighty Kanchendzonga at daybreak might well make a silver citizen feel like a young colt, eager to explore what lies beyond the next range.

Although no travel agent seems to have thought of starting an Inheritance of Loss-inspired theme tour across Kalimpong yet, you could customise your own itinerary around Desai’s Booker-winning project. The English cottage with an unkempt garden where the Afghan princesses who came holidaying got stuck forever when their father went back home to find that he had been dethroned is easy to locate at a turning, as you go up East Main Road. And if you are looking for relics from insurgency-induced skirmishes in the 1980s, walk down Atisha Road to stop at the now-defunct art school established by Rathindranath, the elder son of Rabindranath Tagore>> continue reading

Kalimpong Calling

by Jayaditya Gupta

The fun begins with the drive up from the plains; much of the journey is alongside the Teesta. Vast and flat on first sighting, it turns fast and furious as it skirts the mountains; the actual drive uphill—commencing from the Teesta bridge, where you can halt for the first of many momos—is only a dozen-odd kilometres but the river is a constant companion, just one wrong turn away on the twisting road. Eventually you reach Dambar Chowk; to your right, the police station and the road leading uptown; to your left, downtown Kalimpong, the market, haat et al.

We always took a right turn, and within minutes we’d be home. It would be mid-morning, we’d be ravenous and the smell of lunch cooking would drive us mad. First, though, we had to go through our rituals; kids having a bath, elders inspecting the garden or the house, the housekeeper updating us on the status of her family. Finally, lunch: Rice, dal, a good curry or fried meat, vegetables. For pudding, fruit from the garden, stewed, with cream. Easy to see what we focussed on. Lunch over, it was time to play. My best friend was Padam, the sweeper’s son; he would teach me the latest Hindi film songs, I’d teach him cricket. We were out till dark, unfettered by the demands of urban society, unburdened by holiday homework.

Turn left from Dambar Chowk and you hit the crowds. Himalayan Stores, where Noni and Lola would buy their daily newspapers; the Apollo (Deaf) Tailors; Gompus, where Sai and Gyan ate and drank when not feasting on new love. Take the road up, to your left is the church and college (from where a teacher was dragged out and beheaded during the agitation); opposite, Kashi Nath the booksellers, still stocking the magazines and comics you don’t find in urban bookstores; further up, Lark’s the provision store, which saw a run on its stocks ahead of any bandh, the silversmith (haggling is a must), and on past the cinema, the Tibetan shops, through 10th mile (10 miles from Teesta) and eventually out of town, though a fork delivers you to Dr Graham’s Homes.

It wasn’t all sweetness and light. It was my misfortune to be the only exception to a family of very enthusiastic walkers. Our friends’ houses were scattered around town, and the only way of getting there was walking. One such walk was the Military Round, the “long cut” to town: Uphill for what seemed like an eternity to the military camp, passing the road where live the Afghan princesses and which to Bonami, home to the aunt of the BBC’s Nisha Pillai (not Mon Ami, home to Lola, mother of BBC anchor Piyali Banerjee), then cut across the ridge, past the golf course and the Metal Box guest house (Ringkingpong Farm), where the watchman breakfasted on a fried egg each day, past the tourist lodge where I’d yearn for a halt and maybe a plate of sandwiches, past the house where Tagore stayed, then a sudden steep descent into town. Longer walks, to Father Booty’s Swiss Dairy; steeper climbs, such as the one to Copston, where we used to stay earlier.

Ghosts! They are everywhere, as in any hill town> continue reading 'Kalimpong Calling'

Kalimpong in 50s- Life was Like that

by Col (Retd) Mani K Gahatraj

The wheel of time moves slowly but surely churning events and people across the labyrinth of past, present and future. Ever since the begning of time itself, as minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years and centuries roll on and move continuously, towards infinity, beyond the barriers of space and time, the past keeps moving away further and further, getting dimmer and dimmer from the rusty and faded memories of humans; when finally a point is reached when zillions of single events that would have occurred in some person’s life, alive and kicking at a time and place, would be memories or stories years later, albeit in distorted version. These memories perhaps blink for one last time in the rusty and fading grey cells of old and infirm before it is consigned into the dustbin of life when the life itself is extinguished forever. However, chronicles of events written in the begning of known and unknown civilizations have stayed on defying the vagaries of change and have lived to tell its tale to a future generation unknown and unconceived >> continue reading

A GLIMPSE OF ANOTHER WORLD

by F. BAILEY VANDERHOEF, JR.

There I stood looking out of the window of one of the upper rooms of a house in Kalimpong, a small border town in Northern Bengal. How I came there must wait, for it is more important that I explain why. Perhaps, if I just describe what I saw through that window, it will in some measure explain what had drawn me half way around the world, for to me there were many things beckoning: mystery, beauty, adventure; but there is no point in just saying so. I must describe it all.

I remember it was a large window, running all across one end of the room, and before this window stood a table bearing a shallow bowl of spring flowers. The thin curtains stirred in the fresh night air and billowed inwards. Outside, the world was flooded with moonlight. Twinkling and immeasurably high and calm against the stars was the white peak of Kangchenjunga, between withdrawn ghostly clouds. Beside me, the crystal pennants of a candlestick stirred in the breeze and tinkled against each other, as though to give voice to the cold vision of the snows. Behind that snowy rampart I knew was Tibet, strange and dark with its veil of mystery stretching far into the north across barren plateau and guardian mountains. It seemed the greatest human presumption to think of venturing beyond those snows>> continue reading

Kalimpong, India