Just a Month

As the thunder clang outside, and the rain fell hard against the aluminium--I spelled it right in the Indian-English sense--roof of my guesthouse, I finished reading my book in the hillside city of Darjeeling, slightly stupefied by the fog, and aloof as a result of too much sleep. My bed, a three inch thick mattress (if you could ever call it that), was just comfortable enough of a place for me to sleep a little too long today, and I couldn't think of anything better to do than read. In fact, it's all I wanted to do after the whirlwind that has been my time in India... From Delhi to Jodhpur, from Jodhpur to Jaisalmer, Jaisalmer to Jaipur, and off to Kolkata via a plane from Jaipur, just before the bicycle bombings that rocked the city. All the movement (not just my own) can, after all, make a guy pretty sleepy.

I arrived in the city (I'm always inclined to say town when somewhere is located in the middle of nowhere with nothing around it. However, aside from some of the villages that dot the countryside of India, there is seemingly nothing else but a city. A giant ant farm of individuals weaving in and out, ducking and dodging, gliding and maneuvering, moving their respective grains of sand as they carve out the paths of their every day lives... Absolute insanity, inside of a neatly kept box. I swear.) of Siliguri, at the New Jalpaiguri train station, where I was set to meet my friend Ankit's cousin Ayush, who would take me to their family home where I could shower and eat breakfast. This was before, of course, I would be taken by a private driver to the Orange Valley Tea Garden on the outskirts of Darjeeling. Posh living, I know. It's a very different side of India than what I had really come to know in my initial days, and something that I struggled to get used to, mostly as a result of the way I've lived for the last seven months. The struggle, as all great ones are, was internal, which meant that I could pretty much just roll with it on the outside while the battle was waged within. Besides, it did offer me an opportunity for a type of comparative analysis otherwise unavailable to me without the generosity and overwhelming hospitality of the Chandak family. But I digress...

I don't know if there is a more beautiful way to experience the trip from Siliguri--situated at the base of the rolling Shiwalik hills that are home to the many tea plantations--to Darjeeling than by car. One can take a ride on the Toy Train, but six hours of slow, methodical movement pales in comparison to the swiftness and privacy of a car after a good ten hour train ride. Plus, you can stop for chai (who cares about the environment right? I kid... though, the train is probably worse...). After a swift hour and a half, I descended upon the glorious Orange Valley Tea Garden, where approximately 600 Nepalese immigrants were gearing up to pick tea leaves and the views--my gawd--are absolutely breathtaking.


The town of Darjeeling...


The hill that I slid down...

My time at the OVTG, however, was short lived. Aside from a couple of lunches, and a couple of walks down the strikingly steep slopes, I was only able to spend a few hours gawking at the hillside. I made the mistake of agreeing to go with these two young financial auditors to Mirik--another hillside town--for an hour that turned into four. On the bright side, I was regaled with stories of murder threats from businesses who had fudged numbers and risked being turned in (think, cut in two and thrown in a river). All in all, it was interesting and a wonderful opportunity to do something that I had really wanted to do for a long time. There really isn't any way to describe waking up at 4am and walking through the hillside while being stared at by some Nepalese tea leaf pickers who burst out in laughter every time you slip down the steep, wet hills...

Now, I'm done with my book, and am looking for another to help me slowly and peacefully live out my final days in India--a decision made after numerous struggles to obtain a visa to Bangladesh, which is another story in itself--before an adventure to Hong Kong via Bangkok. I have one month left before I come home. It should be a good one.


And the sun sets on my time in India... A place I will surely visit again...