Dear All,
Hi,
I just got back from a hectic but wonderful holiday in Darjeeling.
Fortunately I will not bore you with my personal adventures suffice it to say that I have come back with what Ms. Streisand once called “misty water coloured memories”.
The impossibly green and lush hillside, crisp fresh pine scented air, walking along narrow lanes enveloped in layers of mist…. I’ll just post the amateur pics taken during the trip for you.
On the way up the hills
However 3 things stood out from this trip that I am going to share with you.
1) Bang in the middle of the bazaar, besides one of the busiest roads in Darjeeling is a makeshift stand where a group of Lepchas (an ethnic community originating in northern Sikkim) are staging a protest against a huge hydro-project that is being built in neighbouring Sikkim on sacred Lepcha land. The protest was in the form of a relay hunger strike where one group would fast for 24 hours and be replaced by another group of volunteers the next morning. I don’t know about you but the whole "relay" thing rather defeats the whole purpose of the fast for me but anyway moving on….
It had been going on for 55 days (as of 24th Oct) and maybe it was the fact that the people on “fast” were chirpy, alert and chatty or that they did not look tired or hungry but anyway the whole protest was not really attracting any attention or sympathy from the local people in Darjeeling.
This is sad but the whole absurdity of it became clear only in the evening.
After 7pm once the shops have downed their shutters, the deserted road around the bazaar comes alive in a wonderful example of local economic endeavor.
Dozens of small carts open shop as mini-mobile-fast-food-stalls selling hot steaming egg rolls and spicy chilly sauce covered noodles. Throngs of locals gather in the cold with their woollies and fleece jackets sharing the day's news and gossip in misty breaths that meld together to form a familiar atmosphere which seems to be so inherent to hill stations.
However the funny thing was that one of these stalls happened to be parked right beside the fasting Lepchas
The 'Fasting' Protesters.....
....and the fast food near by
What was even more astonishing was that the volunteers inside didn’t seem to mind or be affected by the fragrant aromas floating about.
I don’t claim to be in possession of great will-power myself but I know that people who are really fasting would be traumatized by the temptation/distraction of hot food so close by.
In such a case can the locals be blamed for not taking them seriously.
When the stomach is full, it is easy to talk of fasting.
Saint Jerome (374 AD - 419 AD),
2) Before I narrate the second story let me give you a brief background. Tashi is a good friend of my sister and very intelligent too (I don’t know why I mentioned both in the same sentence). She is very outspoken, moral and has just passed the magistrate exams and will be taking the oath of a Judge soon (Lord bless the convicts who come to her court). Her boyfriend Wangchuck (a wonderfully polite and cultured person as only an alum of my Alma Mater can be) has a 15 year old boy who works in one of his shops. The boy, Sam-phel (don’t ask me for the origin or meaning of the name) has been with the family for decades (which in his case is almost his entire life) and is almost like a member of the family. Hailing from an impoverished family from the remote hills of Nepal he never had any formal education. He picked up bits of spoken English from the tourists and customers who frequent the shop and bits from Wangchuck.
However in the last year Tashi has taken to tutoring him for 2 hours every morning. She is doing a great job but however this is where I differ with her. She teaches him the full school curriculum while I felt that she should concentrate on lessons that he would be able to use in practical life. Since he only has 2 hours a day and just a couple of months before she goes off on her judicial duties, I felt it was a waste of valuable time to dwell on topics like ‘photosynthesis’ or ‘columbus clouds’ and the ‘spanish inquisition’ . Anyway that’s not the point of the story. The “point” is that Sam-phel speaks English better than many others who have been blessed with English medium education. I know countless others his age who cant speak English half as clearly as he can. He has acquired not just fluency in language and grammar but also diction and pronunciation.
As fond as I am Tashi and as tremendous a job as she has done, the final credit can only go to the boy. He is a true example of what determination and effort can accomplish.
If any of you get a chance to go to Darjeeling, do visit Fancy Market Shopping Arcade, go to the first floor and ask for Sam-phel (everyone knows him there). You will be in the presence of a true achiever.
I don't measure a Person by his achievement but by his potential.
Shirley Chisholm (1924 - 2005)
3) In Delhi a day before my flight to Abu Dhabi, I was invited to dinner by a friend. On the way there while I was stuck in Delhi’s famous traffic jam, a brand new Mercedes Benz drove up alongside. As the cars inched forward I could see a young boy about 18 in the back seat chatting animatedly on his mobile. After about 15 minutes in the busy crawling traffic, the boy suddenly got out and walked to the pavement on the side and began to pee. The driver stopped the car in the middle of the road while a man dressed in a safari suit and who I presume was a body guard stepped out to hold up the traffic till the boy finished relieving himself. After what seemed like an eternity he sauntered back to his car and arrogantly spat on the road before getting back into his car.
Faced with such blatant disregard for law and for others, it is miraculous that more Jessica Lal’s aren’t being shot by spoilt little rich kids.
Conscience is the inner voice that warns us somebody may be looking.
H. L. Mencken (1880 - 1956)
My friends have constantly accused my blogs of being too filmy and that too Bollywoodish so no lengthy discourses here. Just try and watch Jab We Met for 2 wonderful sweet innocent hours.
Ciao till next Time
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