Home BLOGS Part 2

OF SCHOOLS, MISTS, FILMS & HOME

Dear All,

As promised here is a second collection of mini-blogs about Darjeeling.

Please do write in to tell me your thoughts. Any thoughts.

Enjoy

Luv

Vish

BETHANY

As nursery/primary schools go, there is nothing in Darj yet which can beat good ol’ Bethany.

Of late Himalayan Nursery and others have been giving it some stiff competition but frankly where Discipline (even for the poor teachers), Standard and Quality goes, there’s nothing that even comes close.

And yet it never seems to get the full credit it deserves. When schools in Darjeeling are talked about, it’s always NP, SP, Loreto &. MH (and in that order too).

If Wordsworth once claimed that the Child is the Father of Man, then Bethany is certainly the foundation on which many a Paulite, NorthPointer or Loreto-ite have built their individual structures of excellence.

And amidst the ever growing concrete jungle that is Darjeeling today, the school still stands proud and unchanging like a miracle of an oasis.

What a relief. What a bloody relief. And may it never change.

P.S. I am not writing this out of any bias. For the record, I did my pre-school in Miniland Nursery before joining NP.

DAS STUDIO.

I seriously doubt there is any one in Darjeeling who has not stood waiting at the counter in Das Studio. Waiting anxiously with that thin strip of paper/receipt in hand even as ‘daju’ would go into the backroom to bring out your envelope of photos.

As he came back you would look carefully at the size of the package in his hands. (ok you dirty minds, dont get ideas)

If it was bulging (sorry for the choice of words but do try and keep you thoughts clean) then you could be happy that of the 36 exposures, at least 30-32 had developed into photos. Never mind that many were blurred or than many had close-up’s of the startled photographer's face.

“Khai herau tah, kina click hudaina,”(let me see why its not clicking)- turn camera towards yourself and - “CLICK” the flash would go off followed by an exasperated “HAAETH-TERIKA”.

But they were all valid photos. At that time, anything that developed was considered valid.

“Amboo, sabbai chattees print aayo?” younger cousins would ask in shock & awe and a renewed respect of your photographic abilities.

However if the packet looked thinner than usual you could be sure that atleast 1/2 the film was wasted.

And the worst part was you never knew exactly why .

Was it because you hadn’t taken the picture well or was it because that smart-ass cousin had opened the back of the camera before the film had ‘rewinded’ fully or maybe, just maybe the dajus at Das just screwed up and blamed it on you. But you never knew. You didn’t have the choice of knowing. You just accepted what you got and yet strangely it seemed all the more interesting.

Then once you paid the amount you’d slide across the counter in order to let daju deal with the next customer. Remember you’d only slide across the counter to the corner, not leave.

You never left Das without going through the photos first.

You and everyone else who came with you (and some uncles/aunties who happened to be in Das at the time) would then huddle over heads and shoulders almost as if you were on some kind of discovery.

And you know what? It was a kind of discovery.

By virtue of the film having been loaded ages ago the final prints would always be a revelation.

Conversations at the counter would range from “haer katthi moti thiyo tyas bela” (look how fat she was in that photo) or “bechara ramro manche thiyo, chito maryo” (poor guy died so early) or “ha ha Samir lai bell-bottom ma herna” (look at Samir in those silly bell-bottom pants).

Births, Deaths and even Fashion changed between Shooting & Developing.

In today’s 12-megapixel-digital world such innocent wonders seem so far away.

Unless ofcourse, you visit DAS STUDIO.

The décor is the same, the huge pictures of mountains are the same, the ‘lab’ seems the same and even the daju’s are the same.

As my friend put it so well, “Maybe they are film not digital”.

Maybe....yeah, maybe.

PRESSURE COOKERS.

As I walked the streets of Darjeeling and visited friends and family, one of the most common sounds was the “hissss” of the pressure cooker.

The month before I left for my vacation to Darj, the washer on my pressure cooker went bust.
Not the big rubber one that goes round the lid but the more smaller one which is in the middle of the cover surrounded by a nut.

Anyway, after scouring almost every hardware store in Abu Dhabi for the same, I not only did not find a replacement but was instead given unasked for advice.

The Asian shopkeepers were invariable sympathetic and suggested I ask some relative from India to send one for me (imagine the courier cost).

Meanwhile the Arab (Middle-Eastern) shopkeepers were either confused at to what it was or their advice was simple. “Why don’t you just buy a new cooker?”

Maybe cooking with a pressure cooker and repairing things endlessly are both unique South-Asian traits. Or maybe i'm just a kanjoos. Between us.

THE WHAT?

English maybe the lingua franca and all that jazz but it is also wonderfully adaptive.

I doubt there is any other language which lends itself so easily to distortion.

Like the UP-Haryana belt which has numerous shops luring you with either “Child Beer” (under-age drinking?) or "Child Bear" (animal farm?) or the even more confusing "Chilled Bear" (poor cold animal?).

It is almost always hilarious and apart from the humour, I personally think that it all adds to the whole flavor of each place.

And Nepalis spelling in English can give the Indians a run for their money.

Whether its ads enticing you to eat some Bugger or Chinees food which promises Momos (dumplings) but also offers some Mom's on the menu.

However while these miss-spellings and odd phrases are funny in day to day use, it ceases to be funny in places where accuracy is paramount.

The doctors clinic, where misspellings can quite literally be a matter of your life and death is the last place where you’d expect this. Even if the printer did make a mistake you’d think the learned doctor would have noticed it.

At a clinic in Darj I saw the following sign.

Lord help anyone who has a foctus problem.

THE MALL

Darjeeling can be anything you want it to be. Cold, Romantic, Mysterious, Startling or all of the above. And sometimes at the same time.

Having eaten too many of the Keventer’s breakfasts I decided to go for an early morning walk around The Mall. If you approach it from the left side and go past Bhanu Bhawan, the moment you cross the Governor’s House is when the best part of the walk begins.

March still had the nip of winter and as the clouds began to rise from Lebong below, we were left walking, surrounded by a mist so thick it seemed like cotton candy.

In such an place the voice seems softer, the conversation more clandestine and your steps just that little more stealthy.

And as we walked, faces (both familiar and strange) would appear out of the mist for a few seconds of exchanged greetings or discreet nods before melting back into the fog behind us.

Is everyone generally polite in Darjeeling or do I just know more people here, I silently wondered.

As we approached the Mahakal Mandir area, a monkey emerged from the fog and ran across in front of us and almost as if nature was taking a cue from him, the wind shifted and the mist cleared for a moment.

Just for a moment, but in that brief moment Kanchenjunga appeared before us in all her majesty.

Clear, Proud and Magnificent.

And in that same moment Burj Khalifa suddenly seemed so small.

Jey Gara, Jaso Gara, Jata Sukai Laijao Malai....

Home is really where the heart is.

Till next time and more darjeeling memories.....