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.....

Home BLOGS

UPDATED





Nischal da has kindly sent me a pic of "Orient Restaurant" so you can all check out the over-spelling of the word.

See Below:






OF HOME 'MADE' STORIES and OTHER THINGS



Hi Guys,










I was recently in Darjeeling for a short 2 week vacation and on the suggestion of some friends i'm doing a series of short mini-blogs on things that are uniquely Darj.


Just a way to remember the lil things that make Darj home for so many of us.


Let me know your thoughts.


Luv

Vish

RAIN

Visits home always involves lots of aunts and cousins who either come visiting or invite you over for lunch or dinner.



During one such visit by an elderly aunt when she had retold almost 3 hours of old family stories my eyelids began to droop and before there could be some more family drama I stood and went to the window to gaze at the mountains. At that moment even the mountains seemed more interesting than my old aunt's even older stories.

This was when I first noticed a few stray drops of rain fall on the windowpane. Bored and desperate to break the seemingly unending flow of ancient stories, I turned to the group of relatives in the room and mentioned that it looked like it was beginning to rain.

That was all it took to transform my old frail aunt into an opera worthy performer.

Standing up and belying all traces of her age and health she bellowed:

“Pani Paryo. Luga Uttha.” (Its Raining. Pick-Up The Clothes)

With her voice still ringing in my ears, I could only stare; stunned at the volume she was able to produce from such a frail body.

This shock was made even more amazing by the fact that there weren’t any clothes to pick-up.


Or for the matter that this, wasn’t even her house in the first place.

The flavour of Darjeeling is in the rain. Definitely.

---------------------------*---------------------------

ORIENT. OR IS IT?

Everyone who’s grown up (or studied) in Darjeeling will know of the famous hangout:
Orient Restaurant.

Atleast the ones who were born before 1990.

Those innocent childhood days had no internet cafés to spend hours over nor Facebook friends to report mundane status updates to.

All we had were boyhood tales & hamjayega jokes. And they were usually told & retold over steaming plates of momos & thukpas which were washed down with Goldspot and Thums-Up and sometimes, maybe something a little stronger….lets just say something that required a little more brewing.




Maybe that was the reason that among parents and elders, visiting Orient didn’t have quite the same innocent distinction as maybe Penang’s or Benis café did.

So going into Orient was almost always done on the sly. And furthermore by virtue of being situated at a tri-junction of what is possibly some of the busiest streets in Darjeeling, entering Orient also had the added danger of being spotted by some relative or the other.


“Papa ko sathi, Gurung Uncle le dekheko thiyo re tah….” and all that drama.

And maybe it is because of this very reason that I had never realized that on the entrance board, both the words “Orient” and “Restaurant” has been miss-spelt.

And how have they been miss-spelt?

Well, you’ll just have to look more closely the next time you are in that part of town.

I am still too scared to stand in front of Orient and take pictures… who knows, that Gurung Uncle may still be around.

Note: This pic is courtesy Nischal da

---------------------------*---------------------------

TAILORS

The zip on my suitcase had come off courtesy some over-eager baggage handlers at Bagdogra airport and unlike the UAE where things like this are usually disposed of, Darjeeling has a neighborhood tailor who’ll pretty much repair everything that can possibly be fixed.

That new jeans needs to be shortened? No Problem.

I need a cover for my car. No Problem.

The house needs a curtain? No Problem.

Shower Curtain?? Still No Problem.

And what is more, his “personal touch” will put most multinational customer service providers to shame.




I have to admit that I don’t visit the Tailor often, heck, for that matter I don’t even go back home so often. Yet when I went there with my suitcase the first thing he said was…


Kaile aaunu bhayeko? Dubai ma, hoina? (When did u come? You’re in Dubai, aren’t you?)

And here in Abu Dhabi the supermarket I visit almost every day probably doesn’t even know I exist.

Home. Aaah.

---------------------------*---------------------------

BENIS KO AALU

This, as every true-blue Darj gal will tell you, is actually not 100% accurate.


If it were taken literally, every tourist would probably look for Beni’s, locate the café and then complain about the horrid aalu they got there and curse your taste.

What Darj people mean when they mention the above is actually a small shop located opposite the café. It has no name, no signboards and at first glance you can barely imagine that such a place could be famous.



However having eaten there ever since I was a kid, for me, it has always been just “Benis ko aalu dokan”.

It probably took a jaundiced NRI eye to notice that the actual place they do the cooking in is a small room directly above the shop. And guess what? It has a window through which you can see the kid (or child labour depending on how you look at it) stirring the huge pot.



And the place is not even tall enough for him to stand straight.
So as a result, he’s always hunched over the pot as he stirs.


The secret of the taste of Benis, I dare say, is probably coming from his sweating brow.


But then who cares.... the cold in Darj makes everything fine again. Even Germs.

---------------------------*---------------------------

FOR THE LOVE OF THE FLAVOUR.

There is a new brand of condoms in India. Its called Manforce.


(Now whether the name in any way recommends rape or any kind of 'forced' entry is another topic for another day. )


For today I’m more interested in the flavours.


Selections like strawberry, banana (obviously), bubblegum, vanilla etc are the usual suspects when it comes to prophylactic flavours, but remember this is an Indian condom, marketed to Indian tastes. And so guess what they came up with?

What else but “Pan Pleasure”



Now I would usually associate chewing paan with a guy.

Not that women don’t chew paan, but if it were to be an obsession, I’d think a guy would seem more appropriate.


And if I am not mistaken, flavoured condoms don’t really do much for the ‘wearer’ as opposed to the ‘partner’ so I’m really confused as to who exactly the target audience for this is?


Unless ofcourse it causes a ‘tingling’ sensation and you like a ‘tingle while you fingle' - so to speak.


Khair... Jaane do

---------------------------*---------------------------

CALENDARS.

Long before Vijay Mallya began customizing it with skimpily clad girls, Indians (and you didn’t have to be famous for this – you just needed a giant size ego) were printing and distributing calendars freely.

But Greed always trumped Ego so the calendars were usually 1 big sheet with a picture (usually of some God) with flimsy date sheets to rip off at the bottom.




This time at a friend’s house I happened to see one of these calendars.


Now apart from the fact that he was a LIC Agent there really wasn’t any other justifiable ‘qualification’ for actually printing and distributing calendars.

Maybe he just liked to see his name in print. Maybe he needed to make a point to someone. Maybe…. I don't know..


But to be fair it was also mentioned that he was a Gold Medalist of some kind.

But going by the spelling, just the spelling.... I’d say not a very good one.
Maybe he just 'made' the gold madel.



Till next time ........

A STRANGER IN ONE'S OWN HOUSE

It is against all personal predispositions that I am sitting down to write this blog today.

As a fellow nepali I was not sure that I could be fair and balanced when discussing this topic and it is only after a lot of rationalizing and waiting (hence the delay in the article) that I have finally decided that I CAN be fair & non judgmental. So here goes….

A few days ago after Prashant Tamang had won the title of Indian Idol, along with his hometown of Darjeeling, spontaneous celebrations had erupted in many places in neighboring Nepal & Sikkim as well. And apparently the other people in the world's largerst democracy could not stomach this.

Initially it was all fine even though the mainstream Indian press and TV News channels (who usually lap up these kind of stories) did not cover it apart from the mandatory blurb.

Bias against a Nepali winner??? Naaa the Nep’s were too magnanimous to think that way. So they kept on celebrating….

Then two odd things happened.

First the Hindustan Times (which incidentally has been fighting for years to prove that it is a national paper of repute like The Times Of India) came out with an article that somehow seemed to suggest that the title was won by a ‘nepali’ because of some deep seated desire of the ‘nepali-speaking’ people of Darjeeling and Sikkim to be associated with Nepal. It went on to dig up some obscure treaty that the British had signed which had robbed the current Darjeeling area from Nepal etc and also mentioned how there was a Gorkha agitation a decade back.

It had no relevance to Prashant’s actual win but the article was quite clear that it was the secessionist tendencies of the nepali-speaking people that won the title.
In short the winner and his supporters weren’t actually ‘Indians’.

Now to set the record straight, Prashant is a member of the Calcutta Police as was his late father before him.
The ‘nepali speaking’ people of Darjeeling had fought for a separate state but even at the height of the agitation they had never threatened to secede as have the ULFA etc in the other North East states.
And scores of nepali-speaking people from the hills have fought and been martyred during many of India’s wars including Kargil.

Which begs the question; “What else does one have to do to show one’s loyalty to the country?”

The second incident was even more prejudiced & bigoted.

A day after Prashant’s win, a dim-witted RJ of some FM station in Delhi (both the RJ and The FM are too obscure to name) decided that this would be the right time for him to debut his stand up comedy and cockily mentioned that now since Nepalis were becoming Indian Idols there would be no one left to guard their houses and work as watchmen.

Following the expected uproar among Nepalis the Indian media dished out the usual freedom-of-speech crap in his defense and made the protesting Nepalis sound like some intolerant hot-heads.

At this stage, I must mention that as far as Freedom-of-Expression goes, there cannot be a more passionate fanatic than myself. I have always believed in the Freedom of Expression and against any kind of censorship. However in this case it simply does not apply and not because I am Nepali.

I remember as a child we used to play a game where we used to annoy our friends by wriggling our fingers right near their noses or eyes and claim we had the right to do so as long as we were not touching any part of their face.

This argument is, I guess, the basis of the whole Freedom of Expression thing and as the childish game recognized that said freedom ends the moment we touch any part of the other person's face.

The RJ had every right to express his views (and prejudices) but he ceased to be just ‘expressing’ his views the moment he insulted the other party.
That’s precisely why there are anti-defamation laws.

And I am just speaking about a small incident involving a small group of peace loving people residing in the hills of India.

When seen on a bigger scale this prejudice and bias is all prevalent in India and esp North India.

Against the North East (Chinkis I believe is the nomenclature used), against the South Indians (or Madrasis as they are commonly clubbed together and referred to as) and most of all against the Muslims (Pakistan being their umbilical cord which can never be severed)

Is it then any surprise that they do not feel part of India?

Not because they don’t want to, but because they are always reminded that they may not be…

And on a completely different note:

Almost all Indians know (or weren’t allowed to forget, depending on your perception) that the Indian National Anthem was written by Rabindranath Tagore but most people don’t know (or weren’t told) who actually composed the song.

It was Captain Ram Singh Thakur of the 1st Gorkha Rifles.

Captain Ram Singh Thakur, extreme right, playing the violin in Gandhi's presence, possibly during one of Gandhi's visits to INA prisoners at Red Fort.

Why am I bringing this up now???

Because he was an Indian of Nepali origin.

Can you imagine if he had stayed back to just become a ‘watchman’.

Jana Gana Mana would have a Bollywood tune….

Kajra Re anyone?

Source : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ram_Singh_Thakur

ALL THE WORLD'S A STAGE.....

Dear Readers,

Hi Again.

First of all i have to print a correction. The Bong poem in the previous post was actually submitted by Mr. Siddartha from Sikkim. Jashoda only forwarded it. I guess its very important to give credit where credit is due so once again;

"Thank You Sid" (I don't even know him so I am wondering why i am abbreviating his name... phew...)

Anyway moving on...

This following true story truly belongs in Ripley's "Believe it or not."

It happened to Mr. Chuck Wong who is a fellow alumni of my alma mater St. Joseph’s School “North Point” Darjeeling.

North Point : The Fountainhead

I wanted to share this with all of you and Mr. Chuck Wong has kindly given his permission to reprint this in my blog.


So here it is in Mr. Chuck Wong’s own words:

"My friend, Roman Mukherjee, and his wife Cindy Bailey, went to visit LA.

Roman is my friend from school in Darjeeling and currently lives in Ottawa.


They land in LAX and they get lost in the multiple-maze of gates but are finally taken to the rental car complex. There are seven counters and they go to one of them. A lady asks for their ID and he gives his credit card.

"Mukherjee?" she exclaims, "You don't look like a Bengali."

He explains that his mother is Czech.

"You know I used to live in Calcutta and go to school in Loreto in Middleton Row," she says.

"Well, I used to live in Middleton Row," he replies.

"I know a Dilip Chatterjee that lived in the area," she blurted.

"Yes, yes!" he says, "I know Dilip."

"I used to live in Stephen Court and the Bata people, the Plescheks, were our neighbors," she continues.

"Oh, my father used to work for Bata, and I went to school with the Plescheks," he responds.

"My brothers used to go to school in Darjeeling," she casually remarked.

"Well, I studied in Darjeeling too. I am a North Pointer. In fact, I'm going to stay with one of them right now." he says.

By this time, she is getting suspicious that he's just jesting and making a mockery of her. "Okay, then give me his name and address" she says.

Roman pulls out a slip of paper that reads,

"Chuck Wong. Onyx Drive, Walnut. L.A"

She almost faints.

She is my sister, Haiwan.

In Los Angeles, one of the biggest cities where millions reside, amongst the dozens of car rental agencies with the tens of thousands of employees, a Chinese face with no initial hint of Indian, a Bengali who looks like a Czech.... talk about finding a needle in a haystack. Incredible!!!

"Tell my brother I have Tuesday off and he has to buy dinner" she added with a smile.

Now that part of the story I believe.

Chuck Wong"