I do not remember whose idea Gangtok trip was. After I reached Kharagpur there were murmurings and whisperings of a trip in my friend circle. We secured tatkal ticklets and left college on 23rd Jan in the evening.
23rd because, due to Spring Fest(College Fest), we had a small string of contiguous holidays. Participation in SF is widespread, competitions in singing, dancing, painting, talks and musical concerts are usually held and there is a general atmosphere of contagious frivolity, of impulse, of colours, of meeting strangers, of pretence and jubilant shouts. For the average male kgpian, the fest is like someone else’s happiness, however, that does not reach or affect him. The 5th and 4th year students mostly drink and smoke to pass the long weekend. Hence, the timing could not have been better. We planned to travel to Siliguri via train and would travel on roads further on to Lava(a small hill-town in North Bengal) and then to Gangtok.
We reached Siliguri the following morning having spent the time on train singing and strumming random strings in an unturned guitar which I had convinced J to bring along. He kept cursing it, however, because the strap holding it was loose and it kept falling down with a crash now and then until the fourth time when it developed a crack and was rendered useless. In Siliguri, we were much sought after by the local taxi drivers(all tourists are). They offered all kinds of help and support but without explicitly mentioning what they planned to gain from it. A guy approached us and asked us “Are you going to Kalimpong or Gangtok? ”. Hardly had I answered “Kalimpong”, he began gesturing with great gusto to follow him and he started walking away. He took us to a ticket counter and told us that there was a big and comfortable bus leaving for Kalimpong in a half hour. We made the tickets and we found out that he was not in anyway connected to the small government bus which was the only bus leaving for Kalimpong. He, however, demanded 100 rupees as way of payment for “being the agent”.
Kalimpong was a stop in the journey to Lava. We stopped there for lunch and left for Lava at 7 in the evening. The mountains became completely transformed in the night and the road afforded us mesmerizing views of the many surrounding mountains. In the night, the houses(and their lights) looked like stars. While in the bus, J felt an urgent need to light up a joint. Despite very nice and polite warnings from other people(the five of us were sitted in the last row) like “ wind enters through the window, it will carry the smell into the bus”, “bakchodi mat kar”, “these people are used to tourists doing drugs, they will recognize the smell”, J went ahead and lit it. In three seconds, several things happened. The familiar smell wafted into the bus, a lady from the front shouted something(we could not understand what) and the conductor was walking towards us and shouting at J. He seemed to have spotted the culprit. He seemed extremely angry and was shouting at the top of his voice. Luckily, he cooled down and did not take any other steps.
We reached Lava at 8’o’clock that night. It was cold as hell and we were shivering. Despite the fact that it was only 8, the town seemed deserted and all shops were closed. The manager of a hotel offered us rooms and asked us to scout rooms in his hotel. We had already decided not to stay at his hotel and we merely went because the driver knew him and they both insisted a lot. The rooms were good but we declined his offer. As luck would have it, almost all other hotels had costlier fares and were not as good. We returned to Hill Top hotel(that was it's name) but by now the man had transmogrified from the polite, quick-speaking and professional manager to a snide, arrogant and boisterous bully. What’s more, he was full-tull drunk; the smell of whisky reeking even at great distances and he seemed not in any way bothered about making the slightest effort to hide his drunkenness. He wallowed in the glory of his victory, taking his time, counting the ecstatic moments, as he denied us rooms. All 5 of us were the epitome of politeness and empathy. We murmured and we deferred. Untill at last, he granted us rooms and that too at a discounted price.
Hardly had we reached the rooms and finished unpacking, J and N started banging around a football we had brought along in the corridor outside. As luck would, again, have it the ball hit the landlord while he was coming up the stairs. “YOU FUCKERS! YOU THINK THIS IS A FUCKING PLAYGROUND. THIS IS A HOTEL. I WILL HAVE YOU THROWN OUT ”. He shouted. One thing was evident, he had exceptionally strong vocal muscles.
Morning light revealed Lava to be a quaint little town(or more a village) atop the summit of a mountain with very sloping roads and looking down into the valley. Our rooms were on the 2nd floor, giving us a panoramic view of the many mountains surrounding Lava. I finished daily activities first and strolled into the village. I walked to the end of Lava (90 metres from our hotel) and there was an open space which was overlooking the entire valley. I could see far into the distance- mountains covered with coniferous trees, houses on the mountains and more mountains. I found a place to sit. In my childhood, I had heard the phrase “pindrop silence” an uncountable number of times from one of my class teachers who had hopelessly hoped to demonstrate to us , the kind of draconian discipline she believed her class should abide by. I experienced it for the first time. The stillness was total and I could not see another human anywhere. I sat down and thought of meditating.
Sometime later I returned and , to my surprise, I saw a monastery. It looked majestic and proud, set against the backdrop of the sky and mountains. I made a short tour of the premises and returned to the hotel. Few hours later, we departed for a nearby waterfall in a rented vehicle. The drive was humpy-bumpy. The waterfall was around 50 metres high and we had access to the bed of the falls. The water was very cold and very fresh. It was sweet tasting and I drank a lot of it and filled the water bottles. Victor Schauberger(the first known man to have predicted the present Climate crisis and Global warming with uncannily prophetic accuracy in the 1930’s), the little known scientist, has repeated oft in his book “Nature as Teacher” and elsewhere that spring water is extremely good for the mind and the body. While passing through layer after layer of rock, spring water accumulates many minerals which are extremely beneficial. The water we are provided with is treated with chemicals(to guarantee its safety) that react with almost all minerals depriving us of many valuable nutrients.
Apart from the five of us, two couples were present. They seemed interested in the waterfall and the scenery inasmuch as was necessary to keep those in the frame of their next photograph. One of the ladies seemed to have grossly miscalculated the amount of lip gloss to be used by a very large margin. Oh! She turned her head, threw her hair around, looked back and sideways etc and her husband clicked away madly behind the camera. I got the impression that they were trying to outcompete the other couple. The husbands started posing and one of them actually posed with an unlit cigarette and sunglasses(it was a cloudy, overcast day and we were in the shadow of a large mountain; even a bat would not have needed sunglasses).
After their departure, we had the waterfall all to ourselves. I sat still and silent until departure. We reached Lava in the afternoon. An interesting trivia about Lava is that almost everyone there was a fan of Chelsea FC. It does not have an ATM. There is no internet and the only sources of income are tourism, agriculture and animal husbandry but at the centre of the town is an iron tower sporting a clock and carrying the blue insignia of Chelsea. Most Lavaites could be seen wearing Chelsea jackets or T-shirts.
The following morning, we left Lava for Gangtok and reached the city in the afternoon. For lunch, we decided to get drunk. We went to a restaurant. It had a couple of tables laid out and some booths. The booths had curtains in them and all of them were occupied while the tables were empty. The waiter informed us that since it was 26th January( Republic Day, supposed to be a dry day ), he won’t be able to serve us on the tables but we could use a booth. We laughed. Drinking in a curtained booth apparently is not as disrespectful to our country. Alcohol is probably the favourite intoxicant of Sikkimites. Although initially reluctant, I drank close to 2 bottles of Sikkim made beer. Sikkim people sure know how to make beer.
After lunch, we chatted up with a taxi driver who offered to take us sight seeing. It was illegal for more than 4 people to travel in a taxi but for some extra money, the driver agreed to take the five of us. We arranged amongst us and whenever a toll booth or a officer would be sighted, S had to dip down and lay flat on thighs of others. He took us to the summit of the mountain on which was ensconced Gangtok. More or less, all the mountains were covered with specks of light that were the houses of someone or the other. Most were a part of some cluster but a few were were completely alone.
Early next morning we left for Tsongmo Lake in a rented jeep. Tsongmo lake is a frozen lake close to the India China border. The road was treacherous and snaky and the landscape changed continuously. Initially, it was just valleys, which gave way to rugged reddish brown mountains with rough roads and red dust and finally to pristine white snow everywhere. Even at that height(13000 feet), people lived and survived. We went through several villages. The lake was bounded by the long winding road on one side and a tall and white mountain on the far end. The surface of the lake was steel like and very still; it was almost completely frozen with very tiny ripples in the water surface at the centre. The lake had a rocky trail beside it that we followed till the very end. Everything was white. The mountain with its jet blackness showing at places where the dazzling white of the snow was weak, looked venerable and ancient. The cloud cover, having descended to the height of our heads made everything look mystical and serious. We spent a considerable time in the silence.
After sometime we departed. Our trip had ended. We reached Gangtok in the evening and departed for Kharagpur the next morning.
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