Three roads tri-verged in a yellow (Indian) wood outside Bagdogra Airport, in the state of West Bengal. One led to Bhutan, Home to Happiness, and the other to Nepal, Himalayas and Hotfeet. Yet, a third to the Kingdom of Sikkim, Queen of the Hills and a Hesitant Part of the Mainland, if I may. As Modi and landslides would have it, Yours Truly was forced to embark on a hurried detour to Sikkim, for my four-day solo escapade, this August '19. Broomsticks away from the magical land of corporate slavery and glass coffins with log-in, log-outs, to the snow-capped terrains of north-east India, I came across oddities ranging from treacherous paths caved in by earthquakes, tea served in sub-zero temperatures atop the Indo-China border, homestays a la Bates Motel, which grew gigantic cucumbers, and terrace-grown green tea sold in the black (read: sly) post-business hours. I saw it all. I was extremely careful to pace my days, from my cab-ride down Siliguri to Gangtok, a 3-day'er in Gangtok, covering the Buddhist Monasteries (Rumtek, Enchey, including the cat-filled Do Drul Chorten viz., a golden stupa), waterfalls (Banjhakri, Bakthang, with the cable car ride across the entire town) the infamous Nathu-La Pass with its brilliant melted meadows full of wild flowers, the Baba Harbhajan Singh Temple (which is, believe you me, a temple dedicated to the spirit of a soldier from the Indian Army), the Yak rides along Tsong-mo Lake, and back to Darjeeling for Day-4, with the tea gardens and mist-covered train tracks, passing through this tiny city, quite the set for many an art film in Bollywood, with the town of Kurseong set in the middle (a dove-cove for poets and writers, the likes of Rabindranath Tagore). Red Pandas, a breath-taking view of K2 (read: Mt. Kanchenjunga), purple flowers dotting every creeper, a vine, paragliding, cymbals and momos (read: steamed dumplings), for garnishing. But that is just the list of 'Things to See in Gangtok Talk'. What I thirsted for, in the short span I had for myself, quite greedily I add, was stories. Tales from the east that are a part of their folklore, their mitthi (read: soil), grasping onto their roots firmly, for me to pick up a la separating the interesting chaff from the grain. I picked the strangest of places to camp down in. A bookstore-slash-bed n' breakfast-slash cafe called 'Bookman's BnB': the owner got married to his illustrator-wife right there in the store, and they have a two-year that considers the store her fort. A motel run by an ex-bureaucrat couple, big city-returns. And a cafe with Beatles-themed rooms. But here's what they never tell you on the glossy brochures they hand out to you at the airport. The guards atop the Indo-China Border are separated by a low wall, that they cross over sometimes for cigarettes and chai (read: Indian tea), but they speak not a word of each others' languages. People abandon their pets, outside Do Drul, and the monastery picks them up, lets them gambol around the holy premises, learn a chant or two. The spirit of Baba Harbhajan lingers around the temple, guiding wary soldiers away from nastier chips off the mountain's shoulders. The hot springs in Sikkim are known to cure any an ailment, even depression (my, my!). If you rest your face on the window ledge of your nepalese driver's musty cab (what music these Nepalis have), a layer of ice forms on it in seconds. The harness for a Yak goes through its nose. There are women monks in the monasteries, their heads perfectly shaved and their hearts perfectly at rest, what with the times we've had lately. And things never get lost in Gangtok, which for as a clumsy traveler such as I who left her watch behind in a cafe atop the famous MG Road (the busiest market of Gangtok) and got it back by mail after having left the kingdom, is a blessing. All in all, I left Gangtok with half a dozen fir-scented books and an experience to maketh a 700-worded travel memoir. And I cannot wait to be vexed with my lawyer-life once more to set-off on another adventure, hop-skip-and-jump into the unknown.