Down the memory lane- closer to home and heart !

by Soumyajit Sarcar (Singapore)

Making a local connection India

I cannot claim that I am an avid traveller, let alone a nomad. Having been born in West Bengal (in Eastern India) where families followed the custom of an annual vacation and sometimes an annual ritual of visiting Darjeeling, the queen of Hills, I am no stranger to travel as well. My job has taken me to a few places within India and some around Asia. But this is an experience much closer to my birthplace in the Himalayan foothills of Darjeeling. It was in the Christmas vacation of 2019, that we decided to take a little trip down the memory lane of my father’s early days in his career as an Engineer in the Public Works Department back in the ’60s. Our itinerary was a short one: Jalpaiguri-Birik-Mongpu-Jalpaiguri, while enjoying a lovely drive along the banks of the emerald green Teesta river. Birik is not a prominent destination; in fact some young locals do not even recognise it readily. Our (rather my mom and dad’s) attachment to Birik was that this happened to be the place my parents had stayed in the early years of their marriage. They painted the picture of a small wooden bungalow on a hilltop with colourful flowers in the garden, a small kitchen garden at the back, an orange orchard further up in the hills and a beautiful view of the river Teesta from the balcony. It sounded magical and having lived in the hills myself, I did not have to imagine chunks of cloud entering your open doors, the satisfaction of a sipping a cup of tea while staying under the blanket and the sunshine you could enjoy on a winter afternoon while having oranges from an orchard. To top it up, they added a “supernatural” mystery. The story goes something like this. As you have guessed, the place did not have any electricity back in the ’60s. The kitchen was a good 50 feet away and my dad had the privilege of a cook who also doubled as the waiter and tripled as the person who did the dishes. One evening, my mom and dad claim to have seen Gopal clean the table after dinner, but to their surprise, Gopal came back for a second time. When asked, he mentioned he had never come for the first time. Ghost or not, to date this remains a mystery and for those who have stayed in the hills, supernatural tales and stories of sightings are not uncommon. Not as scary as the Hollywood movies, but imagine yourself in that remote location without electricity in that era! It sure isn’t still the place that it used to be; you will need a creative eye to picture it in its full glory. The 2-room bungalow has since been taken over by General Reserve Engineer Force personnel. They have not torn down anything, so the mystery kitchen can still be seen, albeit not operational. The road to the orange orchard is a proper tar one now with possibly a resort being built. The wooden railings and the gardens no longer exist, but the views do! We continued our drive towards Mongpu, where Rabindranath Tagore had spent many of his last summers in the then quinine factory Director’s bungalow upon the invitation of his protégé Maitreyi Devi. It has now been converted into a museum where you can witness manuscripts of the Nobel Laureate. Surrounded by cinchona plantations, the place has a poetic charm. About 100 metres away from it was the officer’s quarter my father was provided during his first job. We could not enter the place, but with 2 rooms, a kitchen and a small garden, this could have been anyone’s dream even in the current days. My father had many a tales to tell of these places, some of which are bedtime stories for his granddaughter now. We turned on the music and headed back home, enjoying the serenity of the hills, me imagining those days that my parents gloriously recalled and the moments they recollected and those that made them smile. And, yes, just in case you were wondering, we did stop at a local place to have momos (dumplings)!