Taking our cue from the sun, which had begun its descent into the west, we returned to the market via a never-ending staircase. We came across several men and women with thick straps around their foreheads and unimaginable amounts of weight on their backs. One of them walked past us with a solid metal wardrobe, which usually weighs around 60 to 70 kilos. Another woman overtook us in spite of carrying an entire family’s luggage of ten big suitcases. These weren’t ordinary porters; they were beasts of burden. Their spines had grown parallel to the earth and they would probably never stand up straight again.
River and I worked up a good appetite just by looking at them and headed straight towards the nearest roadside cart for our fix of egg rolls. But the sight of freshly steamed Tibetan momos forced me to change my mind.
The cook at this shop was a man on a mission – to conquer the world with his smile. “Oookkkaaayyyy,” he said to everyone in his infectious, sing-along way which made us feel like children on our first day at school. As we waited for the momos to cook, I tried asking his name in Bengali, but he replied in perfect English.
“My name is Maniiii!” He drew out the last syllable and flicked his thumb on top of his closed fist as if tossing a coin.
“Like money?”
“Exactly.”
“How long have you been doing this?”
“Oh many years, many. In summer, every day I stand behind this stove for 15 hours. It’s good work.”
“You stand here for 15 hours every day?”
“Yes, no rest. If I sit, people go to other place, and how can I be Mani with no money, eh? Haha.”
He also introduced us to his wife Dolma, a demure Tibetan. She smiled and said something to us, but we couldn’t hear her, because this lonely-looking man, who was standing next to us and gazing at the sky, suddenly declared that India was definitely going to the dogs.
“Excuse me?”
“Yes, especially this Bengal. Do you know that Muslims are considered a minority in this state despite having a population of about 16.5%? On the other hand, we Christians, who are equally minor, have to struggle against reservations to find a decent job.”
“Oh, well, that sounds terrible.”
“It is, but I recently had the good fortune of meeting the Archbishop of Canterbury. So there is still hope.”
“Of course.”
River suppressed a smile and I thought, here we go again, another night in Darjeeling, another cuckoo encounter.
“Did I tell you about my job?” the man continued.
“No, you didn’t.” I sighed and settled in for a long evening.
“Ah! Where do I even start…”
Bible Gives You Legs
River wanted our third day in Darjeeling to be slightly more productive than the last two and the most culturally fulfilling activity he could think of was riding the toy train to Ghum.
“I don’t know River, the toy train seems a little…”
“Just give it a try. All you have to do is sit. Mark Twain loved it! Said it was the best day of his life. You’ll love it too.”
“Really? When was this?”
“1896.”
“Clearly.”
And so after another European breakfast at Sonam’s Kitchen, we skipped downtown to gawk at this piece of railway history. Unfortunately, we had completely forgotten that it was a Sunday. The seats were sold out not only for the entire day, but also the entire coming week. Dumbstruck at the train’s ever-lasting popularity, we had to make do with taking a number of forlorn pictures while standing next to the stationary carriage. The train driver probably felt sorry for us, so he blew the whistle a couple of times to make our experience a little more memorable. It was a sweet but ear-splitting gesture.
River seemed very disappointed by the whole thing and began to wander around the station listlessly, looking for something to take his mind off the toy train.
“Ah! A temple. Let’s check it out.”
I wanted him to feel better so I faked a tremendous smile and clapped my hands.
“And a Shiva temple no less, let’s go!”
There was nothing remotely interesting about this shrine, but River insisted on clanging the huge metal bells around the periphery. Meanwhile, I took pleasure in smelling the earthy incense that the priest had burned at the altar. We were almost done with our inspection when two adolescent boys walked towards River with their arms extended.
“How are you, my friend?”
“Good, good, how are you?” River replied with a beatific smile.
“Want some marijuana?” they asked without the slightest hesitation and I thought, bloody hell! River has contacts even in Darjeeling? I always knew he was resourceful, but this was pure genius.
“Ah no, thanks, maybe some other time.”
“Why not man? What are you doing now?” The boys looked at both of us briefly.
“Why don’t you come hang out with us? We live right here. Come on, we’ll play some music, chat, have a good time. What do you say?”
“Uh, I don’t know,” River hesitated. Then, as if turning down a dear old friend for a drink, he said, “I don’t go into strangers’ homes.”
“What? You don’t know these people?” I asked River incredulously.
“Of course not! How would I know them?” River replied, bewildered.
Undeterred, the boys continued to hound us and insisted that their weed was worth its weight in gold.
“Where are you from, friend?”
“I’m from England,” River continued to humour them.
“England? Cool! Where in England?”
“Sheffield.”
“Oh, okay, okay. London, right? I have lots of friends in London.”
“No, but I’m from Sheffield.”
“Oh yeah, I know London.”
“No, but…”
“Come on brother, just have a look. If you don’t wanna buy, that’s okay.”
Despite my silent warning, River acquiesced and we followed the two crooks into some shady back alley to sample their wares. One of them quickly ran back to his hut and emerged with a handful of weed. We took one look at it and knew that it was shit. I was about to walk away when River had another brainwave.
“Hey, do you guys have any special lassi instead?”
They looked at each other, scratching their heads.
“No man, you don’t get that stuff here; only weed and this is the best! Okay, we’ll give you a special price since you are the first customers of the day – 600 for a handful! Huh?”
“Oh well, hmmm… okay, we’ll take it,” River surrendered at last.
“NO! We’re getting ripped off.”
“Well, of course we’re getting ripped off! We’re buying drugs, not groceries at the supermarket!”
He had a point. I couldn’t argue against that. Once the deal was done, the boys patted River’s back, winked at me and wished us good luck for our travels. I scowled at them as they retreated into their shantytown without further ado.
Next stop: a Nepali blockbuster at the local cinema.
To this day, I have no explanation for why we did this. Maybe it was the spliff that River had rolled right after we got away from the temple or the two bottles of cheap brandy that I’d brought along in my daypack. Whatever the reason, I must say that our disappointment at missing the train ride faded into the mist pretty quickly once we were at the theatre. The fun started right away at the ticket counter, where the lady refused to sell me the tickets.
“Are you sure you want to see the Nepali movie? Why don’t you watch Iron Man? Very nice!” she told me, but we refused to budge.
“Okay, okay, fine. If that is what you want.”
As soon as we were in our seats, the movie began with a little song-and-dance number. There were no subtitles, of course.
“What’s going on? Why are they dancing right away?” River looked at me with his bloodshot, stoned eyes.
“How would I know? This is in Nepali!”
“You don’t know any Nepali?”
“No.”
“Then what are we doing here?”
“Well it was your idea!”
“Was it? Fuck.”
Despite the language barrier, we could easily follow the first half of the plot, which was basically, boy meets girl. The heroine was a regular saint, who never wore skimpy clothes and frequently stood up for the poor, blind and dead. The hero, on the other hand, was a bad seed, gallivanting around the countryside with his slutty sidekick and taking drugs on the sly. That is until he found Jesus and used the Bible as a cheaper alternative to rehab. We had hardly wrapped our heads around this sudden transformation when things took a turn for the worse. In an attempt to save a young child’s life, the heroine jumped in front of an oncoming vehicle and wound up paralyzed. But we didn’t actually see her getting hit. Instead, we saw her pristine white sandal – because white obviously screams virginity – falling from the sky in slow motion and getting sprayed with ketchup.
After this incident, she too turned to the Bible for some much-needed solace. Her devotion to Jesus continued to grow along with her love for the hero, who signed up to be her personal wheelchair attendant. They sang songs and gave alms to the poor till one fateful evening, when a mysterious storm struck the valley. The entire village was plunged into darkness as the power went out. The windows of the heroine’s room burst open and the curtains billowed out. But throughout this ominous storm, she doggedly held on to her Bible.
The camera zeroed in on her large fearful eyes and beads of sweat running down her forehead for several horrifying minutes. She seemed to then calm down as the howling winds eased, the curtains fell back into place and everything in the room stopped rattling. The last bolt of lightning struck and a crackling thunder later, the lights finally came on. Then, lo and behold! The heroine was standing on her own two feet, with her long hair hanging down by the sides of her face like that freak child from The Ring. At this point, we expected the lovers to unite and dance for us. Instead, the heroine’s father showed up with a mercenary and killed the hero! I felt emotionally violated. Why did he do this? To protect his daughter’s hymen or were the Maoists somehow involved? I still don’t know.
Between heated discussions over the cinematic details and being told to shut up by our neighbours in the theatre, we unwittingly gulped down an entire litre of brandy. The moment I stood up, I knew that I was totally plastered, sozzled up to the last dormant grey cell in my brain. Stumbling out from the cool, dark comfort of the cinema was a task in itself, after which we had to crawl back up the stairs to the market under the deadly bright sky. It felt as though the sun was out on a personal vendetta against us; the concrete steps under our feet sparkled like a mighty cataract tumbling from the hilltop. Their glint was so distracting that we took a whole hour to reach the market. We figured that eating something would rein in the disaster we had inflicted on ourselves, so we barged into the first Tibetan restaurant we could see.
Their momo steamer was out of order, so we settled for hot bowls of thukpa, which is a clear noodle soup. I didn’t like it that much, but it did make us feel saner. To celebrate that, we went into Joe’s pub next door to drink some more. The sight of a pub put the spring right back into our steps; the place was warm, wood-panelled and served excellent sherry. We sat there well into the evening, listening to Don McLean’s entire American Pie album, talking about the perils of gender reassignment surgery and a sundry of intellectual dilemmas.
The moment we left the pub, River was again accosted by a burly man who then told his wife and kids to stand next to the ‘nice white person’ for a few pictures. On her husband’s insistence, the wife handed over her small baby to River. They all smiled uncomfortably as the camera flash went off a few times. After the whole ordeal, the demented man shook River’s hand and coolly moseyed on.
“What the hell was that?”
“Oh, don’t worry about it. It happened to me so many times in Kolkata as well,” River shrugged his shoulders.
“Seriously?”
“Yeah, I guess Indians like taking pictures with strange white people.”
I found this a bit unfair considering that even beggars on the streets nowadays complain of exploitation and insist on charging money for every picture.
“River, you should start taking money for these random photographs.”
“Haha, yeah, maybe I should. I might end up leaving India with more money than I came with.”
“It’s possible. So, what now? Back to the Orange room?”
“Hmm… or how about getting stoned on the Observatory Hill?”
* * *
The Observatory Hill rises from the chowrasta like an abrupt speed bump with a pedestrian pathway that goes all the way around, offering a sweeping view of the Himalayas. Of course, at night we couldn’t see much, except varying shades of purple and black that fell in waves across the ravines below. As the chowrasta receded in the background, the streetlights became sparser and then disappeared completely. The stars and the moon seemed closer to us than ever before. It was also strange to suddenly be all alone on the path. I couldn’t understand why people were wasting their time at the square, instead of taking this exhilarating walk into the floating mist and ambient opera of crickets echoing across the entire valley.
I avoided the slippery fluorescent-green moss that had spilled onto the road from the hillside. The breeze was unexpectedly cool and it made me shiver. The road was fenced all along the outer edges except for this one spot, where a few benches under a canopy faced the horizon. Resting my feet at the edge of the steep fall, the world seemed to soften and eventually fade away, leaving me alone with my thoughts. River and I didn’t stir from the bench for a very long time. Naturally, when you find yourself sitting inside a sentient painting, what do you do? The great Anais Nin once said that we write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospection. And truly, these few quiet minutes taste just as sweet to me now as they did on that soft, moist Darjeeling evening.
Five-Second-Tea Lady
“What is that smell?” I muttered as I emerged from the washroom after a nominal sprinkling of hot water.
“Oh, this?” River raised the mug in his hand. “I just made some tea.” He was seated in a corner of the room, reading a book.
“You made tea? What time is it?”
“It’s five past six.”
“What? How are we awake so early?”
River shook his head and went back to reading. A moment later, he asked whether I wanted to have some as well. Since my senses had cleared up a bit and the tea smelled terrific, I said, “sure”. He immediately put his mini kettle on boil.
“Wait, are you making it from scratch? Forget it then. I thought you already had some to go.”
“Oh don’t worry, it’ll take two minutes.” He pulled out a big carrier bag from under the bed and began tossing a number of suspicious-looking ingredients into his steel flask.
“Is this the famous Darjeeling tea?”
“Well, no. Darjeeling tea is too expensive, so I’ve put that away for England. This is the cheap stuff I bought from Kolkata to drink on the trip.”
“How thoughtful.” My sarcasm was completely lost on him.
“Yeah, it’s my own special recipe. Do you want to know how I make it?”
“Uh, okay.”
“Great, so I start off by taking one bag each of this elaichi tea and this masala tea. Then I wait for the water to boil to an exact 200 degrees Fahrenheit – this is crucial. After that, I dip the tea bag thrice, and only thrice, into the water. No way in hell should the water ever be poured on top of the tea bag because it ruins the delicate flavours. Are you following me?”
“Yeah, sure.”
With this, he tapped the stopwatch on his phone and stared at the flask for exactly two minutes.
“Alright, now just when the tea is brewed halfway, I like to add a few cinnamon sticks. You’ve got to be careful with this because
too much cinnamon can make the tea bitter.”
“Right.”
“Then, I throw in some desiccated coconut!”
“I see. Wait, you have desiccated coconut on you? Now?”
“Of course, I never travel without it. And finally, a dash of vanilla and some organic honey!”
“Is that it?”
“Yes, almost. I also added some rum to my tea; do you want that?”
“Whoa, no, no. This will do just fine, thanks.”
“Wait, it’s not done yet. Where the hell is my strainer?”
So this was River’s special tea. I’m sure I would have better luck at finding unicorn saliva than brewing this cuppa.
“Okay madame, that was just the appetizer. Are you ready for some big bad tea partying?”
I had forgotten all about our plans to spend this day fulfilling River’s other wet dream – visiting a legitimate tea estate that’s been around since the British Raj.
“Oh yes, sir! Can’t hardly wait!”
* * *
It was a chirpy sunny afternoon and the perfect degree of cool. We pretty much ran down the road that led to the estate and were at our destination in less than half an hour. A small nondescript board saying ‘Welcome to Happy Valley Tea Estate’ directed us to a terrible stone-covered pathway. Unfortunately, I was wearing sandals, so my feet were fucked by the time we reached the actual plantation. As the tea plants cropped up around us, the stones gave way to soft muddy footpaths that cut into the hill’s gradient at regular intervals.
The tea processing plant was at the heart of the estate. The simple building was open to visitors, so we went in. A middle-aged Nepali worker approached us right away, offering his services as a guide. We told him we didn’t need one, but he lured us with promises of exclusive technical information on how tea leaves are picked and processed.
“Oh, good!” River pulled out his notebook and we prepared ourselves for some edification. The guide led us to a hall, where fresh tea leaves were spread out over three conveyor belts. As soon as he started talking, he also switched on the heavy-duty blow-drying machine that hung above the belts. Naturally, the noise drowned out his voice.
Special Lassi Page 3
