Skip to main content

Sunrise in the Shower




In the summer of 2010, my wife and I decided to celebrate the fifteen years of our life together by going on a trip.  We chose Gangtok and Darjeeling as our destination.  “So mutually opposed places,” my wife would say later, “one is like a cheerful sunrise and the other like a gloomy sunset.”

Maggie with the tigers in Darjeeling museum
Her metaphor for Darjeeling could not have been more apt.  Whoever we met there looked quite sullen though a few of them pretended to smile.  The Gorkhaland movement had eaten into their hearts like a corrosive cancer.  I imagine the place must be in much worse condition today in spite of the change in government.  It will be still worse in a few years from now when the BJP will take charge in Bengal and impose its dictatorship on the agitating Gorkhas.

We reached Darjeeling in a gloomy evening after an unforgettable journey from Gangtok and checked into a hotel which was eager to sell us the next morning’s sunrise.  The people of Darjeeling were eager to sell whatever they could to the tourists since their economy had been thrown into a shambles by the decades-long agitation.  We bought the sunrise immediately because we were only used to sunsets in tourist places earlier.  A sunrise in the mountains would be a change.  Moreover, we didn’t miss to wish any of the charms of Darjeeling.

We were woken up at 3.30 in the next morning.  It had started drizzling much before that.  I was torn between the desire to lie down and listen to the music of the drizzle enjoying the cosiness beneath the blanket and the urge to make it to the Tiger Hill where a sunrise awaited us in the gentle shower.  “How can there be a sunrise in this weather?”  I asked the reception using the intercom. 

“Your car will be ready at 4” was the answer.  We had paid the advance for the car and would lose that amount if we didn’t use the service.  That’s what the answer meant.  Most answers in Darjeeling were similarly terse and pregnant with meanings.

We decided to have a look at the drizzle-washed Tiger Hill. As I gratefully accepted a huge umbrella offered by the hotel’s reception I thought Maggie (my wife) and I would be the only fools going to watch sunrise in such a sombre weather.  We were consoled soon.  There were at least thirty cars waiting outside for tourists from different hotels.  All the cars moved in a line through the narrow streets towards the Tiger Hill soon. 

The hills stood drenched in the gentle showers that came through a misty sky.  There was no sunrise.  Not even a ray of sunlight. 

Darjeeling didn’t give us joyful memories.  Its sunrise in the shower was quite symbolic of what the state had to offer in spite of the natural beauty that longed to emerge above the discontent within its people’s hearts. 

Maggie and I would love to visit Gangtok again but not Darjeeling.  We don’t admire sunrises in showers.  And there is no hope of the Gorkhas getting any better deal in the near future.  India is moving towards harsher times.

My 2010 posts on these visits:

3.     The Gift of Kupup
5.     A Train Journey

Comments

  1. Beautifully written. The sunrise in the shower is quite metaphoric in itself. Again, we are facing the same issues with Bodoland.

    I have nothing to say regarding what is wrong and right in such cases. I have not suffered their sufferings to make a judgment on division of lands and creation of borders. Arundhati has given me a different perspective this time.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Glad to know that Ms Roy is affecting your perspective. Assam has suffered much because of problems similar to what has been happening in Darjeeling. Since I lived in the Northeast for 15 years I'm very much aware of what happened there and I won't be able to blame those who raised the banners of divisiveness. I'm afraid the way things are going on in India today, there will be more such demands coming in the imminent future.

      Delete
  2. The current scenario of Darjeeling makes me so sad. I don't know what will happen if BJP takes charge in Bengal. Even the thought of it scares me :\

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I know your new novel is set in the 'Gorkhaland'. You will naturally be concerned about the place and the people. BJP will suppress the agitation brutally.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Prelude to AtoZ

  From Garden of 5 Senses, Delhi [file pic] Hindsight gives an unearthly charm and order to the past. There can be pain too. A lot of things could have been different, much better, if only we possessed the wisdom of our old age back in those days. As a writer put it, Oedipus, Hamlet, Lear and a lot of those guys must have thought, “I wish I had known this some time ago.” Life is a series of errors with intermittent achievements. The only usefulness of the errors may be the lessons they teach us. Probably, that is their purpose too. We are created to err so that we learn, I dare to put it that way. I turn 64 in a month’s time. It’s not inappropriate to look back at some of the people whom life brought into my life so that I would learn certain lessons. No, I don’t mean to say that life has any such purpose or design or anything. Life is absurd. People come into your life as haphazardly as vehicles ply on your road or birds poop on your head. Some of these people change the chemist

Why I won’t vote

From Deshabhimani , Malayalam weekly Exactly a month from today is the Parliamentary election in my state of Kerala. This time, I’m not going to vote. Bernard Shaw defined democracy , with his characteristic cynicism, as “ a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than we deserve .” We elect our government in a democracy. And the government invariably sucks our blood – whichever the party is. The BJP and the Congress are like Tweedledum and Tweedledee though the former makes all sorts of other claims day in and day out. BJP = Congress + the holy cow. The holy cow has turned out to be quite a vampire and that makes a difference, no doubt. In our Prime Minister’s algebra, it is: (a+b) 2 which should be equal to a 2 and b 2 . There is an extra 2ab which is the holy cow. In George Orwell’s Animal Farm , the animals revolt against the human master and set up their own nationalist republic. Soon politics develops in the republic and some pigs become leaders. The porcine

How Arvind Kejriwal can save himself

Narendra Modi and Amit Shah have a clear vision. Eliminate all opposition. Decimate them or absorb them. My previous post [link below] showed a few people decimated by them. Today let’s look at the others: those who are saved by joining the Bharatiya Janata Party [BJP]. 1. Himanta Biswa Sarma  This guy was in Congress and faced serious charges related to the multi-crore Saradha chit fund scam. He also faced corruption charges related to drinking water supply in Guwahati. His house was raided by the Central Bureau of Investigation [CBI]. Then he switched over to BJP and all his crimes just vanished. It’s as simple as taking a dip in the Ganga and all your sins are forgiven. Today he is the chief minister of Assam. Nothing is heard of all the charges that were levelled against him. 2. Amarinder Singh  This former Captain in the Indian Army was a Congressman until Modi’s Enforcement Directorate [ED] started raiding him, his son and his son-in-law. He put an end to all those raid

The Good Old World

Book Review Title: Dukhi Dadiba and irony of fate Author: Dadi Edulji Taraporewala Translators: Aban Mukherji and Tulsi Vatsal Publisher: Ratna Books, Delhi, 2023 Pages: 314 If you want to return to the good old days of the late 19 th century, this is an ideal novel for you. This was published originally in Gujarati in 1913. It appeared as a serial before that from 1898 onwards in a periodical. The conflict between good and evil is the dominant motif though there is romance, betrayal, disappointment, regret, and pretty much of traditional morality. Reading this novel is quite like watching an old Bollywood movie, 1960s style. Ardeshir Bahadurshah, a wealthy Parsi aristocrat in Surat, dies having obligated his son Jehangir to find out his long-lost brother Rustom. Rustom was Bahadurshah’s son in his first marriage. The mother died when the boy was too small and the nurse who looked after the child vanished with it one day. Ratanmai, Bahadurshah’s present wife, takes her

Kejriwal’s Arrest in Modi’s Kurukshetra

For some mysterious reason, Arvind Kejriwal’s arrest reminded me of Haren Pandya. Maybe, because Pandya’s 21 st death anniversary is approaching (26 March). Have you forgotten Haren Pandya? He was the Home Minister of Gujarat before Narendra Modi assumed dictatorial powers in that state. Modi chose to teach humility to Pandya by making him the Minister of State for revenue. Pandya chose not to learn humility from Modi and resigned from that post in Aug 2002. Remember Gujarat of 2002? You should. A fire engulfed a train on 27 Feb 2002 killing 58 Hindu pilgrims who were returning from Ayodhya where they had gone to discover their god, not very unlike Christopher Columbus undertaking a voyage to discover India and messing it all up. What caused the fire in the train? Lord Ram knows probably. The upshot was that there was a riot in Gujarat by Hindus against Muslims. Haren Pandya is one of the BJP leaders who gave statements in many places indicting Modi for the riots. He asser