I truly believe in the concept of work hard and party hard; and only then I can appreciate the importance as well as the beauty of taking a break. The year 2020 has drastically changed our lives; from the regular routine-driven office-goers, most of us have now adapted working from home and I shall speak for myself here; I do not seem to have taken a break. Hence, I forcefully boxed my phone away in a drawer and shut down my laptop for a change; sat down in the balcony with a large mug of coffee and an old edition of a traveler magazine. The article on mountains with gorgeous sunrises caught my eye; those pictures stirred up memories from the very first trip of my life or atleast the first one that I can recollect; I have few but very prominent recollections from that trip.
My mother and I were at her maternal home and I was helping her re-set the cupboards to take out sweaters for the winters one fine afternoon, while my uncle was busy reading Brhomon (a famous Bangala travel magazine during early 1990’s). He came across an article on Darjeeling and narrated a mountain story from his younger days; my mother had a distinct sparkle in her eye and as they exchanged glances, she said it out load, “Let’s go to Darjeeling”. The plan was to visit Darjeeling for a few days in the month of December. My father could not join the sudden trip owing to excessive office work; but we were undeterred to make the plan happen. Darjeeling is literally on overnight bus ride away; and December being the off-season due to extreme temperatures worked in our favour of getting last minute bus tickets. Baba came to see us off at the bus stop in Esplanade with munchies for our journey; we arrived in Siliguri early next morning and took a cab to Darjeeling; I believe it was not an hassle getting rooms for stay as barely any tourists flocked in December.
I vividly recollect walking down the narrow foggy mall road during the day with uncle, stopping at small eateries and eating hot momos; we loved walking around during the day as the warmth from the sun felt like a real boon. The days were really short and most shops shut as it grew dark. I remember visiting a few stores located at the Nepal border, conditions and laws were much relaxed then; one could easily walk onto the other side of the border and be back in no time. My mother and uncle read about Sandakphu and were very keen on visiting from Darjeeling; but believe it or not, they had to drop the plan because of me. Apparently, I was too young to travel to Sandakphu during winters and a few tourists who had returned from Sandakphu with cases of double pneumonia that year, proved the point.
In the midst of this minor heartbreak, we decided to visit tiger hills for sunrise the next morning; I remember being super fussy early in the morning, absolutely unaware of what was in store. I could barely fold my arms and legs, owing to the infinite layers of sweaters along with a monkey-cap; yeah, Bengalis love those! 😉
We reached on time to perch ourselves at a good spot; uncle got ready with his camera as the sky slowly turned purple. I was napping against the railing when my mother woke me up in excitement; and there it was; I could see an orange speck, really bright and shinning at a distance; I stared in amazement, clearly unable to fathom what I was witnessing. Trust me, it was love at first sight; the sky turned slightly crimson as the sun peeked a little more from the ocean of clouds beneath; my mother nudged and pointed towards the opposite side of the sunrise; the famous Kanchendzonga peak had begun to illuminate. I remember asking my mother, “why is this mountain called Kanchendzonga?”; because it turns golden as the sun shines on it; Kanchen means gold”, she replied. It was the most spectacular sight ever and I vividly remember the sunrise details from that trip. The sky had turned bright orange and changed to golden yellow rapidly as the sun was up and shinning; The snow-capped Himalayan peaks were glistening in the sunlight. We still have the sunrise photographs from that trip, but they do no justice to what we witnessed; my mother and uncle sipped on their piping hot cup of tea while I stared speechless. We went back to see the sunrise the next day again; it was much needed. 😊
We visited Kalimpong on our way back from Darjeeling and thus began my romance with sunrises and sunsets.
