“The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.”
———————- Henry David Thoreau
I’m glad we played our song, albeit a short one, we did create music with our bonhomie in this fantastic trip.
Greetings to the Fellow-Travellers (and the ones who skipped a glimpse of heaven), I cannot even begin to describe the beauty and grandeur of the little escapade that we’d managed in this short span of time. Thanks to Rohit, everything went “exactly” according to the itinery and we ended up having a ball of a time.
Just like a saas-bahu soap let me try and recap(..itulate) the series of really really fortunate events.
On Friday night we boarded the train from Sealdah, with self-same Yellow Livestrong Bands in hand (courtesy Prerna n’ Shaheera), we looked perfectly part of a proper Group. Although we were scattered in 2 groups, half here and half there, on the train, a lot of hopping made sure that everyone mixed and talked with everyone else.
The real marker of the train journey were Rahul’s mathri’s, which we all ‘loved’ and consumed throughout the journey. The love for the mathri’s escalated to such levels that Gurinder and Pritish were forced to start a discussion on them at 5 the next morning, even though it meant waking the others from their blissful slumber. By the end of the trip Sarad and wife suggested that we stick the mathri’s on the wristbands, so as to portray an image of brotherhood, through the rakhi lookalikes.
Another thing difficult to forget would be Pranab’s unending joy upon discovering a mobile phone video based on Sholay (in a not so parliamentary language). Jai g…….. ji ki, thakur.
As we reached Siliguri, all faces were distorted as searing heat pulled and tugged at everyone’s skin. But relief was at hand in the form of A/C cabs which transported us to our dreamland resort, Sterlings, in a few hours, only after stopping at a fab-food Punjabi restaurant (which had Proud notices on its lavatories asking customers for 5 bucks per use).
The resort had Live music which some of us got to experience and where Yours Truly sang while Gurinder escorted everyone out of hearing range. Will not forget the cute Nepali accent that the lead guy was singing “Love will keep us alive” in. Dinner was followed by some really spooky walking trails, led by Rj Rehan alongwith live commentary, in the resort’s vicinity. And the icing on the cake was Ila and co.’s calling on some Ancient Spirits while dancing around a make-belief fire.
The night ended really late with everyone staying up and chatting as if there was no tomorrow.
Sleep at 2 am and get up at 5 seemed to be the mantra of the trip where maximising your excursion time and minimising your lazing time was the goal successfully achieved. Anyways, the morning began at 5 for some of us and we went to glare at the Sun in the eye (from Tiger Hill) while it rose as if it owned the earth. The first few minutes were fabulous views but later on the Clouds played spoilsport and covered the sunrise completely. Anyways, we decided to make lemonade of the lemon served to us and planned to walk back through the picturesque landscape. We did quite a bit of hiking while our cabs kept following us urging us to get on. After returning back to the hotel, everyone slept for a while wherever they found space. Evidently Pritish and Rehan barged into our room and demanded sleeping space and were snoring on our bed before we had the time to answer.
Later in the day we left for Darjeeling, where I met my friend David, who took us to a guided tour of St. Paul’s Boarding School. Everyone was amazed by the way David handled himself and played the part of a Professor while being only 25 years of age (he looks 40, though). It was a visit worth remembering and I shall keep that place in mind anytime I need to run away far from the madding crowd. St. Paul’s was a beautiful school with fine facilities and made on such a huge tract of land that even paying a visit to the library would be considered a delicious promenade.
From there on we went to the Mall Road Inox but found no movies to watch and ended up eating and getting back to the resort to end the night again with chatting going on late into the night. But only after confirming the next day’s plan of river rafting.
Now, this day was the best of them all. We started after breakfast at the resort and went down to the rafting point while perched on top of our jeeps. We looked like some political party workers garnering voters’ support, but it was a completely different experience. At the Rafting guy’s office there was huge commotion over whether to do the 45 minutes route or the more than 2 hours route. While the majority rooted for the former, Prerna and me made sure that we ended up doing the latter. And we Thank the Lord for blessing us with stupendously gorgeous weather for the best rafting trip ever.
We all have our Paradigm shifts, things that suddenly make you turn and look at life differently, if I ever experienced something close to that, it was this rafting expedition. We were blessed with heavy showers throughout which also made sure that we got surer and rougher rapids adding to the excitement of it all. Prerna had the best time of it all when she fell into the water when a rapid threw us out of control, though she was shit scared, she acted really composed and got back in in no time. While Mermaid Ila kept jumping into the water and swimming around the raft, Abhishek was denied the privilege on several occasions, but eventually even he succumbed to the sheer temptation of it all and dived into the ice-cold water. We were all like a bunch of sea-creatures. happily getting wet in the rain while making sure we took all the rapids under our stride. The beauty of the surrounding hills and the force of water did put us greatly in awe of God’s creation, he certainly knows how to make things right. Things like these make poets out of nobodys.
As the “Forward” rowing ended so did our lung power and we returned to the hotel rather reluctantly. From then on everything else seemed pale in comparison and we thought that nothing would be able to match up to the sheer elegance of this water venture. Darjeeling’s Lotus restaurant was the chosen point for dinner. It was Don’s Aunty’s restaurant and we had fabulous momo’s and chowmein there. Aditi had to be controlled from throwing up as the long drives to and from the rafting trip had her stomach totally upset. While Pranab worked on the ‘project’ to get her back to normal, me and “Her” walked them around Mall Road, halting at moments for a little shopping. After dinner, we returned to the resort for a fabulous campfire, with Live (courtesy, Rohit: guitar, Everybody else: chorus) as well as Recorded (iPods in order of size, Amit’s, Pritish’s and mine) Music. We danced around the campfire like a bunch of tribals asking for deliverance, while Rehan fanned the fire and Rahul kept pouring oil over it. One of the dances sure to be remembered would be Sharad’s (the single one), O he showed all his moves and sure made them right as all the girls were severely impressed. Again the party went on till late into the night and only after the fire burnt down did we unwantingly go back to our rooms and slept.
The next morning was the checkout day, where everyone had really morose faces but nonetheless we tried our best to make the most of the last day we had. We paid a visit to the beautiful St. Andrew’s Church on Mall Road, where Sophia played the piano and Dana sang beautiful hymns. We admired the beautiful Christian architecture and the old huge musical organs. From there we lunched at Glenary’s restaurant..o mama…still can’t forget the flavour of their yummy chocolate tarts. While a group of us went to eat at the Mayfair Hotel, where they had fabulous a fabulous buffet spread out.
After fooding, we jumped into our vehicles to head back to the plains. The marking point of this journey was the fire ignited in the pit of Abhishek’s stomach when he saw me driving one of the vehicles. The car-rallyist in him wanted to jump at the wheels but one strong word from Pranab, the ever-composed old young guy, and his (Abhishek’s) fires were doused instantaneously.
We reached the NJP station to find heat and scattered seating arrangements in the train and, thanks to Kriti, after a lot of shuffling around we eventually sat down together. And just like all good things must come to an end, so did this fantabulous trip.