In north Kolkata, just behind my alma mater Scottish Church school, there’s an alley called Dinobondhu Chakraborty Lane that connects Ishwar Mill Lane to Abhedananda Road beside Hedua. About 300 metres long and just wide enough to allow one person at a time, the quiet alley sleeps between two rows of concrete houses almost touching each other. In school, we used to call it the Anaconda and we would often introduce unsuspecting classmates to the belly of the beast without telling them where it ends. The mild claustrophobia of crossing the alley was a fun change of experience after sitting in classrooms all day that always felt too big and the newbie's surprise at finding Hedua at the end of the lane was what we all waited for. After Madhyamik, I changed schools and, with space and time, forgot both the Anaconda lane and about its attraction to the bored children of a concrete jungle.
Love Road trail Sagnik Yadaw
It was not until the dawn of last Saturday, when hiking through the narrow and steep walkway on the side of a green hill, that I remembered the Anaconda again. The path in front of me was more serpentine this time and just as narrow. But rather than the feeling of being devoured by something that hides from the sun, I was feeling free in a manner I haven’t experienced before. This was my first time in Darjeeling and this rocky path, strewn with soft yellow leaves and flanked by lush green foliage, welcomed the light of the sun with a necessity as immediate as mine. My city on the plains is crowded but like any crowded place, it is full of dead things. On this hill and on this path, a secret part of myself felt at home among the living that surrounded me. “The locals call it Love Road,” PB said from behind me, “here, you will get a glimpse of Darjeeling before it was colonised by the British, the Bengalis, and the tourists.”
Birch Hill from Love Road Sagnik Yadaw
Parimal Bhattacharya, PB to me, who sat in his college classes, had introduced me to Darjeeling long before I had the fortune of meeting the place or the man in person. The author of No Path in Darjeeling is Straight — a “transcreation” (as he calls it) of his Bangla Book Darjeeling: Smriti, Samaj, Itihas — was my first guide to this hill town. Both the books talk about his brief sojourn to Darjeeling as a government college teacher under the orders of the West Bengal Public Service Commission. Yet, they are not exactly a memoir. Like all his works, they sit between nonfiction and fiction, history and memory like a nimble train passenger in their daily commute, making space where there was none before.
I had first stumbled upon Bhattacharya’s Dyanchinama in College Street and had bought Darjeeling the very next week. As one of those unfortunate people who have never travelled anywhere and hadn’t developed the inclination, I did not start reading Darjeeling with the intention of visiting the place later some day but from a reader’s desire to discover more of this new author that I had fallen in love with.
To fall in love with an author is to allow their stories to take root within you. To fall in love with a place, as Bhattacharya was with Darjeeling, is to leave a little of yourself in that land for ever.
Moving ahead through Love Road Parimal Bhattacharya
“Why Love Road?” my friend asked, distracted as the soles of his chappal carefully touched the wet yellow and black leaves of the shedding tree on our right hand slope. His torn shoe was back in our room but he wouldn’t miss the chance to see the rising sun light up the snow-covered peaks of Kanchenjunga. Looking at the beautiful stretch before us and the privacy it must offer all day to young couples in need of shared solitude, I could guess the answer to that question. Sir however had fallen quiet, contemplating a swath of lush primaeval tiger ferns like a time-traveller remembering his old adventures. “Because it is so easy to fall in love with the land here,” he replied after a while, smiling.
Tiger ferns on Love Road Indrani Bhattacharya
Parimal sir and his wife Indrani ma’am were on a Puja holiday with Subhenduda and Sarbanidi, their nephew and niece-in-law. They were to spend a few quiet days on the hills before going back to the restless Kolkata, now reeling from the five day celebration after two years of sullen adherence to Covid protocols. My friend and I had tagged along at the last minute.
Love Road trail, the jungle behind the border Sagnik Yadaw
A young journalist, my friend, had come to Darjeeling once before and was there to take advantage of a few workless days before joining a new job. I was trying to find a cure to my writers’ block as the deadline of my dissertation looms close. With the stress slowly building from the beginning of this year, I had finally had a severe mental breakdown two weeks back, after months of insomnia and anxiety led to a relapse into self-harm practices and an impulsively shaved head. My therapist suggested a brief respite and my friend had developed an unshakable belief in the curative power of the Himalayas. So, leaving an unfinished dissertation in my hard drive and my comb and hair clips on the dresser, I went to the foothills of the Himalayas with a tonsured head to learn how to sleep again from the Sleeping Buddha himself.
(To be continued tomorrow)
