Darjeeling

The 'Toy Train' to Ghoom... yes, it is ironic that it rhymes with 'doom'... ;)

Visiting Darjeeling has been a dream of mine for a long time... it has the fame of Kathmandu, but without all the commercialism and with quite a bit more historical significance... it's the birthplace (and final resting place) of Tenzing Norgay, the famous sherpa who first climbed Mt. Everest with Sir Edmond Hillary (white guys tend to get all the credit, but considering Norgay's inferior equipment and 'assistant' status... he was pretty remarkable). Soham and I visited the Mountaineering and Everest museums where i got to ogle over historic harnesses and carabiners (ok, i'm a climbing geek... but if you're going to be a geek, what better subject is there? Fine, fine, i'm a bit of a geek about lots of things... can we just move on? Thank you :).

On the last day, we made a rather ill-fated trip to a tea plantation... after several hours of walking, getting lost, and then walking some more, we finally got a ride to a plantation whose main tea-processing plant was closed for the season. Nonetheless, we wandered around the tea fields, which are actually steep slopes covered with bushes and the occasional narrow path in between... picturesque, and in the end not at all disappointing, even if i didn't get a chance to brew my own cup. But, I can't let any wonderful experience go without a nagging reality check, can I? A day or two previously, we watched a news report on a local station in which the reporter was interviewing a woman whose husband had died of malnutrition; she was worried that she had nothing to feed her children and hoped she would not die herself... I think we just watched in awed silence - in the midst of such abundant greenery, people are dying from starvation: what is there to say to that? There's lots to scream about, certainly, but to say something - anything - just seemed inadequate. There are such brilliant farming projects and innovations being introduced to modernize subsistence farms around the world (Sach's 'Millennium Project' being the most famous, but there are many others); clearly, we have an incredibly long way to go... forget war-ravaged refugee camps; if farms in the most fertile places aren't producing enough to feed the population (or, alternatively, if too much money is siphoned away from the poor and into deep bureaucratic pockets), then what hope is there for the really desperate places? Medicine is a fantastic calling, but how much can I do if my patients die of malnutrition? Feeding centers, after all, are only a temporary solution... but, I digress. God damn it... I never digress ;). Oh, and yes, I did continue to feed and play with stray dogs... what can I say? I must get it from my grandfather, but I just can't let my furry four-legged friends go by without a friendly hello (and a snack).

In order to get to and from Darjeeling, we had to take a shared taxi (read = 10 people crammed into a 4x4, speeding along cliffs with occasional stops for chai). On the way back, this, um, journey, was particularly hair-raising... Soham was a witness to this, so he can concur that i'm not at all exaggerating... just imagine this: Myself and ten of my newly closest friends are in a shockingly stable Landrover; i'm sitting up front and thus have a spectacular view of the cracked windshield... and pretty much nothing else. We're driving through perhaps the thickest fog i've ever experienced... and we're driving on a narrow (can't emphasize this enough), winding little mud road on the side of a cliff - with no safety fence whatsoever! Every once in a while, we see rapidly approaching headlights and have to negotiate our way around the other vehicle... there are times where i literally lose sight of road on my side, and can only see the endless foggy ravine below... on several occasions, we're forced to swerve around a herd of cows or Buffalo... what could make this even more fun? A rainstorm perhaps? Yep, we got that too. The driver was a real comedian; Soham kept translating his comments, which went something like: "Shit, i can't see anything!" and "Damn, now it's raining... now i really can't see anything!". For once, I could do without the translations! But, you know, finally standing on solid ground, i have to state the obvious: it's pretty tough going back to grocery shopping and television after driving along stormy cliffs in the Himalayas... and you guys wonder about the adrenaline junkie in me ;).

So, overall, the trip was pretty spectacular... the brisk mountain air was a welcome reprieve from the not-so-welcoming grime of Delhi and Mumbai... though, as I was about to find out, those two have nothing - and i mean nothing - on Calcutta in terms of pollution. A certain Bengali friend of mine spent the past week defending Calcutta, trying to convince me that due to the city's claims to cultural superiority, it's also quite picturesque... well, *cough*, Tagore may be a fantastic poet, but let me tell you something: 'City of Joy' isn't a harsh representation of Calcutta - it's downright generous. It's been 3 days since I flew back to Maharasthra, and i'm still coughing up black muck... say what you will about cultural heritage, but Calcutta is pretty freaking far from Paris. However, in honor of Bengal, i'm posting an excerpt from one Tagore's most famous poems, 'GITANJALI' (song offerings):

Mind Without Fear

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;

Where knowledge is free;

Where the world has not been broken up

into fragments by narrow domestic walls;

Where words come out from the depth of truth;

Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;

Where the clear stream of reason

has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;

Where the mind is led forward by thee

into ever-widening thought and action ---

Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake!

I'm going to try to post some more photographs in the next few days, primarily of Palghar and the Adivasi villages where i'm working... i finally have a card reader (i left my original USB cable at home, and my spare was stolen by a goat... yes, really...), but please bear with me and remember that internet here is incredibly slow... in the meantime, below are some select images from Darjeeling:

Afternoon break on a terrace with the most fantastic view... not a bad life, eh? :)

Black bears at the Darjeeling animal sanctuary... see, mom, these were the guys that almost ate me and Susan in the Adirondacks... just kidding! They're strictly vegetarian ;).

...because it's there (and i've clearly been reading too many mountaineering books ;).

Hindu temple (aka - monkey temple, because they were everywhere!) in Darjeeling

Sunrise on 'Tiger Hill', overlooking Katchenjunga

At a tea plantation! Spectacular views, and you can already see the fog slowly setting in...



Darjeeling tea plantation...

Swerving around a herd of Buffalo on my favorite cliff-side road...!