Potato Chips

by Anshuman Mohan

  The next day, Mahasaptami, and the day after, Mahashtami, passed in a similar fashion. On the day of Mahanavami, however, something very special happened. The pandal in our neighbourhood had its cultural programmes that day, so the children and adults of the para had been called upon to perform an item of some kind— whether an impromptu jig or a pre-planned dance or song. It was like a huge family get-together where everyone knew each other and enjoyed themselves. Needless to say, I knew no one and did not enjoy myself at all. Finally, as a way to end the programme, the men of the get-together organized a dhunuchi naach. Each of them picked up a dhunuchi, a shallow earthen pot filled with red-hot coals, camphor and other things; a wonderful aroma emanated from it. Then they started dancing, twirling the hot dhunuchis in their hands, making twists and turns that shocked me with their audacity. One man went so far as to do a loop-de-loop with the pot, causing half the coals to spill out and land near his feet! It was very fast-paced and exciting.

  Then I was offered the chance to do a dhunuchi naach! Despite my parents’ protests and threats, I proudly took up the pot and, in a fraction of a second, almost dropped it. Shit, the thing was hot! I just stood there, with my hands as far from the coals as possible, shuffling my feet a bit, then handed the pot back gingerly—much to my mother’s relief and my father’s amusement.

  On Dashami, at 8:30 p.m., my mother, sister and I boarded the Darjeeling Mail. I was very pleased because we had seen scores of pandals over the last few days and had even caught a glimpse of a couple of idols being immersed as we drove alongside the Hooghly on our way to the station. The worshippers had been rotating the idols, singing and dancing, as they lowered them into the sluggish waters.

  However, in spite of my enjoyment of the pujas, my heart ached for Shubho. I could not imagine how unhappy he must be, how frustrated and miserable. I wished I could help in some way, but try as I might, I could not think of anything. I had even started to hate my tennis classes because each one was a reminder of how Shubho was being deprived. My stomach felt hollow as I recalled the last time I had seen him—his sad face pressed against the grill surrounding the courts, his eyes bloodshot, his hands empty. It had been terrible to see him without a racquet, drinking in the sight of other people running around and playing.

  I had often seen many non-members make use of the club facilities—acquaintances of members who asked them to cover for them as they made use of the pool, the golf course, the tennis courts. Then why had Tapan Sir and Shubho been punished? The answer was glaringly obvious—because they were poor, they were not influential, they were ‘servants’. It didn’t matter that Shubho had been practically born and brought up at the club. His playing in the courts was ‘taking undue advantage’ of a situation, as Mr Gupta had put it. By promoting his son, Tapan Sir was ‘misusing and insulting his position and thirty years’ worth of trust’.

  Shubho had said that he hadn’t even touched his racquet for over a month. ‘I can play football in the park,’ he had said. ‘I can play cricket in the streets. But where can I play tennis? I have chosen the wrong game to love—it is a game for the rich. How dare I play a game meant for the rich? It’s all my fault…’ His voice had trembled, then broken. ‘Baba doesn’t even let me be a ball boy…’

  I could have booked a court for myself and signed Shubho in as a guest and played with him, but god knows what other things the club would then accuse them of— who was to say that Shubho would not be asked to leave for being ‘over-familiar’ with a member? Even if I could defend him once, the club could possibly ban him and his father for life. And so, while Shubho continued to stare with teary, listless eyes at the courts, I had walked over to Tapan Sir, booked another session and left.

  I was haunted by these thoughts for much of the night and slept fitfully. But when I woke up in the morning and peered out of the train window, my mood lifted. The sun was shining, the air was fresh and crisp and in the distance I could see acres of fields covered with lush, green grass. We were going to the hills.

  ‘I’m the king of the world!’ I shouted out to the wind.

  My euphoria was short-lived. On reaching New Jalpaiguri station, we discovered that the Darjeeling area had been paralysed by an ‘indefinite strike’ and we would not be able to drive up from Siliguri to Kurseong. Worried and afraid, for strikes in the hills were a far sight more violent than any in Kolkata because of the extreme political unrest, we decided to take shelter with some distant relatives of Mum’s who lived in Siliguri. After many rejections from taxi drivers, we finally found a rickshaw which was willing to take us to our relatives’ house for a high price.

  The journey was scary as hell. We were plagued by uncertainty as to whether Mum’s Siliguri relatives would even recognize us—she had been a teenager when she last visited them. On top of that, mobs strode through the streets, shouting angrily and waving flags of different political parties. All the shops were closed and the doors and windows of the houses were firmly shut. We didn’t even dare discuss the situation because we didn’t know what political leanings the guy ferrying us had, whether he was anti-strikes or supported them. The last thing we wanted was for him to turn hostile.

  I suddenly started to regret our decision to visit the hills. It was not like we didn’t know of the general situation in the area. News articles describing these sudden, ‘indefinite bandhs’ flashed on TV channels almost every day in the plains, along with footage of the violence that had become almost routine. My father had warned us about the political disturbances and the trouble we might have to face, but we had all argued and come here anyway. And now all around us was a mix of fear and fury instead of the joy that we had expected.

  The house that we eventually disembarked at did nothing to lift our spirits. The first person we met was an old, withered man, deaf and half-blind, who sat in the courtyard with a blank expression on his face. He was a great-uncle of Mum’s, the owner of a timber mill which had been shut down years ago. I asked Mum what he had looked like twenty years ago, when she had last visited, and she said that he had been exactly the same. Finally, a middle-aged man came out of the house. Thankfully, he recognized Mum and ushered us in.

  The day passed slowly, with me feeling aghast at the state of dilapidation the house was in—cobwebs hung off every corner and the furniture was sparse and in severe need of repair. There wasn’t even a window in the room that was assigned to us. No one other than the two men appeared to be living in the house.

  ‘This place hasn’t changed in years!’ Mum exclaimed.

  The night seemed even longer than the day. The mosquitoes were not daunted by the nets around the beds and I spent the entire night tossing and turning, while my sister just kept weeping. Mum tried to cheer us up by telling us what the place had been like when she was young, about how everything had been just the same. But this made it all the more eerie. The house seemed to be caught in a time warp and had a haunted feel to it—I hated it.

  With a pang, I remembered Sameer, Rohan and Ankit. I was sure they were enjoying their vacations and not sitting in the middle of a riot like me.

  The next day, however, brought good news. My father rang to say that the strike had been called off, at least for the day, and it was safe to drive up to the hills.

  Soon, we were making our annual climb up to Kurseong. How I had longed for this day! We broke our journey only once—to eat freshly steamed momos at a small shack. Momos are just about the coolest things that man has ever made, though it’s a pity that the counterfeit stuff you get in the plains tastes nothing like what you get in the hills.

  My mother was very careful to ensure that we did not discuss the bandh and its causes in front of the driver who could be pro or anti-Gorkha. Instead, we laughed about the many signs along the route—‘Donate blood at a blood bank, not on this road’, ‘Hurry-burry spoils the curry’ and ‘Better late than never’.

  My grandparents no longer lived in Kurseong—they had moved to the safety of the plains thanks to the spate
of strikes and riots that had torn the area apart during Mum’s youth, and were now firmly settled in Kolkata. But the house remained, a testament to their lives in Kurseong. Even though my grandparents, ever supportive of ‘development’ and ‘young blood’, had been quite willing to sell the house, my mother hadn’t let them. Every year, we visited the house and relived my mother’s childhood through the never-ending stories which she had to share. The house was a ramshackle affair now, all wood and glass and corrugated iron sheets, and the entire place had an air of neglect about it. But no amount of weeds or ivy or moss could disguise what it had once been—a beautiful home.

  We spent the next few days touring the lovely hillsides, breathing deep the clean and fresh mountain air, a dramatic change from the heat, grime and pollution of Kolkata. As we trekked to Eagle’s Craig to watch the sunset, visited the Deer Park and the Buddhist monastery, my mother talked about the political upheaval that had taken place here in her schooldays. Even though we were determined not to let anything spoil our vacation, our Siliguri experience had cast a pall over it. So instead of the joyful stories of a carefree childhood that my mother usually told, she spoke about the darker side of her hill experience. The hills had always been a place of solace for us. But now, thanks to the resurgence of violence, it was a place of anxiety as well.

  The last day of our stay was reserved for a visit to my mother’s old school, which had stood there since 1880. Unfortunately, none of the school staff recognized my mother and vice versa. When we walked out of the building, we left with a hollow feeling that our holiday haven was disappearing forever. A new Kurseong was taking its place.

  We would be back in Kolkata the next day, so we were in the mood for some adventure. We begged and pleaded with Mum to let us explore the hillside one last time—this time, we wanted to take the little pathways through the woods and not the main tourist paths.

  ‘Please, please?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Pretty please!’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Oh come on, Mum!’ I whined. ‘Why not? Let’s go exploring. What’s the harm in taking this shortcut back? You said that you used this route to go to school every day!’

  At that reminder, my mother’s determination wavered for an instant. Without giving her a chance to reconsider, Aditi and I rushed into the clearing beyond the bushes. With a resigned sigh, Mum followed us. We advanced downhill swiftly, at what seemed like an alarming thirty-five degree angle. Here and there, side routes branched off, leading to the hundreds of tea estates that had made Darjeeling famous.

  The sky was almost completely obscured by the dense canopy of leaves and branches above us. Although it was high noon outside, it felt like twilight inside the woods. I didn’t want to admit it, but I soon realized that we had made a mistake by coming this way. After a point, the path had begun to look completely unused and unsafe and there was an air of desolation about the place. The light drizzle had turned the dirt into mud and we were all skidding and slipping every now and then.

  Suddenly, a loud scream pierced the silence. My heart skipped a beat—it was my sister!

  Aditi was on the ground a few yards ahead of us, lying flat on her stomach and moaning in pain. It looked like she had tripped and fallen face down. Mum and I ran towards her and helped her up. A thick stream of blood was flowing from her nose which, from the bridge downwards, was bent at an awkward angle towards the left. Her cheeks were scratched and bloody and she looked like she was about to faint.

  We shouted desperately for help, but our calls went unanswered. My mother tried frantically to call from her mobile, but there was no signal. Ultimately, we had to haul Aditi up, one arm on each of our shoulders, and plod on. She was sobbing hysterically at the sight of all the blood and my mother was panicking as well. She had taken her dupatta and made a makeshift knot to stem the flow of blood, but it didn’t seem to be working. I had never imagined that you could lose so much blood through the nose. Determinedly, we trudged downwards, time seeming to drag on forever. I was very, very scared that we were lost and would not find our way to safety in time to help my sister.

  Just as I was about to give up all hope and collapse, we sighted a light in the distance. We were at the end of our horrible, wooded tunnel.

  ‘Oh thank god!’ my mother cried.

  We rushed forward, channelling all our energy into our exhausted legs. Reaching that road was the single most important thing at that moment. It might be the main road, which would mean a lift to the hospital.

  Once we reached the road, however, we were faced with another grave problem. The cars refused to stop for us. No matter how loud we cried, how hard we tried to indicate our distress, car after car ignored our frantic attempts to flag them down.

  My mother had propped Aditi up against a tree and had collapsed herself. Aditi’s eyes were shut and she had a drained, bleached look on her face. I threw caution to the winds and ran to the middle of the road, waving my hands like a madman. A blue Tata Sumo was now speeding uphill. I wanted us to be in it. Moving three paces to the right, I blocked the car’s path, prepared to jump quickly to the right in case the driver did not see me.

  The Sumo was now within fifty metres of me. Squinting in the bright glare of the car’s lights, I waved and shouted. The driver did not slow down. I swore as the car swerved suddenly to the left, trying to avoid me. It was then that I heard the other car—it was behind me, its horn blaring. I did not have to look back to figure out that it was going uncontrollably fast.

  I could hear my mother shouting at me, warning me of the car. The Sumo in front of me had seen it too. The car swerved again—this time, towards me. I leapt to the right. The world seemed to move in slow motion as my body flew towards the rough-hewn boulders of the mountainside. I hit them with a sickening crunch, the air knocked out of me. As I forced myself to get up, the Sumo stopped just beside me. The car that had come from behind me was speeding away in the distance, its tail lights flashing.

  Ten minutes later, I found myself squeezed between the door and a very fat, dark Bengali lady who was yapping on and on about my carelessness and bravado. My mother and sister had been given top priority and were seated in the front seat. We were speeding towards Kurseong Hospital despite the driver’s constant complaints about the detour he was having to take.

  From the conversation of our co-passengers, I gathered that there had been a riot in the Darjeeling area. None of the other cars we had tried to stop had done so because they were speeding away from the riots. This one wouldn’t have stopped either had it not been for my near-accident.

  Suddenly, there was a loud screech of protest from the tyres and the car jerked to a halt. We had reached the hospital. I jumped out of the car and rushed in through the front gate to call for a stretcher while my mother helped Aditi out of the car.

  But our troubles were far from over. There were no doctors or nurses to help us. My mother stretched Aditi down on a bench while I sprinted from door to door, looking for someone to help us, pleading with every person I met. There were only peons around and all of them were enjoying extended tea breaks. Wherever I went, shouting ‘Emergency! Emergency! Where’s the doctor?’ I got the same casual reply—‘Daaktar saab log to nahin hai. Strike mein kaun rahega?’ At last, when I was about to break down and cry, help came. I found myself waiting outside a shabby looking room with Mum while a seedy looking doctor worked on Aditi inside.

  ‘Tremendous blood loss,’ he said. ‘We’ll have to give her a bottle of blood.’

  A chill passed down my spine. I was on the verge of collapsing myself and could not bear the thought of Aditi lying helpless on a bed, surrounded by drips.

  A few minutes later, I found myself making a call to my father. I told him the full story, right from Aditi’s fall to the riot to the disaster at the hospital. I was weeping like a baby. ‘Come and take us home, Papa,’ I cried.

  Dad reached us sooner than expected—the very next day. In the meantime, I had slid into a fever
, haunted by nightmares about everything that had gone wrong on the trip. But just Dad’s presence and two doses of Crocin did the trick—I sweated the fever out. Hand in hand, we trudged towards the room where my mother and sister were

  Aditi looked terrible. Her skin was raw and bruised, her eyes were bloodshot. She had a big bandage on her face, stretching from ear to ear, securing her nose in place. There was also a large gash under her chin. I felt tears rush to my eyes as I looked at her.

  Mum looked tired, weak and like she had aged ten years in the last twenty-four hours. There were deep circles under her eyes—she hadn’t slept at all. As soon as she saw Dad, she ran into his arms and wept profusely.

  ‘It’ll be all right,’ he said reassuringly, his strong arms holding us tight.

  We believed him. He was our pillar of strength. We knew things would be okay now. Aditi was discharged from the hospital and we took her home.

  My mother hastily packed the luggage while the three of us sat discussing our return. We wouldn’t be going to Darjeeling like every year—we would be saying goodbye to the hills and going straight home.

  But before leaving, we would do something that had been postponed for twenty long years, something that we hated to do. But it had come as a strict instruction from my grandparents after they had heard of all the troubles we had faced this time. And to be perfectly honest, while our hearts ached and we mourned the loss of our little home in the hills, we couldn’t really argue. There was nothing left for us here.

  As we locked the door behind us, Dad nailed a large, handwritten sign on it—‘FOR SALE’ it said, along with my grandfather’s name and contact details.

  ‘Next time, we’ll come here as tourists,’ said my father, trying to cheer us up.

  Fifteen

  Making Up Stories