The Himalayan Arc

by Namita Gokhale

  It was to capture the magic of this era, to relive a bit of our childhood, that we took our most recent trip to Darjeeling. Well-meaning people had warned us that we’d be disappointed. We reasoned that if we loved Darjeeling at the peak of the agitation, it couldn’t be so bad now. We were prepared for the worst. We were prepared to return sadder.

  If reports are to be believed, all Indian hill stations are going downhill.

  No piece on Kashmir spares an allusion to the gross commercialization of Srinagar. Rampant construction is proving to be Mussoorie’s undoing. Ooty has its trash problem. The monkeys in Shimla are a menace. The roads to Gangtok are horrendous. Café Coffee Days and Subways make all hill stations look like clones.

  Darjeeling’s biggest problem is that it hasn’t quite recovered from the agitation of the 1980s, which spawned several smaller movements, some of them as recent as two years ago. The movements – almost always accompanied by strikes, the closing down of schools and the blocking of the national highway – have done more bad than good. Add to this a state government with whom the local government is perpetually at loggerheads, and the result is massive infrastructure deficit, manifestations of which we could see at the Tiger Hill viewpoint and everywhere else in Darjeeling. That the district is a tiny, tiny part of a big state doesn’t help. The affluence of Sikkim, Darjeeling’s closest neighbour, into which the central government funnels huge amounts of money, pinches hard.

  Phurba, our driver for much of the trip, claims to have participated in the 1980s’ agitation. He says he was shot but doesn’t show us bullet marks when we ask him. Like almost everyone we speak to, he has had it with the West Bengal government. I ask him what his children do.

  ‘Call centres in Delhi,’ he says as he manoeuvres a serpentine bend towards the Padmaja Naidu Himalayan Zoological Park, where we want to see pandas. ‘The older one stuck around for four years after graduating from college. But there are no jobs here.’

  Darjeeling’s decline is evident not just in the trash-strewn streets, the lack of water and the buildings standing cheek-by-jowl, but also in the rapidly dwindling youth population. Everyone complains about the absence of opportunities.

  ‘Will they ever come back?’ I ask as we whizz by lush green hills of tea. We’re barely 3km from the square, the heart of Darjeeling’s concrete jungle, and here’s 400-plus acres of pure greenery in the form of the Happy Valley Tea Estate. As though to compound the estate’s picture-perfect quality, women plucking tea leaves and depositing them into their doko baskets soon come into view.

  ‘Only when Gorkhaland happens.’

  There’s the G-word again. People may be disillusioned with their leaders. They may have little hope in their government. They may encourage their children to move to greener pastures. But everyone believes – fervently believes – that Gorkhaland will happen.

  I express pessimism about Gorkhaland. Phurba isn’t too keen to discuss further.

  ‘Don’t forget to see the Royal Bengal Tiger,’ he says. ‘And make sure you see the (Himalayan Mountaineering) Institute Museum.’

  We are let off.

  The agitation of the 1980s led to the creation of a semi-autonomous body called the Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council. Since then, the demand for statehood has been the background score to almost all movements. Semi-autonomy has been the greatest extent to which the state and central governments have budged. Yet another movement that started in 2007 under a different political party led to, five long years later, the abolition of the Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council and the creation of the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration, supposedly slightly more autonomous than the Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council. To the masses, there’s little difference.

  We are in a meat-eater’s paradise called Keventer’s. On the plate in front of me are strings of bacon, ham, salami and sausage. Opposite me are two vegetarians. A hand-written sign on a poster across the street arrests my attention.

  ‘WE BELONGS TO SAME IDENTIFICATION AND COMMUNITY,’ the poster reads. ‘LET WE DO UNIFICATION SIKKIM.’

  I do a double take. I ask our waiter what he thinks of the proposed merger with Sikkim.

  He’s a Bengali from Jalpaiguri. He doesn’t care.

  ‘Would you like to be merged with Sikkim?’ I ask a different waiter.

  ‘I’d like Gorkhaland,’ he says. He has a hopeful look.

  ‘And if that’s not an option?’

  ‘The second-best thing would be to merge with Sikkim. We were once one.’

  That’s true. Darjeeling was a part of the kingdom of Sikkim until 1780, when Sikkim surrendered it to Nepal. When the British defeated the Nepalese in the Anglo–Nepalese War of 1814–1816, Nepal was forced to cede Darjeeling to the East India Company. In 1817, the British returned Darjeeling to the king of Sikkim. So, yes, the Sikkim–Darjeeling merger talk has a historical backbone.

  ‘Like Sikkim would be willing to share her fortunes with you,’ I say.

  ‘They have to help us out,’ the waiter says. ‘We are basically the same people.’

  ‘But think of all the trouble you’ve given us – we miss so many flights because you close off the national highway. There’s no other way for us to get to the airport.’

  ‘But we have more in common with people in Sikkim than we do with Bengalis. Our festivals are the same. We speak the same language. We have the same culture. It only makes sense.’

  ‘And all the schools you close off, knowing that our children study here. How do you expect support from Sikkim when you’ve made so much trouble?’

  The waiter doesn’t know what to say. I am aware I’ve put him in a spot.

  ‘I know you personally didn’t cause me to miss my flight,’ I say. I apologize.

  We pay the bill and head to Glenary’s. The éclairs are smaller than we remember them. We can’t say if the taste has changed too. Someone at The Buzz, the basement bar at Glenary’s, shows me a picture when I bring up the issue of the Darjeeling–Sikkim merger.

  ‘DARJEELING BELONGS TO SIKKIM. SO DARJEELING UN…’ The rest of the poster has been ripped off.

  The Chowrasta, Darjeeling’s square, still smells like horse manure. I enjoy this smell. Of all the mall roads in India, this is my favourite. Gangtok’s square is too sanitized; almost all the old buildings have been torn down. The Chowrasta is dirty in comparison. Some of the stores are housed in buildings that look like they are about to collapse. One of these ancient shops is the Oxford Book & Stationery, that store of my childhood. I still have that tattered copy of Puss in Boots in my New York apartment.

  I’ve promised Maya, the owner, that I’ll sign copies of my books when I am in town. As I make my way in, I marvel at the presence of a massive bookstore – so unapologetic about its size – in this location, the best possible site in Darjeeling. Oxford employs six full-time employees, one of whom, Maya says, has been with her family for more than fifty years, and another for forty-seven. The store is spacious, conducive to browsing and well stocked. Maya says tourists this year have been few. If the number of people in the store is any indication, she doesn’t need to worry about business. The store has no problem with footfalls, I point out.

  ‘Not everyone who’s here buys a book,’ she says.

  ‘That’s true.’

  ‘But that’s fine. That’s how bookstores should be.’

  ‘Haven’t you been tempted to abandon the bookstore and open something else, do something more lucrative?’ I ask. ‘I mean, this is prime real estate.’

  ‘This place will always be a bookstore,’ Maya says with finality.

  I am filled with affection for this lovely space. It reminds me of all the great bookstores in my life – places that made me a writer and are now supporting me as a writer.

  Outside, the clouds have vanished. The weather hadn’t been very cooperative on the day we went to Tiger Hill. Today is different. The sky is a brilliant blue. Here is the Kanchenjunga – so close, so confident, so generous – standing sentinel over the hills.
We give up taking pictures. We don’t want to trivialize the mountain, the moment.

  Soon, the mountain recedes. A sarangi player restrings his instrument while his partner prepares to sing something folksy. A pony neighs and defecates on someone’s shoe. Tourists are alarmed. Locals laugh. A nervous young girl circumnavigates the square on horseback. A politician’s rants echo from a makeshift stage. He says something about Gorkhaland and unfulfilled promises. The crowd breaks into raucous applause.

  SIKKIM

  A home full of hotels

  Prajwal Parajuly

  The Chumbi Mountain Retreat in Pelling, west Sikkim, is unlike any other Sikkimese hotel I’ve been to. Newly built but with an eye on history, the luxury hotel – with a collection of curious artefacts likely culled from the owners’ private collection – is almost a tableau of the erstwhile kingdom of Sikkim. Pictures of the last king and his American queen, and the kings and queens before them, deck the walls. The lobby and formal dining area house swords, trumpets and trunks.

  I am not staying at the hotel. I know the owners and I want to avoid the you’re-our-guest-so-we-can’t-allow-you-to-pay awkwardness that’s bound to surface. Besides, on this trip, I am slumming it. I am staying at a backpackers’ paradise called Kabur.

  At the Kabur, I pay Rs 500 a night. The most expensive suite at the Chumbi is Rs 36,000. The walls of my room at the Kabur are green with mould. The rooms at the Chumbi look like they’ve been transplanted from a palace. I’ve heard rumours that the Chumbi is on the verge of being declared a five-star hotel. It deserves the tag. I’ve also heard rumours that the Leela, the Indian chain of super-luxury hotels, has expressed interest in running the Chumbi. The small-town boy in me is ecstatic. The well-travelled adult in me is sceptical.

  This marriage of India with Sikkim, I am convinced, will create disharmony. But I simply have to look at history to know that the union just might work. Sikkim became a part of India in 1975. Apart from the occasional nostalgia for pre-1975 days, the Sikkimese, by and large, have made peace with the merger, thanks in no small part to the union government pouring enormous amounts of cash into the state. Families that were struggling only a generation ago are extremely wealthy today. Tourism is booming. Almost every building in the 2km stretch that is downtown Pelling is a hotel, restaurant or travel agency.

  Ever since I became a published author, trips to Sikkim have filled me with dread. The last time I was there, I found myself a clueless judge of the Miss Sikkim Diva pageant and a reluctant chief guest at my school’s golden-jubilee celebrations. I take into account my prolonged lack of productivity – I have produced next to nothing after my second book, which I wrote three years ago – and feel like a fraud who will flog the same old books for far longer than is acceptable. But because Gangtok, the capital of Sikkim, is home – and everyone in this town really does know everyone else – I cannot bring myself to say no to invites. I, therefore, miserably grace one function after another, making speeches and posing for pictures and declaring to myself that I shall not go home for another five years. Six months later, I am back, doing the same things I had promised myself I wouldn’t.

  Still, I grow disenchanted with the town. We knock down old cottages to build ugly flats, which we convert into hotels that we are too posh to run, so we lease them out and laugh about how we’re making money without any effort. Our pedestrianized square, the Mahatma Gandhi Marg, is clean and well-maintained and has zilch character. In our attempt to accommodate tourists, we are becoming indistinguishable from other hill stations.

  There’s all the rampant construction – crazy, thoughtless and dangerous in an area prone to landslides and earthquakes. I arrive home to discover that my parents are contributing to the construction malaise. When the neighbours built a hotel (it’s always a hotel these days) on a vacant lot next door, the building obstructed views of the Kanchenjunga from my parents’ home. They have now taken it upon themselves to merge three of their mid-rises – expanding them both horizontally and vertically – into one, so that they aren’t deprived of mountain views. This involves breaking, building, hammering and drilling, my background score as I try – and fail – to write.

  When I fail to write, I head to Rachna Books. I sit in its coffee shop, named Café Fiction, and do anything but write. Rachna Books has been around longer than I have and is responsible for ensuring that a town of excessively moneyed people doesn’t become a town of degenerates. It’s also partly responsible for having made me a writer. It keeps evolving as a space – after adding a café, the owner started a bed-and-breakfast called, what else but, Bookman’s BnB – in addition to fulfilling its role as the hub of all things cultural and literary in Gangtok.

  It’s here that I meet people, pick up obscure titles and sign copies of my books. It was here that I first decided that I had to write a book. It’s here that I get all my crazy ideas, which is why, when prodded by a few regulars to go on a walking tour of Sikkim, I decided that it wasn’t a bad idea after all. It seemed like the right thing to do – it had been a while since I had ventured out of Gangtok. I had family all over and I’d still be home while also sufficiently removed from it.

  I had been told that beyond the glitz and glamour of Gangtok lay a Sikkim full of poverty and suffering. On this tour, I would be able to see for myself what tourism had actually done to the state. It couldn’t have been all bad, or all good. I had heard stories of families starting homestays and being elevated from poverty to affluence. I had also heard nervous whispers about towns such as Yuksom, the first capital of Sikkim, turning into clones of Manali. Besides, it would be good to see how people were reacting to the enormous brand-new kitschy statues of the Buddha, Padmasambhava and Shiva that we love installing wherever we feel like.

  After a twenty-minute uphill climb above Khecheopalri, about 145 kilometres from Gangtok, I find myself at a settlement of tiny houses, many of which function as homestays. I’ve just seen the famous Khecheopalri lake, where I made an attempt at feeling spiritual. It’s nice enough – though not spectacular – but there are far too many tourists, far too many selfie sticks and far too many decibels.

  At Sonam’s Homestay, I pay Rs 400 per night because I am from Gangtok. I am asked to tell the other guests that I’m paying Rs 500. Sonam informs me that the homestay culture in the village started with Pala’s Homestay, which his father runs. Soon, the thriving business sucked the entire family in. When the number of tourists is higher than the number of beds in these houses, neighbours – a number of them Sonam’s relatives – offer their rooms. Sonam’s wife does the cooking. His sister runs a store where she sells cigarettes, chips and alcohol. Despite the isolation, the village has electricity. My phone’s internet connection cooperates. I ask Sonam about his life pre and post homestay. He was a trekking porter for two decades.

  ‘I got tired of that.’ He laughs. ‘I would have done that until I died if not for the homestay. Or the mountains would have killed me.’

  ‘And now what?’ I ask.

  Bhaichung, Sonam’s eldest son, goes down to the lake area after breakfast every day to convince tourists that the homestay is worth the ascent. He doesn’t have to try too hard. The place is famous among walkers.

  ‘Now, I am making enough money to feed myself and my family,’ Sonam says modestly.

  ‘You make more than that. What was your profit last year?’

  ‘Between Rs 2.5 to 3 lakh,’ Sonam says.

  ‘You’re a rich man,’ I say.

  He knows it. Sonam’s wife plucks some mint leaves for my tea.

  ‘Everything you consumed is organic.’ Sonam points to his vegetable garden. ‘Sikkim is now a fully organic state.’

  I bristle. Amid much fanfare, Sikkim has been declared a 100 per cent organic state by the union government. Cheerleaders love shoving that bit of information down everyone’s throat, but to my knowledge, the state has never really been ‘inorganic’. The organic claptrap reeks of a giant public-relations exercise, equal parts comm
endable and deplorable in its execution, and I tell Sonam to shut up.

  He chortles knowingly.

  Sonam’s Homestay has a squat toilet. If you’re lucky, you get a bucket of lukewarm water in lieu of a shower. I ask Sonam if he will incorporate improvements now that the place – and the entire village around it – has made so much money. Sonam mutters something about staying true to his roots.

  ‘The foreigner tourists like that,’ he says. ‘They crave the authentic experience.’

  For as long as I can remember, Sikkim has been among the most stable states in India. There’s peace, absolute peace. There’s civic sense – you don’t see overcrowding in vehicles or public defecation. There’s money – it’s in your face the second you cross into the state from the West Bengal border at Rangpo. There’s law and order – a friend working in the police tells me that he’s tired of dealing with nothing other than petty thefts.

  Compare this to our closest neighbour, Darjeeling in West Bengal, which smoulders with its demand for statehood – embroiled in strikes and curfews, schools closing down and violence – or with the lack of stability in many north-eastern states, and you would forgive us for being so smug.