RETROSPECTION...SIKKIM - My First LOVE...Part 1

Sometimes things that start on a slow or sudden note turns out to be the most valuable in your life...Atleast it happened to me more than once...

The event dates back to Autumn of 1998. My family and few relatives had all of a sudden just got this urge to go to Sikkim and Darjeeling. I for one was not very excited and just wanted to lazy around at home. So tickets were booked for 13 of us, railway contacts used to get them as it was decided just 10 days in advance and that also Diwali time. Bengalis usually travel in big groups, don't know why and I am not exactly in favour of that. So tickets done, we boarded the Darjeeling Mail and reached NJP. From there Gangtok via cab.

I have always like the mountains more than the sea and I have seen quite a many but never anything like what encounted me. Steep mountains on one side and the flowing rivers (or streams) on the other. Winding roads travelling up these beautiful mountains covered with lush green Pine and Eucalyptus trees, the cool moist breeze sweeping across your face sometimes mixed with clouds giving you the feeling of romance and eternal love, pristine suuroundings with neat wooden houses hanging periliously from mountain sides. As we trooped into our beautiful guest house at 7 pm, the city stood eeriely silent with only a few lights twinkling far and wide, mostly from alcohol shops. Our guest house was a private one, fully wooden with a fire place in the drawing room and a huge bear skin carpet at the centre.

That night I had my first taste of alcohol. I was 13 years old and I started with Brandy (popularly known as Doctor's tonic). Felt good and warm and was flat. After a good nights sleep, I got up at 6 am and as i pushed myself towards the balcony with a toothbrush in my mouth and looked up, I was confronted by a scene that got etched in my memory forever and one which probably as much as I may write may never be enough to describe its true beauty. There ahead of me (it looked so near) lay the mighty snow clad peaks of Kanchenjunga (known in Sikkim as Kanchendzonga named after a Demon) with the sun's rays playing on the snow as pearls in the ocean. A view which makes you feel alive, an energy and such a soothing effect which is a harbringer of life in itself.

The next few days we tarvelled across the length and breadth of Sikkim and whereever I went I came across something new, something energizing and something so beautuful that even the word beauty feels small in front of it. The changu lake near to freezing with its pristine clean waters, the yak ride, the serene and pure Roomtek Monastery with tiny cute monks runnign around and oh yeahhhh the LOVELY AWESOME MOMOS...Hmmmm simply awesome. Not to forget the beautiful fair Nepali girls and me at the age 0f 13 going ga ga over their beauty. Also one must note that I personally have found the Sikkimese people to be the most polite, warm, helpful and trustworthy people you can ever come across.

That was the start of my first love which has only got stronger over the years. Somehow I never felt like coming back from there and it feels like that is the place where my heart and soul lies. Since then I have actually had more Nepali friends and each one of them has only added to my love for that place...
It's been 10 years now...and the heart longs to run back to my first love - the place which redefines beauty and also love (my gal)... Now just waiting for a few days leave from my work so that I can go to the place where my heart and soul lies...