Mount Placid

Seeking Stillness

This issue of the newsletter is coming to you from Darjeeling, in North Bengal. The Bengali readers would be intimately familiar with Darjeeling. It is the second-most popular vacation destination for our ilk, first place being reserved for Puri, Orissa. I know someone who has been to Puri 47 times. He is 35 years old.

Puri is infested with Bengalis. The beach, the famous Jagannath Temple, the stalls selling delectable khaja; wherever you go, Bengalis abound. If you visit Puri, you will hear at least one Bengali say, “Dhai kiri kiri” and then laugh raucously¹. And you needn’t be particularly close to them to be able to hear them either. When travelling, Bengalis feel dutybound to ensure everyone within a 300-meter radius is clearly and categorically informed about the status of their bowel movements, the amount of Aqua Ptychotis² they’ve consumed and what they intend to eat for lunch. Our idiosyncrasies are what define us.

But I digress.

Darjeeling is a quaint little hill station, not unlike the many others in our country. It has the ubiquitous pedestrian-only Mall Road lined with shops and restaurants, cafes serving coffee and Ginger Honey Lemon Tea (I am sitting in one as I write this) and hole-in-the-wall eateries dishing out delicious momos. On clear days, it also offers views of the mighty Kanchenjunga (the third highest peak on our planet).

Image Source

At this juncture, you may be wondering what I am doing in the mountains again and why I bother paying rent at all. The latter observation could trigger an existential crisis, so let’s not get into it at the moment. As regards the former, Shouvik³ and I are participating in The Buddha Trails, which starts from Rimbick, around 65 kilometres from Darjeeling. The Buddha Trails is a trail-running (or mountain running) event, which is organized by an outfit called The Hell Race. Their name should give you an inkling about the kind of experiences they cater to participants in their events.

I am always happy to have an excuse to make a beeline for the mountains. All of humanity can be broadly classified into two groups based on their vacation preferences: the Sea-ers and the Mountain-ers. I am a flagbearer for the latter group. No matter how many trips I make to no matter how many hill stations, it never seems to be enough. There is a constant need to travel to more places, see more ranges and drink more Ginger Honey Lemon Tea.

All hill stations share a common essence, a mood, which is agnostic to their geographical location. Such commonality may be partly attributed to the terrain and similar experiential elements: the narrow, winding roads snaking up hillsides, the coniferous forests, the ever-present chilly breeze, the cobbled pathways, the gable-roofed cottages with protruding chimneys, the hawkers trying to sell you drugs.

But, going beyond these physical and visual cues, there is an intrinsic sense of stillness that hill stations possess and which you can tap into when you’re there. Every movement is more measured and pursuits can be undertaken at a leisurely pace⁴. It can, if you allow it, be (almost) meditative. I, at least, have never been able to replicate this mindset, when I am back home. Even though I’ve quit my full-time job and have significantly more ‘free time’ than I did before, I am plagued by the fear that I am not utilising this time efficiently, not making the best use of it. I feel I should run more, write more, read more; it is exhausting to be constantly chasing minutes as they speed away, trying to grab them and wring every ounce of value out of them. In the mountains, you can sit back and watch as the minutes pass you by, and remarkably, they seem to slow down, as if happy to let your gaze linger on them.

Yesterday, as I was aimlessly walking around Darjeeling, I noticed a couple of teenagers, a boy and a girl, sitting on a bench. They were in their school uniform and had their school bags placed on the bench between them. Both of them were staring straight ahead, a slight smile on their lips. Silent, each in their own physical space a few inches apart, they were not interacting with each other in any way. Yet, they seemed blissfully content to be in each other’s presence, to just be in that moment. They had the capacity, so lacking in our fast-paced lives, to enjoy a shared solitude.

My ruminations are, of course, those of a tourist. I have never spent any considerable stretch of time in the mountains, so I don’t have a window into the mind of the long-term mountain dweller. Do they also feel that sense of stillness in their lives? Or do the realities of our mundane existence intrude and upend their lives too? Does the charm of pine trees and snow-capped peaks wither and fade over time? Do they too, perhaps in their own way, chase minutes to maximise utility? Perhaps one day I will find out if I ever muster up the will to stop paying the damn rent.

1. This phrase is the average Bengali’s limited (and mistaken) grasp of the Odia language. Comparable to how North Indians say, “Rasgulla khabe?” and feel they have mastered every nuance of the Bengali language. In a way, the Bengalis do unto the Odias what the rest of the country does unto them.

2. Aqua Ptychotis, a pungent liquid made from ajwain seeds, is the Bengalis’ panacea to all gastric issues.

3. Diligent readers of this newsletter will remember Shouvik from Trek Tales #3, as the one who got a D minus on “snow walking technique”. He is also the originator of most of my torturous life experiences.

4. For instance, it is taking me an awfully long time to write this newsletter.