Tuesday, 24 April 2012

Memory Lane

The old lady, looked up at the steep climb and sighed. "What have you got yourself into, this time ?" she scoffed at herself. Then hitching up her long skirt, she started up the path, slowly, painstakingly. She paused once, to look around, and smiled. This was what she had been hunting for, the place that time forgot. "Why is there a timelessness about mountains," she wondered. "Maybe because man cannot move mountains, the really high ones." she reflected. The small ledge looked inviting and so she sat, more to admire the breathtaking beauty of the place, than to rest.

It was a clear day. The horizon was flecked with puffy white clouds, small, moving reluctantly across the sky, as if loath to leave this part of the world. "Maybe there spirits are as uplifted as mine, just to  be here," she thought.The mountains, the 'sons' of the Himalayas, towered in the distance. Majestic, reaching up to the skies, the  grandeur of the sheer white terrain, pristine and overwhelming in its beauty. Below, lay the valley. The ox bow lake of some long winding river, clearly visible. The green of the meadows around it shone in contrast to the brilliant blue of the river. The sigh that ran through her was one of sheer pleasure. The last time she had seen it, it had been just the same. In her mind's eye, she had returned to it many a times in the countless years that had passed since she had been a teen.

Kurseong. "Darjeeling is where all the tourists head,"  Shielu had said." This place is special, virgin, and timeless in its beauty," she claimed. So it had been, that three teens and one adult, had headed for this 'back of beyond' tea garden, nestling in the hills, leading to Darjeeling, the all too famed, hill station in West Bengal. Just done with the board exams, they had burst free from the shackles of school and exams. This was the ideal place, more beautiful to them, than the finest resort of Switzerland could have been. Amidst the rolling hills of the tea plantation, they lived in a wooden house, built almost on the edge of  a hill. During the days, they wandered the sheep trails, exploring and revelling in their serene surroundings. Here nature reigned supreme.Tall junipers, swayed gently in the wind, sentries watching over the neat rows of tea shrubs spreading down the hill, as far as the eye could see.  The headiness of the mountain air, brought the rose to their cheeks, and wings to their spirits, as they soared, with the eagles that circled the mountain tops in the distance. Evenings were spent blissed out in the glass outhouse, the mists rolling in from the distance, almost as if blanketing their tired bodies from the chilling cold, enveloping them eventually, gently dropping the darkness from its folds.

Enchanted nights followed, as to experience  absolute darkness, they switched off the lights and sat, quiet, savoring the near zero darkness and sound. Crickets and fireflies, regaled them with a gentle son et lumiere. The caretakers, short, unobtrusive, local Nepalis, served them hot food that though simple, was delicious because it came from gardens tended by them the year around.

"I have since, toured many a resort, the Swiss one included, but the enchantment of  Kurseong was seared in my memory, spoiling me for any other place. Indeed i have been fortunate." she thought," That i am alive to come back. Shielu, that bosom pal, having met the maker, when very young. I am the survivor, the torch bearer, who returns to pay homage, to a life that embodied innocence, a long lost youth, a soulmate friend." The clatter of footsteps, bounding down the path, roused her from her  reverie. Half smiling, she turned to see the little girl, skipping merrily along the path, the small Lhasa Apso, running at her heels. Small, with the rosy cheeks characteristic of the hill dwellers, her two thick brown pigtails swinging behind her, she was the epitome of health. The dog, a sturdy pomeranian look alike, was the perfect companion, one who would guide her home.

She watched her disappear down the bend, and prepared to go her way, so that she reached the guesthouse before night fall. The near zero degree temperatures at night were not conducive to her old bones, anymore she was thinking, when she heard the thud, followed by a volley of barks. As fast as her old legs would allow, she went down the path . The little dog ran frantically back and forth, as the child stood, whimpering with fear on a small rocky ledge jutting out from just below the steep side of the hill. Obviously, she must have tripped and been catapulted over the edge of the bend, as she rounded the corner. The dog, torn between fetching help, and staying with her ran to the old lady and snapped frantically at her heels. "If i don't do something quick, the child could fall over," she thought her mouth drying at the very thought.  Calling out for help, as loudly as she could, she propelled the dog towards where she hoped was home, above, urgently commanding him to fetch Maa, the universal word for mother.

Almost an hour passed, to her it seemed like an eternity, before they came, the robust men of the mountain. The sight they beheld was awe inspiring. There lay the old lady on the path, her body splayed out on the chilled, stony path. She wore only a thin blouse and pyjamas, her face was almost blue with cold. Her skirt fashioned into a rope, was held strongly firmly in one hand, the other end of which was clutched by the child who clung to the wall of the cliff, looking up at the old lady. The child, wrapped up in a voluminous sweater, thrown to her by the lady, was listening to her, as she talked to her in dulcet tones, singing songs and holding her attention, so that she wouldn't look at the sheer drop below her.

Later the old lady sat wrapped in blankets, her feet soaking in hot water, trying to make light of her heroic deed that evening. Her grateful hosts made sure that she was well looked after for the rest of her stay there. "God," she thought, "Works in strange ways."

"Maybe she was the reason, i was propelled here, half way across the world, and at my age, too!" A rescue act going down, memory lane! Not bad for your age, honey!" she laughingly acknowledged to herself.

1 comment:

  1. touching! real brilliant! (and i love Kurseong too! matches no place in the world!)

    ReplyDelete