This is something new. This is something different. This is Darjeeling. It’s about as far from Birganj as I could go without leaving the subcontinent.
It’s India, but Nepali is the language, even as saturated with English and Hindi as it is. I’m starting to understand why people from Quebec call themselves French-Canadians. Here, people might refer to themselves as Nepali-Indians.
The history is interesting if a labored effort to read, so you’ll have to find it elsewhere. I’ve been in Darjeeling a week now, which I count as more of a measure of how long I’ve been out of Nepal. I miss it. Nepal, that is.
There’s something about living with a certain amount of anxiety that seems to put everything else into proportion. If I couldn’t get to the office in Kathmandu on time, oh well, there were riots and tear gas on the way. If a training didn’t go well in Birganj, ho hum, my office was bombed into rubble.
Life is quieter in Darj, as the locals call it. There’s something cosmopolitan about this place, too, but in a particular way. I’m from a small town—a small town in Texas at that. Everything in Darjeeling is unique to the place, especially how they dress and speak.
It’s a cosmopolitan affectation. But what I like about it is how widespread it is. Even though today’s barber looked Bihari, he still spoke Nepali throwing in about as much English.
It’s Nepali, even if they say, Today ko program late bhayo.
I arrived in Darjeeling on April 15, 2004. That last morning in Kathmandu, sitting in the domestic terminal of the airport, waiting for a plane that I wasn’t sure would make it to our destination of Bhadrapur, it didn’t seem like it was my last day in Nepal. (For a while at least.)
I was more occupied sitting silently trying to convince myself that flights go every day, there’s never any crashes.
But Binita had told me too many horror stories of her life working for the domestic airlines, notably Necon Air—recently defunct.
My last flight to Birganj had been exceptional intense. I was waiting for my flight to Simra with Kurt, another PCV, when the weather turned sour.
Dark clouds were followed by strong winds, rain, and finally hail. Kurt and I joked to ourselves, Doesn’t look like our flights are going anywhere today.
Then suddenly a woman called a flight, Cosmic Air, Simra! Cosmic Air, Simra!
I was flying with Yeti; still, I was more than terrified at the thought of a small Twin Otter plane flying over the hills of the Kathmandu Valley in strong winds, hail, with zero visibility.
I asked Kurt, If they called your flight would you go?
Kurt looked outside, which had become dark even though it was mid afternoon, Hell no.
The rain, hail, and wind persisted and another flight was called. After ten minutes the small Cosmic plane heading to Simra roared down the runway and up, immediately into the clouds and out of site.
And then I heard, Yeti Air, Simra! Yeti Air, Simra!
The sound inside the plane was thunderous. The hail banged loudly on the light metal skin of the plane as it tumbled down the runway. I could feel the plane swaggering in the wind. My hands were white, though they grasped the arm rests with enough force that I might have snapped it in two. The plane ascended and immediately banked to the left.
I was about to die.
Actually, the flight went pretty well. We climbed way, way high and at a speed it gave me a headache. I was somewhat calmed by the relative lack of turbulence.
But, dammit, things didn’t seem right when I noticed we’d been in the air for half an hour. The flight should take 12—15 minutes. It’s only 90 km. After trying to psychically project my concern, the plane began descending.
After dropping through the clouds, the air in the plane became stuffy and the windows hot. I saw Simra airport just ahead. Oddly, I correlated this place to life. Such a strange place to be a pleasant sight.
Our jeep from Bhadrapur took us directly to Darjeeling. Well, after lunch and sitting around in an office in Karkarbhitta for an hour. It’s still direct. Anyhow, I started considering my last moments in Nepal.
I was 12 hours from Birganj, but still I was eating in a restaurant I’d eaten in before. A little while later I was in India, buying snacks in a place I’d been before.
Just before heading north to Darjeeling, I spotted some train tracks where I’d peed before.
For the first time in a long while I was going somewhere new.
After speeding through the heat of Siliguri (I’d been there before, too) we began our ascent into the hills. Binita told me that we’d be taking the shorter, faster road into Darjeeling. She also told me this road is the one from which the occasional jeep tumbles off when the monsoon is in full force.
Twenty kilometers outsides of Darjeeling in cloud-enclosed city we stopped for Binita to call her parents and let them know that we were coming.
So far, the place reminded me of Dhunche. A single road with just a little here and there on either side of the road. The jeep continued winding around the roads (and the occasional bus) and finally start going down for a change.
As the jeep turned from the outside of a bend inwards, the entire city of Darjeeling suddenly appeared. I couldn’t believe it’s size.
People say Darjeeling’s small, but I’m thinking those folks are comparing it to Kolkata’s 13 million-odd people; however, for a hill city in Asia, it’s mighty big. Larger than any other hill city I’d been to in Nepal, like Ilam Bazaar, Jomsom, or Dhunche. Much larger.
I’d joined the Peace Corps. I had gone to Nepal.
I had lived in a big, industrial city on the border with India. I had baked during the summer in a concrete jungle. I had gone days without walking on grass. I had learned to speak Nepali, Bhojpuri, and Hindi badly.
I felt like I was somewhere that I hadn’t been before.
Essentially, the Nepal I had expected. And I was in India.
