Calming Kalimpong

The sizzle of the glooming, shrouding black balls of over-work, work pressures, social anxieties made me completely erratic. I had to travel to some place which could offer me some peace of mind. I was listless, to the extent that to be able to read a book in the comfort of a dark room with rains pouring from above on it in the nuke of a hillock seemed like a 'living' dream. The instinct of being a "tourist" from being a "traveller" or even a mormon, closeted, too private an individual seeking just a change of scene and place served more than enough for me. People don't realise this but 

The trick to travel to east from Bihar is to start early. Leave an hour early in the morning saves around 3 hours in the evening. And if you are actually diligently driving, not stopping much at every milestone you think you have achieved in this around 600 kilometres drive, you save a hella minutes, even hours minus debauchery.   

The Asian Highway, the AH-1, starts in Bihar from Muzaffarpur with a spectacular ninety-degrees, laying out as a 2-lane wide walkway inside a huge garden with dividers with green beds exquisitely cut on a cline. The seeming walkway opened to the cloudy, misty environs with slight to medium drizzle and the most beautiful landscape in front. It never seemed like it was a man-made expressway and not a manmade trail in the nature's park, atleast not for the coming few hours. The ride in Bihar is completely silent, peaceful mundane with greeneries on either side of the road, and then in little to no habitation (surprise! surprise!), splash from water and sometimes a body of water like numerous streams flowing into Koshi, Ganga, and then near Narpatganj the Koshi herself. It seems dreary at times, and if you ever saw the sorrow brought upon by the Koshi, you see the horror too. It rained almost the whole distance till Araria, yes, cats and dogs, with cars splintering gravels onto the car behind and I felt our car became the victim and the glass chinked. It could not be confirmed but the suspicion is most definitely there but the journey went without hiccup the both way. While on the way you wait to come across Araria, from where you enter the Bengal territory after narrowly crossing into Kishenganj district and the height would start for to be navigated afterwards. The target seems to be 3 pm which is never really achieved. 

This time it went to 4.05 pm. 

After Araria, you move away from the AH-2 only to connect with it at a later point onto a state highway, which was well prepared in the span of around six months anticipating the rainy season probably. This 'later point' is rarely touched because for hill stations of West Bengal you take another left from this diversion taking you further away from the point of conjoin, which you would otherwise take you to the beautiful plains of Assam. On to another 4-lane expressway even better,concrete fresh to the pothole-y AH2 then.

The google maps work surprisingly well in these routes.  The last toll booth on this NH 327E was Jirangachha, a typical Bengali name exemplifying how Bengal was already reigning the air. This NH used to be a single road, a decade ago. And, probably a gift of centre and state government alignment, the road development was expedited. The entry into Bengal, with the undulating pitched surface was sure reason of discord between the other state governement and the centre. 

Galgalia is the border town. One doesn't enter the bazaar, only bypasses it. 

The first town on the other side is that of Khorabari.  

There came fork in our path where we had earlier turned left on an earlier trip to Darjeeling which according to Google was also 35 minutes slower. So after much deliberations and getting over the apprehension of what if google tries to screw us we decided to take right to finally meet at another fork at Bagdogra. Onto the right, there was a 'no' goods vehicle entry. Our car could barely make it through, but there was a "goods" vehicle toddling down the road in front of us, which had ofcourse  passed the barricade smoothly in front of us.

There was bare luminiscence on the road. It was mostly black I distinctly remember. I compelled myself to link the region with my image of Kalimpong from what I had read in the book of Kiran Desai. I don't remember much about the book, but it was gloomy, paranoic, and too verbose for my taste to finish. From that book, I had a prejudiced view of the area, too poor, too discriminating, too unclassy. 

There were a lot of names of area (or I hope they were) with Khorabari in them. One of which I can place currently was Rupanjote Khoribari, and that was needed to assure my driver who had been regular in the area to know we were on the right road. The road that swirled amongst the tiny hamlets with eruption of settlements at times and otherwise empty.

The rain started pouring down the hanging, black clouds. The tea gardens had started appearing by my sides and definitely on the other side. It grew darker; tea  gardens barely visible to my eyes. 

The darkening roads were amply illuminated by radium red and yellow torches and road signs shone on the swerves. The roads were bordered the whole distance with the radium stickers. Road signs had Bengali inscribed below, that felt a bit. 

Entranced by the Overbridge for Jalpaiguri on right, we took left to bagdogra. Things do look formidable, almost impressive when you are left with your imaginations with few dots to press on with. The seemingly abruptly arising back of a white whale amidst the dark field looked like a ship to me when the driver actually very excitedly said, "It must be the one for Jalpaiguri". But, isn't Jalpaiguri an extension of Siliguri, or just the another twin of the conjoined twins. And, about the formidability, it didn't seem that formidable when we emerged via that road on our return without our knowledge. 

So, back to the onward journey again and onto the 4-lane road on left. 

Talpoo more. Some township, which apparently had luxury cottages or hotel to stay in the tea gardens. Bhuttabari. No wine shop on left and we had crossed the whole Bagdogra. 

North Bengal restaurant 

Asian Highway 01

 

After Bagdogara, there was the SH12, Matogara-Kurseong road on the left, a possible nostalgia. But, we kept on. Crossed body of water thrice. 

First felt like some stream, then Mahananda, and finally Teesta. I hope the order is right. And onto Sevoke Road. Some BSF or military installations and dense forests on left and just the dense jungles on the other side.

Then we crossed Teesta. Oh Teesta the Rage-Princess of Sikkim. A flashback of a turbulent, mysterious Sikkim trip. And the one and only Coronation bridge, here we came! Oh, the nostalgia and the deja-vu. The left from Coronation Bridge onto the NH10 had landslides and thus the natural route to Kalimpong was extended yet again by an hour or so, almost 30-40 kilometres after we steered right on NH17.

Various towns crossed us by, Mongpong. BRO Damdim where what seemed like a big town square. Then Lava, Ambiok, etc. And a fork again with Google Maps asking so to move into a barricade squeezed in by criss-crossed bamboo sticks. The driver, keeping his consistent personality, dreaded entering it, tempted to see the distance was cut short by 5-10 kilometres. Only when a number of Sikkim plate small vehicles started oncoming and when the fact that the lane was single, swervy, and only the small vehicles were plying, the weariness from his face started fading.

There was even a steep down, because when we came to face it, it seemed as if there was no road ahead. The driver had to go out to check if the road existed.

Rangpo was only 5 kilometres away, the place from where I had returned down from Sikkim. It was so near, and I recalled our driver from that trip telling us you can take a one day detour to Kalimpong from here. But, we had decided not to then.