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BACK HOME – IT’S THE NORTH EAST AGAIN

© Ashish Kaul

It was raining as if nature intend to cleanse the earth and remind man of her existence. It was misty like only mountain clouds can be when then they sweep human senses in the open air of the mountains. The leaves gleamed and dripped drops of water all of which collected on sloping roads draining into the dusty plains of West Bengal as though to establish the true hierarchy of nature Through this road, an Army jeep cautiously skirted towards a place that till then was just a sound. Mirik.

I forget my age, the precise year. But remember being all that I wish I still was. When my eyes pierced confidently below that slight frown in the eyebrows, through a head and face which seemed small, a smooth fairish skin, an almost arrogant jaw line that photographs still fail to catch and lips that were unforgivingly thin. A slim athletic frame, a posture that most men would envy, knotted fingers, long legs and a clear voice. The picture of the adolescent I was and the adolescents I still like to see.

But in that jeep, the frown had gone, the eyes were dancing, the lungs were greedily inhaling the crisp mountain air. The mind felt relieved of the practical burden of wanting to look the smartest, sound the brightest and be the best. The mind had pervaded a huge open space, which had washed away all emotions and traits, that we sometimes respect, when we forget they are cultivated and designed as a reaction to an unnatural environment.

It was an impressionable age. And what I just described was how those mountains affected me. Well when we passed through those lovely tea gardens and reached Mirik, the water was like a translucent mirror with which a thick mist flirted sensuously. The forests around were a thick green. A pretty wooden bridge completed what remains even today, a vivid image of immense nostalgia.

But, I've just been there recently. And I could shoot down the people responsible for making it what it is today. The flowers around are replaced by a filthy mud field, where undernourished horses and ghorawalas give stupid rides, to kids who could never ride on their own ever in their lifetime ( kids, born, bred and destined for dunlop mattresses, fast food, the idiot box and noise confused for music ). The forests are littered with all kinds of dirty construction(a combination as interesting as bhatura and caviar ). The dhabas around have relegated the lake to the background. Naturally, the place smells not of the mountains, but of oil, smoke and sweat. And you wouldn't believe it that they have actually replaced that bridge with a cemented one !

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