|
Magazine
Sabbatical of the fugitive
SHARBINDU DE
|
Mirik is an ideal place to lose, or find, oneself in.
|
Mystic: The Sumendu lake in Mirik.
It was a heavily fogged morning at the man-made Sumendu Lake in Mirik. I sat perched on a concrete base-floor under a tall tree, right in front of Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council’s Mirik office (DGHC), waiting for the jeep to Kalimpong. The visi
on beyond 50 m was unfathomable. Men in monkey caps with milk jars walked out of the fog and peacefully evaporated into the other end. The whole ambience emanated a feel of heavy winters, and yet, it was not. Monsoon was just settling.
The lake remained dead silent every morning, except for the ripples caused by the fishes swimming up for air. The rest of the day, tourists returning from their holidays in Darjeeling would make a short stop-over at Mirik and take a stroll around the the lake. The “lost ones” who paused at Mirik in their quest to find themselves ended putting up longer.
Different quests
That evening, 17 lamas of Bokar gompa had their last public dinner. A local driver shared, “This is their last dinner outside; tomorrow evening all of them would proceed for their retreat.” When do we see them next? “After three-and-a-half-years,” he quipped. “They go into the caves for a long meditation in their quest for enlightenment. You can witness them retreating into the caves tomorrow evening and can as well accompany them into the caves.”
We circled the tiny bazaar and scurried towards Samden restaurant hoping to meet the lamas at their last public dinner. Fortunately, they were there. Around 20 lamas squeezed into the little restaurant making the place warmer by night. A foreigner accompanied them at the dining table. Radha, a Tibetan girl, ran around the restaurant balancing a tray crowded with teacups in her bony hands. Before the food was served, the lamas joined voice for baritone chants. The speakers on the walls complemented with a lilting Tibetan song. The song was abundant with healthy and liberal notes of rock beats. I tapped my feet and occasionally stroked my fingers on the dinner table. The lamas threw a furtive glance at me, and broke into unrestrained laughter again. After the lamas had left, we savoured our Chinese noodles and beef momos.
Tezman Puri, working with a local NGO, says that the vicinity around Mirik used to be thickly covered with pine trees. In the 1986 agitation for a separate Gorkhaland under the leadership of Subhash Ghising, the forests bore the brunt of local fury. The hills, now denuded largely, killed many tea estate workers in Ghayabari Tea Estate during a landslide in 2003.
As time flowed, I could see Mirik with a developmental perspective. “Rural health is a major concern,” Tezman says during a discussion on the social problems of the region. “In Darjeeling a high percentage of HIV positive cases have been identified.” He further reveals scary details of a place wrapped in serenity. “Growing tourism and migrant labour has led to flying sex workers. Several tea estate workers, under compulsions of economic hardships and pressures of feeding their families, have resorted to entertaining customers. There is a sizeable influx of migrant labourers further aggravating the problem.”
At the crack of dawn next day, I traipse towards Ningalay in Thorbu Tea Estate. Tezman was waiting with his friends to show me through R.B. Rai’s orchidarium. Followed by a cloudy sky, we crossed Sumendu Lake, watched women squatting outside their houses combing hair, others watering their flower gardens, children in school uniforms setting for their day, men opening shutters for business while other women tied with tea baskets on their heads veering into the tea gardens for their daily livelihood.
Orientations
That evening I returned to Bokar gompa to witness the retreat of the 17 lamas. They prepared themselves for the ceremony inside the premises of the gompa, while little lamas in their boyhood, ignorant of the whole ceremony, were engrossed in knocking marbles, playing football in the basement campus, kicking one another or scratching their heads in violent confusion. “Where are you from?” one of them asked in Hindi. “Andaman; Do you know where that is?” I enquire. None of these children had any idea of Andaman, Delhi or even Kolkata. I quickly drew a disoriented map of India and detailed the locations. Geography, politics or modern science, were still distant subjects from their curricula.
Recently built at a price of Rs. 5.63 crores, the majestic Bokar gompa stood atop Mirik with pride. I walked through the inner courts of the monastery with Shyam Pradhan, a local volunteer at the gompa, admiring 1,200 metal statues of Lord Buddha, the fine artworks on the walls and roofs and the series of expensive thangkas. The lamas of Mirik were now gone, with the hope that these fugitives would find enlightenment at some point. That night, Samden restaurant wore a strange look of incompleteness despite the crowds. The fugitives had gone in for their sabbatical. Those left outside continued on their quest.
Quick facts
Where: Half-way between Siliguri and Darjeeling in North Bengal.
When: March to May and September to November are the main seasons
Bagdogra, 55 km from Mirik, is the nearest airport
Nearest railheads are Ghoom (41 km), Darjeeling (49 km) and
Siliguri (52 km).
Regular bus services connect Mirik with Siliguri and Kolkata.
Printer friendly
page
Send this article to Friends by
E-Mail
Magazine
|
