T3 নববর্ষ সংখ্যায় Rudrapriya Sen

A weekend with the Queen

The day before my Chemistry exam I was up until 3 a.m., and instead of revising my notes again and again, like I should have, I caught myself thinking about lemon tarts. Lemon tarts have always been my favorite. Whenever I go to the airport, I make it a point to have at least one lemon tart from Flurry’s.
But people don’t really go to the airport to have day-outs now, do they? I wish they did then I wouldn’t need the excuse of a vacation to go there. When my exams finally ended in late February, my parents decided to take me to the mountains for a change, and I fully supported that decision.
I was never much of a travel-bug, in fact I thought going somewhere and investing time, energy and money in it just for the sake of some temporary experience was just hard-work with no fruitful result. I realized I was wrong, much to my disappointment, I found out that my idea of a vacation was miserable at best.
Even during Pujas and at the beginning of the new session whenever my parents took me to Siliguri, our hometown, my usual routine would be to retreat to my room, and only come out during lunch and dinner-times. I did nothing else except go through the phone or if I was feeling a bit like a good-girl do some sums. It felt nice, initially to just lazily loll about in bed, but it wasn’t long until I started feeling like a plant which had not photosynthesized for many weeks, I know that is not biologically possible but my point still stands. I felt bored and then I secretly started wishing to go back home again, which was sad because I wanted my vacation to be over soon, and going back home meant school and tuitions and the mundane routine again. I realized that my entire year was largely invested in me wanting to go to my grandparent’s home after exams, and then secretly wishing to go back to Kolkata again, I couldn’t really enjoy anything. The airplane rides were the only interesting thing, after that it was just immobilizing and fixing myself to a spot.

Nevertheless, I was happy when my parents proposed the trip to Darjeeling. I had little to no knowledge of that place except the fact that every person who goes there takes a picture in front of a certain bakery called Glenary’s. I was excited when I reached the place. It felt like a change of scenery, I realized that it had been 7 years since I had genuinely gone somewhere to travel. The last time being a visit to the beach, this time it was the mountains. I like jungles and safari parks the best, but then again the beach is really something.
Darjeeling felt comfortable, although a bit cold for someone who liked Summer the best. From the view above, everything looked like a neat assortment of houses lined up one against the other. I loved how the roads moved up and down but the turns would make my stomach coil sometimes, but I suppose you are kind of invincible against car-sickness when you are a 17-year old with the headphones plugged in. The sky was way too cloudy for my liking. I have heard that you can see the outlines of the distant mountains in the horizon but all I saw were large fluffy clouds dawdling in the sky as if they had all the time in the world.

I didn’t know what I liked the best, the taste of delicious Momo dumplings melting in my mouth or the lingering sense of achievement I felt on the fact that I hadn’t thrown up in the car for even once. My trip to Darjeeling was short, I think I would have been able to really absorb the essence of the place had I stayed there a day or two longer. Essentially, the most memorable sight was on the way back, a sight I had only so far pictured in the back of my mind : the sun setting in between two mountains. Back in kindergarten, that was my go-to artwork for any drawing class. It was kind of poetic to finally witness the scenery in real life.
I was happy on the whole. Although I had missed out on a week worth of tuition classes , I believe that for some worthwhile experiences sacrifices need to be made.

For the next few days, I was busy uploading pictures on my WhatsApp stories. And as I finished doing that, I felt a kind of eerie sadness which I think every human being feels at the end of a ‘break’. But luckily I also had some other remnants besides the pictures from the trip. My mother had bought some souvenirs like fridge-magnets, earrings and keychains for relatives and neighbors; but those were materialistic and of little importance, I had given myself some raw, red and bleeding blisters on the back of my feet because of the countless hours of climbing and walking. They took days to heal but I couldn’t help feeling some sort of odd satisfaction. You know how the edges of the palm get stained with ink after you have finished writing in an examination. It was something like that, a sweet mark telling me that I had, after so many years, done something worthwhile.

Back home, I couldn’t wait to tell my friends about the places I had seen and the foods I had eaten. Recounting my anecdotes to them made me realize that I had missed out on some other places but I wasn’t the least bit sad about it. It only meant that the next time I go to Darjeeling, I already know about the places I am going to visit there.

The blisters have healed, all that remain now are flaky scabs.