JOIN USWhat happens when 60 kmstretch to an endless eternity? No, not that kind of eternity where angels peep from clouds and raindrops strum a concerto. Instead, that demonic eternity cluttered with hairpin bends, death valleys, a road so treacherous that the heart pounds in the mouth and the eye refuses to see the danger ahead. One June afternoon, I drove through that demonic eternity — from Bagdogra airport to Kurseong, the town that borrows its name from a white orchid.
I am kinda fearless. Scorpions. Tigers. Vultures. Millipedes. I can walk with them. But when a road turns into an endless cliff and the bends get sharper at, well, every bend, I hold on to a prayer. In Kurseong, I even had messiahs in mind. A nun with a heart of compassion — Mother Teresa is said to have found her calling somewhere near here. A brave soldier, Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose, spent time in the house of his elder brother. A spiritual sister — Sister Nibedita. A brave politician — Nepal’s one-time prime minister Jung Bahadur Rana who started the Rana dynasty.
So many messiahs. Kurseong has had their footprints. Sigh! None came to my rescue. Someone else did — the magistrate of Kurseong. Percy Cochrane. The man who picked a nunnery for a home — from one window he could see the snow-bathed Kanchenjunga, from another he could ogle at the valley where mist rise like blessings from the tea estate that drapes the undulating hills. Percy has been dead for long but a beautiful hotel still bears his name — Cochrane Place. That is where I sought refuge after the heart-in-mouth ride. My dry throat had to be moistened.
Tea for two?
“How about champagne tea?” Rita Arora, the dainty owner of the place, suggested a quencher. Kurseong is all about tea, but when did tea acquire the taste of the bubbly? I wondered. “Or, mint/raw mango tea? Betel leaf tea? Rose tea? Passion fruit tea? Fruit blend tea? Or, tea made of spearmint freshly plucked off the garden? You can pick from 40 tea blends,” Arora was brewing tea sedulously and I was staring at Ralph Waldo Emerson’s tea quote painted on a wooden teapot-like hanging: There is a great deal of poetry and fine sentiment in a chest of tea. I do not know about poetry but there can be a lot of kick in a cup of tea. The World Cup footballers in Brazil are sipping on Makaibari. I wasn’t too far — from the terrace I could see the green roof of the Makaibari Tea factory.
I tried mango/mint tea and lay flat for a stick massage in a spa. Sounds cruel? It is the most unusual massage you can ever imagine — the spa therapist holds two sticks in a hand and gently beats the pain/stress out of fatigued muscles. Trust me, it works like a charm.
With thirst quenched and muscles flexi, I set out in search of two brave men — Subhash Chandra Bose and his elder brother Sarat Chandra Bose, who owned a home in Kurseong. A cement staircase leads into the nondescript white house where Sarat Chandra was interned from 1933 to 1935. “Open your shoes”. A sign by the main door reads. Inside, there lie a rare collection of photographs of the Bose family and letters written by Netaji. It was in this house that Netaji wrote the speech that he delivered as president of Haripura Congress (1938).
While history sits in the wood-floored Bose home, not too far rhododendrons get dried in a monastery. A narrow cobbled hastily-made path takes you to Kunsanum Doling monastery where live Buddhist nuns. The entire place is tinged with red — the robes that the nuns wear, the rhododendrons that grow wantonly, the red of the walls and the biscuits wrapped in red that were offered at the altar. It is in the monastery that nuns make Tibetan tea — tea leaves simmered in aluminium pot with rock salt, sugar and a dollop of home-made butter mixed with a wooden churner. So elaborate is the process that you would never know whether it is tea that’s being brewed or a soufflé that’s being rustled.
Snail rail
You might write quires and quires about Kurseong, but you cannot go home without a trip on that famous Darjeeling Himalayan Railway. This is no ordinary train, it is the famous blue train that hisses between Darjeeling and Siliguri on a gauge track that is barely 2 ft wide. The train was the brainchild of Franklyn Prestage, an agent for Eastern Bengal Railway. Work began on the loops and switchbacks cutting through the spurs of the Himalayan hills in 1879 and two years later the locomotive and its three coaches puffed through Darjeeling. The final cost: roughly Rs 60,000 per km. So leisurely is the pace that it takes nine hours to cover a distance of 88 km. You can hurtle down the hills in a car and reach Darjeeling in an hour or two but the train ride is an experience you would not want to miss. The sight is stunning from Ghoom, the highest railway station in the world.
In Kurseong, I drove through the pine forest, lit a candle at St Mary’s grotto, walked through the bazaar, stepped into a tea garden and returned to the hotel. Pull a wicker chair, order a champagne tea and hear the dragonflies sing a tune. In Kurseong, poetry is not only in a chest of tea. It is everywhere.
Fact File
Getting There:
You can fly to Bagdogra and then drive into Kurseong, roughly a 90-minute drive by road. You can take the train to New Jalpaiguri Station which is connected with major cities of India. Or, you can take the famous Darjeeling Hill Railway train and steam through until Kurseong station.
Places to see/do:
Toy Train station, Dow Hill, St Mary’s grotto,
Forest Museum, Ambootia Shiv Temple, Netaji Kothi, Salamander Lake.