While shifting things and cleaning a room in my parents' house some days ago, I came across a small, unopened, transparent plastic which held prayer flags. As I looked at the first blue square with OM printed on it, I remembered the "om ma ni padme hum" it must carry and tried remembering from where and for whom I had bought it.
Whenever I travelled, I used to pick up little things for others. I looked at the stray piece and wondered who was the person I had forgotten. Well, it was mine now and timely. I brought the prayer flag back with me to the room and put it up over the study table.
As I tried to remember where I may have picked it up from, Nepal seemed the likeliest option. It was the last place I had visited from where I might have picked it up. The last time I visited Nepal was formally the first and only time I visited Nepal and that memory reminded me of some strange and beautiful encounters I have had over the years with people and places, and how the denseness of boundaries has grown thinner and thinner with those experiences. Boundaries are very real, but where do they really occur? I wanted others to think with me about this and so am putting pen to proverbial paper.
In 2017, my friend and I ended up in Darjeeling without any prior plans. Someone we knew directed us to a homestay and we ended up there for the night. We both desired to not stay anywhere popular (and thus crowded) in Darjeeling.
We were too exhausted to explore the night we reached, and so decided to wake up early and begin our walk the next day. Next morning revealed our sluggish natures to us: a slow breakfast and my habit of dawdling and looking and stopping every few steps meant that by the time we felt ready to walk around looking for quiet and green roads, it was around 11. As we walked along the narrow mountain road, the steel lines of the toy train running right by our side, cars going by one after the other, I was washed over by a sense of discontent and disappointment. Is this what people visit Darjeeling for?
All along the right hand side where the road ended and the cliff-drop began were medium-sized hills of garbage. It reminded me of Kolkata, of many cities and places I'd been to in India. I expressed my dissatisfaction to my friend and told her this couldn't be it. There had to be more, there had to be better roads and more peace and quiet so close to the mountains. She was a foreigner to the country, more accepting than I was of its flaws, and was enjoying walking along the road before I interrupted her joy. However, she too agreed that it was not as green or quiet as she had hoped it would be.
I remember looking up at the sloping green above us to our left. One could see tiers of the mountains and dense families of trees and my imagination flew to how green and quiet it must be somewhere up there. I told my friend that we had to find a way up there. If we kept walking the road we were walking, it was just going to be the track, the crowd, the noise and the garbage pile. But we still kept walking, not knowing how to go elsewhere. Suddenly, I saw a small clearing on the green slope above. I asked my friend if she would lift me up and thankfully for both of us, she trusted me and did. Putting my feet on a strategically placed square hollow designed perhaps exactly for this, I was soon up and then pulled my friend up. And where were we? As if in a different world. It was EXACTLY as magical as I had hoped Darjeeling, or anywhere untouched in nature really, would be.
We found a heavy growth of trees, unlike on the road below, and we were in the midst of a hilly wilderness, the path under our feet not stone or concrete but earth, the grass flattened by wear from many walking over it. We surmised that it must be a locally accessed path. Walking a little ahead, we heard voices but couldn't see anyone. In front of us was a stony, stairway leading down into a dark, small cave. How badly I wanted to climb down and find what was in it! But the reasonable voice within informed me that everything was not out of a Guillermo Del Toro movie, and no matter how magical and inviting a dark, mossy, staircase looked, it was probably not going to end up well. With a stone on my heart, I followed my friend ahead and we came upon a small clearing. Sunlight fell on the clear space, wildflowers grew and butterflies were fluttering about. We stopped to rest and lie down, realizing in a short while that we were very close to two houses and the place was not as private as it had appeared. The discontent of those watching us quickly made its way to me and we soon set off on our way, walking through the pathless wilderness. Somewhere we ended up back on a pitch road again but it was evident to us that this was a couple of tiers up from the noise we had come from. A shack stood at the side and we took refuge there, eating Maggi while it rained outside. Then we continued our mapless journey, deciding finally to see a map and make our way to Dhotre.
We had picked up a rather undetailed map that did not illustrate for us how we could walk to Dhotre. But a couple of peo
ple whom we talked to on our way informed us of a small forest that we could cut through if we wanted to walk there. It was supposed to be a 3-5 kms long trek and we both felt capable of doing it. The terrain was not rugged, it wasn't cold; overall it shouldn't have been challenging. However when we reached Dooteria by bus, it was already around 4:30 pm. I suggested that we stay the night somewhere and trek to Dhotre the next morning. My friend in her boundless enthusiasm was certain we could trek there within the next couple of hours and even though my gut said no, I decided to yield. So we began our walk from the side road of what looked like a resort until we were in the lap of the forest--the air was suddenly cooler, every breath taken in felt cleaner, and lichen grew in thick velvet patches over tree trunks. A soft mist hung over the air and I remember how I felt enveloped by the green, the silence and the beauty. My habit of walking slow and stopping and taking photos made us late; my friend reminded me that to make it before dark we needed to be faster. But you cannot outrun darkness, especially in a place where you are not aware of sunset hour. Soon, when we were probably only 45 minutes into our walk, darkness descended over everything swiftly. My fearful and calculating side felt hopeless: we had not even one full bottle of water between the two of us, no food save half a chocolate bar, and nothing warm for the chill that would probably soon descend. The forest was said to have leopard spotting from time to time and I was certain that without even a little fire, we would surely be animal fodder that night. It had rained, as it often does in Darjeeling, and the leaves of the forest were damp and wet, as was the ground. I could not think of how to light a fire. Internally, I felt prepared for death that night and sat down on a rock, telling my friend that I could not move anymore. We also had no proof that we were on the right path, having run into absolutely nobody since we started off into the forest. There was no cellphone coverage and trees, beloved trees that I have loved before and since, surrounded us with such ferocity that I couldn't see sky or anything ahead. In the spaces between trees, there was only darkness and nothing moved, or stirred in the forest. Perhaps it was five minutes, perhaps more but I felt time stop and only myself unmoving on a rock, waiting for death. I have often wondered how dramatic or ridiculous I must have appeared to my friend who was still full of energy, desiring to move without any thought of dying that night on her mind. She nudged me and said let's go a little more and then see if we can stop. Grudgingly I started walking and she said look, a light! I almost saw the light and my spirit rose and as we walked a few steps more, darkness clouded my mind again. I wondered if we had seen a light at all. Were we just unwilling to accept our fate? My friend swatted my death-focused perspective as if it were a fly to her vigour and kept on, me following suit, uncertain entirely of where we were. She had her tab in her hand, a downloaded app that showed offline maps of offbeat roads guiding our way. When suddenly, in front of us the trees finally started thinning and I could see the dark of the sky, less suffocating than the forest. Finally, we were getting somewhere out of this! Both of us picked up our pace and reached the uphill clearing and my heart sank. A broken arch hung over a metal gate with a sign of some industry or something similar. Beyond it was empty land, empty as a graveyard filled with some abandoned small buildings if I recall correctly. I felt the tide come in again, as if I were preparing myself again for going from life that night. It was almost 8 pm by now and we had little water left. We had eaten the chocolate while I sat on the rock in the forest. It had barely been a minute of hopelessness when we saw two humans at a distance, appearing from the rising of the hill. We waved at them and walked toward them. In my entire life till then (and since), I had never felt as happy about seeing human beings as right then.
We made our way to them and as the hill dipped, we saw a handful of houses, some lights in the distance. We asked the men if there were places to stay at. They said everywhere was full. We said we were willing to sleep on a balcony; we had sleeping bags. We only needed a floor and some food. One of the men told us to follow them, saying that they would see what they could do. My friend and I followed them into one of the cottages, quite a big one. In the wooden, well-lit space, we were finally among manmade things and warmth again. I suddenly heard Bengali language and turned around to find a family of three coming out of one of the rooms. It was such a strange experience to have been among the dark silence of the forest preparing for death, to come into light and hear Bengali on this hilltop cottage! I talked to the people and found out that they lived in the locality right next to my parents' house in Kolkata. I was reminded again of how small the world can be...
One of the two men who had led us to the cottage also spoke in Bengali then, telling me that he too lived in Kolkata but came here to work for a few months and then move back to Kolkata again.
They opened up a room for me and my friend; told us about the water shortage we were to expect in the bathroom; took the tariff; served us dinner and let us be. Before going to bed, one of the men offered me an early morning tour down somewhere beautiful when I expressed my desire to wake up early and walk. I took him up on his offer and promised to be up before sunrise. My friend made no such promises. We both slept deeply that night and my excitement still woke me up before dawn, just as the sky was brightening. I quickly ran out of bed and outside, catching the sun over a sea of clouds. The man was there. He suggested that we start and we could have tea at the end-point. So began our walk to Nepal- my two guides and I. The walk was one of the most pleasant I have been on, dotted with some talk--not too much but not absolutely quiet either. The view was uncompromisingly pristine- only rolling green under me, patches of the stone of the mountain and the blue sky with its clouds all around. Had I ever been as happy? Finally we reached our destination-- construction of some concrete road was going on. And suddenly from our quiet green walk we were among small groups of people, almost all of them tourists, almost all of them Bengalis as their words revealed to me. And among those travellers, I heard a sudden exchange of Malyalam words and laughed to myself. I had heard of the stereotype that Mallus and Bongs are everywhere and in that moment it really seemed true!
As we were walking along that road, the man who had promised me the walk told me that this was Nepal. I remember laughing and saying, no way. It came from a place where I thought that there was ceremonious marking, some divide, some authority standing guard at a border where another country started. But my guide was coming from a different place and he quickly got angry, telling me that this is the problem with India, that it thinks everything is its. I assured him that that is not what I had meant, it's just that in my head up until then, borders meant something more guarded and official. He then recounted some folk story of how an old man used to say that as long as he had been living, he had seen the mark of the border getting moved year by year. I imagined the strangeness of that experience-- a line getting drawn over and over to tell us what is and is not ours.
We were walking toward the tea-stall while talking and soon we entered the wooden cottage, bustling with people and warmth, an image that gets modified in my mind during this pandemic. My guide pointed to the wall and showed me: two maps hung on two sides of the window that looked out - a map of India and a map of Nepal. He also told me that the tea-stall accepted both Nepali and Indian currency. Seeing and hearing all this, I was overcome by a sense of beauty and grief: I was certain that the space where this existed, the way it was, was an aberration if the eyes of the law were to look upon it. But it was real, the way it was. In that tea-stall, life flowed and was true, run by a welcoming and willing spirit, creating no false divides.
I walked back with them with a heavy heart, knowing that I longed to live in a world where everything flows, but knowing in many ways that the reality is starkly different.
I was met again with a similar experience at the end of the same year when a few friends and I went to Bhutan. Sure, there is an official way of going it. But as is the norm in many places I'm sure, another way exists. This is where boundaries break and flow exists.
We drove through Guwahati to a gate where the military guards the entry between Bhutan and India. It's a simple gate and a simple small building. And you were allowed entry into Bhutan if you showed your Indian identity card (passport, voter, what have you) for two hours. After that time, like wayward sheep, you were shepherded back to this side if you didn't come back on your own. As I walked through the gate to the other side, I remember checking to see if I felt any different. Did anything in me indicate an arrival to another country? The answer was a no. As I walked the road and looked at the landscape and the people, a calm filled my heart. Was this the calm of Bhutan, the happiest country in the world, I wondered. There was a simplicity in the life at least as far as we saw and walked. There was a dog at the post, friendly, furry, and greeting us as we identified ourselves one by one. Walking in, there was quiet, no cars passed us by, and the first house that we came upon had a little shop from where I remember buying peach wine. Two children were out in the front of the house, in open space, playing with a ball. One of my friends and I joined them. When we moved ahead, we waved bye to each other, no sadness coming into my heart. It seemed so simple that this was life. I was nowhere else and that I had come from another life which waited me did not cross my mind. We got into the car, drove ahead a little and started walking again. The river dry like the surface of the moon lay underneath the bridge we walked on. The bridge adorned with colourful prayer flags, shook with every step that was taken on it. I remember taking a photo of the surface of the river as three men walked across it, thinking to myself how neatly I had made three human beings a part of a landscape, discounting everything human about them in that seeing. All of us walked till a point and then rested, taking in what was around us- the silence of the mountain and our occasional chatter. It didn't make sense to go too far in, seeing how we had limited time. We headed back soon but I carry these memories and they make me wonder about the world I live in and the kind of world I want to live in and how in moments I have been lucky to experience an echo of it. What was remarkable about this trip was also a tea-stall, a tea-stall that's in Assam as you make your way to Bhutan. A tiny Assamese village tea-stall where we stopped for tea and breakfast on our way to Bhutan that morning. When we were leaving, the shop owner asked me if I wanted some of the change back in Bhutanese currency and I said yes, taking the note in my hand and marveling at the sameness of the experience from earlier in the year. An unboundaried world, one can dream...
Moving two years ahead, I found myself in Luxembourg. It was close to my last day there and I wanted to go for a long walk. My friend, funnily the same friend with whom I had had my Darjeeling adventures, suggested that I take the train to the border-town and walk from there into the bordering German town and further if I wanted. That sounded like a plan. So, that's what I did. I got off at Wasserbillig (cheap water, what a funny name for a place!) and started walking. The freedom I felt as I walked, knowing that I was free to walk, unmonitored, was in utter contrast to how the legal eye would have perceived this. If you are an Indian, and from what I have read online, an African, a Middle-Eastern, or from a financially poor country, you can be sure of a gruelling visa procedure if you want to visit a country in the European Union, perhaps other places as well. If you are unemployed, not a student and your marital status is single, as was mine at that point in time, the stories on the internet and within circles is of how likely visa rejection is. The documents that I had had to provide, the scathing letter that I had written calling out how insulted I felt at the assumption that EU thought everyone wanted to shift to it, all these floated to my mind as reminders of human rigidity and structures created to impose superiority over one another. On the other hand, there was life with its roads and hills and grass and ruins and settlements, and was any of it really that different from one another?
I hadn't been dying to go to Europe. I was lucky to have gotten an opportunity and taken it up. But once there, I looked and looked and wondered what made people save money to travel all this way. What was it about being abroad that was to be sought? I haven't found answers. All I know is that everyone has a natural way of being; some are inclined to share of themselves and what they have more easily, some less so. These tendencies do not just stay limited to the realm of personal interactions but seep into the larger systems that we build for ourselves and those who are born into them. A simple example of this would be how sharing happens within a society spotted with capitalist structures and a community-oriented settlement. Like in a cycle, our mindsets influence our systems and our systems influence our mindsets.
The day I started writing this, I coincidentally came upon K Srilata's poem "Artist of boundaries" and I want to end my meandering with it. I hope I have left you with something to ponder upon, something that has stretched, even if only lightly, the boundaries of who you think you are.
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