by Mandira Ghissing
A familiar sight on her daily walks launches the onlooker into a meditation upon the landscape and its deep interconnectedness with her life and the life of her community. Mandira’s poem is a personal narrative that moves beyond a walk to encompass the past, present and possible future of the people of Darjeeling, a name synonymous with the finest tea in the world. It’s a tribute to the never-say-die, aspirational spirit of this hard-working, robust and resilient lot.
Often on my evening walks
I stop here, on the edge of this ridge,
Facing the enormous amphitheatre of these hills.
On my left
The town gleams in the dying light of day,
Its houses a heap of rubbish
Crashing into the valley below
Where the eyes meet the soft contour of tea bushes,
Gold green.
Even now as then when
These gardens were first laid
Upon the sturdy backs of
Men and women,
Over the bones of the able-bodied and the weak,
Young and old
Who came following the trail of rich humus,
Darkened by the smell of ancestral blood;
Some who believed the myth of green gold
Growing in the
Mughlan* of the sahibs…
Pluck with nimble fingers two leaves and a bud, two
leaves and a bud…
Mimicking the hypnotic rhythm of days.
It was here I stood as a child
Thinking of this circumference of earth as the world
And the world a gigantic teacup
Like the ones in which mother served
Her sweet smoky brew to house guests filled to the brim.
Now the world has shrunk
To the size of the palm of my hand.
Before moving on,
I take a few quick snapshots
In the exquisite powdery glow of dusk.
And far away
In the midnight glimmer of city lights
Where the night stands sentinel to brave new dreams,
I see my brother in his Gurgaon office
Sip his Darjeeling.
*Mughlan: literally the land of the Mughals but used generally to refer to India by the Nepalese earlier.
Mandira Ghissing teaches English in Darjeeling Government College. She identifies herself as a small town girl with a passion for poetry. Reading poems is, for her, a way of connecting with the wider world and writing them, a means of coming home to herself.
