Thereby hangs a tale

For far too long, Takdah, 30 minutes from Darjeeling in the Indian Himalayas, has lived in its glamorous neighbour’s shadow. Built by the British during the Raj so that World War I soldiers could recuperate amidst mountains, coniferous vegetation and tea plantations, the settlement promises colonial buildings, picturesque sunrises and views of Mount Khangchendzonga. After India attained Independence, the cantonment town was quickly forgotten while nearby hill stations, such as Darjeeling and Kurseong, continued to thrive as tourist destinations.

My grandfather was born in 1918 in Kalimpong, two hours by road from Takdah. WWI had just ended. Baba, my grandfather, always regretted not being born during the war, for a war can provide a man who fancied himself a storyteller a lifetime of fodder. Never mind that Baba would not have remembered much of the war had he been born a year before it ended. Or the year before that. Or even at the start of the war. His father, despite having lived through the war, had little to remember it by. Kalimpong, far away in the Himalayas, was hardly affected by WWI beyond sacrificing a few of her sons to the Gurkha regiments.

It wasn’t just the reverberations of the World Wars from which Kalimpong was far removed. The Indian struggle for Independence wouldn’t trigger any nationalistic feelings in the people of this town, which had, in turns, been part of the kingdoms of Bhutan and Sikkim and was later an oft-overlooked part of India. It was only during the Sino-Indian War of 1962, when its proximity to China would make it vulnerable to attacks and important as a military base, that Kalimpong emerged in India’s consciousness and saw the kind of excitement for which my grandfather hankered.

Baba hated not being in the middle of action. In one of the many versions of his life story he loved recounting, he claimed to have run away from home at the age of 13 to the holy town of Varanasi. There, he received tutelage under a priest, from whom he learned hymns and incantations, smatterings of which he’d mutter to interrupt his storytelling. Satisfied that his grandchildren, two lying on either side of him and one parked on his stomach, were impressed with this little Sanskrit digression, he would progress with tales of his adventures, whose veracity we question to this day.

“That boring life of spewing mantras and marrying people off wasn’t for me,” Baba would declare as he spat his tobacco out of the window. “Now, fighting WWI like those useless soldiers at Takdah — that’s the life I was meant to live.” He, of course, conveniently forgot that he couldn’t have fought the war because he hadn’t been born then.

*****

He had an interesting life, my grandfather. He was opposed to following his father into priesthood or his brothers into teaching. He broke away from his joint family to start a ration store, where he worked until after he turned 80. When he became wealthy enough to afford a jeep, he bought what he boasted was the first private vehicle in his village. But he was too much of a miser — too middle-class — to travel alone in it. He soon figured out a way to monetise his vehicle while also avoiding the indignities of travelling by public transportation: The private jeep evolved into a share taxi. Every morning, it would rattle uphill to town, Baba perched in the front seat with over a dozen paying passengers packed in the back in seats meant for five.

My grandfather often had crazy ideas. He seldom ran his business decisions by anyone, which exasperated his sons. He would buy distressed properties in awful places with the hope that development — call it a small-town term for gentrification — would come to them. It sometimes did. He twice spent on repairs of his beloved green jeep amounts that exceeded what he had paid to own it in the first place. He wouldn’t allow his sons to dismantle his shack of a store and replace it with a block of flats. My father and uncle were frequently frustrated; no one knew what Baba would buy or sell next.

Perhaps that’s why when Baba declared that he wanted to start a hotel in his early 80s we weren’t shocked. That he let us know of his plan instead of telling us only after he had implemented it, we attributed to mellowing engendered by old age. We soon discovered that what triggered the revelation wasn’t his advanced years but business cunning. He wanted his sons to invest in the venture with him.

The resort — it would be bigger than a hotel — wouldn’t be in Kalimpong. It was too close to home. My father and uncle had by then settled in the neighbouring State of Sikkim, so that too wouldn’t do, because Baba would then have to relinquish some control to his sons. Pragmatic people would have opted for Darjeeling, which was already an established tourist destination. But Baba wasn’t pragmatic. He thought an avalanche of penny-pinching Bengali tourists had contaminated the town. It had become too commercial, too crowded, too conventional, so Baba zeroed in on a town called… Takdah. No one in the family had been there. The kids hadn’t even heard of it. Takdah, with its history as a sanatorium for WWI soldiers, was where Baba’s next business venture would be. He said he’d call it WWI tourism. No, it wasn’t tongue-in-cheek.

“No one in this part of the world has done it,” he said, as he packed us into his jeep – which, even after all these years, was his preferred means of transportation – to sell this town with untapped potential to his sons. “Colonial-style buildings, British sahibs’ bungalows and no one even knows the town exists.”

The children — my cousins and I — were excited; the fathers — my father and uncle — were sceptical. It was a road trip for us. It was a day away from important work at their law firm for the fathers. It was a business opportunity for my grandfather.

“This was built with the purpose of recruiting Gurkhas to fight WWI,” Baba said as we whizzed past Kalimpong’s Mela Ground, the multipurpose sports stadium.

Clearly, everything would be given a WWI twist today.

“How would you know?” I asked.

“You don’t believe me?” he said.

And then he sang:  Come, brothers and sisters, let’s go bomb Germany.

“It was the recruitment song,” he said and sang it again.

“But you weren’t even born then,” my sister said.

“I know these things,” came Baba’s reply.

The children exchanged looks but remained quiet.

The journey to Takdah entailed a 14-km decline from Kalimpong to Teesta and a corkscrewing incline of about the same distance after Teesta. Both declines and inclines were rife with hairpin bends. And Baba’s plans of selling WWI to tourists.

Takdah was beautiful.

“It’s like a foreign country,” we exclaimed.

Misty, cool, verdant and, best of all, virginal. It wasn’t rubbish-strewn the way many hill stations are. 

Every second building wasn’t a hotel, like it was in Darjeeling. The place was devoid of traffic, honking and tourists.

Baba had done his research well. Takdah was closer to Bagdogra, the nearest airport, than Darjeeling and Kalimpong were, and it had all those buildings — colonial houses that he wanted to buy — from “the times of the British sahibs.” Mount Khangchendzonga’s being visible from various junctures was a bonus.

“And that’s the Officers’ Mess,” Baba said, pointing to yet another relic. If restored, it would be beautiful. “That could be another tourist attraction.”

My father and uncle had reservations.

“Why would people come here when they can go to Darjeeling?” my father asked.

“They can go to both Darjeeling and here,” Baba replied.

But his sons weren’t convinced. If anything, they received Baba’s enthusiasm with the lack of seriousness frequently thrown his way as he got older.

****

A few months later, Baba had a stroke. Doctors said it was old age. There were trips to Delhi and surgeries. All his life after, he was almost always supine. He had stopped going to the store. My parents sold his clattering jeep. When he was conscious, Baba sometimes babbled about the resort.

“I have done everything I ever wanted to do, but that,” he’d say. “That would have been my legacy. It’s been a good life otherwise.”

He died soon after. Following the cremation, I headed to the airport, taking the same path as I had many years ago with him — past the Mela Ground, where boys were recruited into the Gurkha regiments, and then downhill — until Teesta, where the road bifurcated. The driver wanted to stop for tea. I had time, so I asked a friend who was in Darjeeling if he’d come to Takdah. Instead of going straight toward the airport, the driver ascended to Takdah.

The town was still beautiful but gradually awakening to its potential. There were tourists, both domestic and foreign. The colonial mansions had homestay signs outside them. It seemed the locals had finally embraced their homes’ moneymaking ability. A few signs pointed to orchid farms. A lout, who declared he was a guide, sauntered up to me.

“Only Rs 500 for all the tourist points — the tea gardens, the officers’ mess, the orchid greenhouses and the best viewpoint to see Mount Khangchendzonga,” he said.

“I am not staying,” I replied.

“And the houses where World War I soldiers recovered,” he added. “Best World War I tourism. It will be unlike anything you have seen.”

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