The Queen of Hills indeed.

 We started for Darjeeling at eight sharp after a leisurely English breakfast at the Elgin, The gentleman who was to drive us to and back to Kalimpong for the day happened to be from my mother church. The drive up was slow but the view and the places like Peshok, Lopchu, Jorebungalow all had a box in my head but I did not know where to place it .

As you approach town a bold sign greets you.

The Queen sure seems to be a self-assured dowager. While one can see a scuffle to project tourism in more amateur places,one has a tough time keeping up with who Darjeeling is.

Two things strike you as you climb up the hill as one leaves Sikkim and enters Bengal.

1.The roads are picture perfect  and almost surreal and with it are signs which read 'Roads are mantained by PWD,West Bengal'.

2,Traffic jams are crazy.The government has to find a way to meander this problem in the hills.

I had a list of things I wanted to see,I ended up sauntering about in the moody Darjeeling weather,just enjoyed walking and discovering a few things.One that brought so much of joy to my heart was this picture.

This is the Das studio. One of the earliest memories my 86 years old mother has of her childhood with one of her siblings, is her, as a four year old , riding a horse to the studio with her sibling to have a photograph taken. which was one of the perks of working with the British.I went in to look around to see if they had any picture of Ging tea-estate where her father used to be the compounder.There was not ,however I found a few pictures of one of my classfriend's architectural feats plastered in the window next to the doorway.

I had had a full english breakfast in the morning but I had to visit Keventer's.I qued with the tourists waiting for a table for about fifteen minutes watching the going ons.The counter on the ground floor was a hub of activity under the eagle eye of the owner casually watching the going ons from a distance. The stairs to the restaurant was lined up with people like me waiting for their turn.The wall was adorned with pictures of Satyajeet Ray with his eyes on the camerra,Ranbir Kapoor from Barfi,and Illeana D'Cruz..

 That brought to memory what one of my colleagues was sharing with me about an incident in one of our hospitals.While he was on duty,a lady was wheeled in with a history of deliberate self harm.A young chap came along and introduced himself as Ranbir Kapoor.When he saw a blank in my colleagues face,he followed it up with 'DOCOMO'.He was not in the movies then and had started doing advertisements , I think.

Coming back to the context,I looked around for a while watching the business ticking.There were few henchman who were standing on the top of the stairs like bouncers controlling the meek crowd of people decently waiting their turn for the guillitone.I watched the waiters walking up  the stairs with frozen products to carry out the orders.

It  struck me that I was being carried along by the hype.It is actually not a very healthy breakfast and now with so much of frozen food in the market one could easily rustle it up at home. When I reached the front of the line I decided to abort the project much to my body's relief.

I sauntered up the hill to Glenaries and it was shining allright.Darjeeling is pulling up it;s socks for sure.Everyone was  cordial and helpful.it was baked items and breakfast and the place was packed to the hilt.As I was taking it all in ,It struck me that I needed to buy some sausages,they directed me back to Kev so when I walked  back to Keventer's at around two ,the line for the breakfast was still going strong.

I bought sweaters for the family and some handmade stuff from the Burn's foundation.

The lunch was at Penang's.It was packed to the hilt.Ordered a thali and there was ningro,gundrul,aloo,raddish ,kinema and mutton decorated deftly by waiters who seemed to be multi-tasking.While we ate our lunch,a whole host of people watched us from the sidelines waiting for a table.

The manager apologised profusely for the late service which was hardly so,

We walked down the road hoping we were in the  right direction.

The toy train station was our shelter from the rain.

There we found one sprigthly oldy holding court ,belting out bollywood songs much to the delight of the hanger-ons. There was something very Darjeeling about it all.

My to do list of Darjeeling is in the dust-bin. This is  not a one-stop tourist destination .

Waiting for two whole hours for our cab to get to us was part of the flavour.

We were back to Elgin at around seven-thirty. The room warmed by a heater, the bathroom clean and the place tidied up and a dinner of beef steak waiting for us. It almost felt like home.

I have decided to extend my stay in Kalimpong. My sister has asked me to see Delo and have a second look at  Kalimpong. Apparently it was famously called the 'Nest of spies " by none other than our first prime minister,a refuge for many of the monarchs from around the world and also a gateway to Tibet.

Delo it is going to be tomorrow and  the Pudding farm in  Reshi   with my mother's permission.