The Trail to Spring

Chapter 20

I felt much better in the afternoon after taking a short nap and it seemed like Mrs. Majumdar's special soup seemed to have done the trick.

It was she who suggested that we take a walk to the Chowrasta Square, which people usually simply called the Mall. She told me it was just a short distance away from here. As I prepared to go out, Mrs. Majumdar forced me to wear gloves and a monkey cap to cover my head from the wind outside. I thought it looked extremely silly on me when I saw myself in the mirror. But I was still a bit weak so I did not complain.

The upward sloping road through which we slowly walked up to the Mall had the mountain wall on one side and vast emptiness on the other, with only the peaks of the far distant mountains peeping out from the clouds below. A ray of sunlight had broken out through the sky and had fallen on one of those floating mountain peaks, making it shine in contrast to its cloudy surroundings. I wanted to view that glowing mountain peak for as long as I could. I knew I could never tire of watching that.

After walking a bit further, we finally found ourselves at the Mall. A giant screen in front of me was playing an episode of Man vs Wild on it. There were rows after rows of various shops on my left and on my right. Quite a few people were sitting on the number of benches placed around the square and were taking in their surroundings. In the middle of the road, people were clicking pictures, children were running around and some others were lining up for horse rides that were being offered.

Still, it was a lot emptier than the last time I had come here in May a few years back. Darjeeling is quite chilly in January with temperatures hovering around the freezing point and maybe that's why there were far fewer tourists today. I went and sat down on a bench. Mrs. Majumdar went to a jewellery shop to check out some items that she had ordered for her daughter.

There were the mountain peaks still visible from behind my bench. I leaned back hoping that I could spot that glowing mountain peak but could not find it. The sun had completely hidden itself behind its shield of clouds again.

After a while, I took out my mobile from my pocket. Atifa had sent me a message.

'Ok?', it read.

I replied with an 'ok' and opened my Google browser. I couldn't find anything interesting to search at the moment and casually typed in my brother's name, as I often did when I had nothing else to do. The same results came up: a LinkedIn account, a few Facebook accounts, a Twitter handle, and some Instagram accounts, none of which were of my brother's. I had gone through most of the Arjun Ganguly profiles in these sites. There was Arjun Ganguly the professor, Arjun Ganguly the cook, Arjun Ganguly the blogger, Arjun Ganguly the student and Arjun Ganguly the actor, besides many more. But there was no sign of the actual person for whom I was looking for.

I put my phone back into my pocket and stood up. I decided to not stay here for too long because I was still weak and I wanted to be completely healthy for tomorrow. I began to walk along the Mall road, searching for Mrs. Majumdar's jewellery shop. It was then that I noticed a book in one of the bookshops. It was The Last Mountain Standing.

I went inside the store and flipped through the book and read some parts from it that I liked the most. Then a thought crossed my mind. The detective had wanted to read the book yesterday. So I bought it for ninety rupees, tucked it in my arms and continued on my search for Mrs. Majumdar.

I found her soon, trying out a necklace in the jewellery shop. I told her that I wanted to return. I was pleasantly surprised when she handed me the keys to her house. She trusted me.

"As far as I can see, you may be in for a happy surprise," she said. She smiled at me through the mirror in front of her while she tried out a necklace.

I didn't know what she meant by a 'happy surprise' but I didn't ask either. It would hardly remain a surprise if I did. As I walked back from the Mall, I realised that for the first time in my life, I was alone in such a far off place. I marvelled at the thought that now I can actually go anywhere I liked and for once, nobody would even care. I know that sounds kind of odd but yes, this was the kind of independence that I always wanted. I had become sick of people constantly keeping tabs on me wherever I went and whatever I did. It felt good to be alone at this specific moment. Literally alone.

I reached the gates of Mrs. Majumdar's bungalow but decided to take another walk on the road before I went in. Nature is always at its best when viewed alone, without random people walking to and fro in the road while you are taking in the silent, confident and beautiful force of nature. And this road was completely devoid of any people whatsoever and I wanted to take advantage of that fact.

As I stood watching the peeping sun set behind the hills, a gentle wind started to blow from the North. It rustled the crispy leaves of the surrounding trees producing a pleasant and peaceful melody and at the same time bringing down a number of those leaves which started to drift down slowly to the ground. It was then that I noticed that my gloves seemed to be slightly wet. I looked up and an icy cold droplet of water fell down on my left cheek. It was raining. But then I noticed that the water droplets seemed to be whitish in colour. It was snowing! So this was the surprise Mrs. Majumdar was talking about!

I spread out my arms in my excitement and joy. It was really snowing in Darjeeling! I had never really experienced an actual snowfall before in my life although I had seen it numerous times in movies and shows. I started to let the snow accumulate in my gloves until a light border of white was formed on it. I marvelled at the thought of having snow in my hands, an experience that I always wanted to have but never had a chance to back in Kolkata. A cuckoo called out from somewhere and I laughed out loud on hearing it.

"That cuckoo must be out of its mind," I laughed to myself, blowing out a cloud of hot air from my mouth.

I walked back to Mrs. Majumdar's place after a few minutes. Snow was good but not too much. I had already started feeling light headed again. I went inside, changed my clothes and diverted my attention to the book that I had bought for the detective and which I had hidden inside my coat. I wrote 'Thanks for giving hope' on a sheet of paper, slipped it onto the front page and kept it down on his bed. Then I walked back across the corridor to my own bedroom.

The snowfall had soon stopped to be replaced by a drizzle. The temperature was freezing and I put on the heater in my room. I wondered what Rakesh was doing out there. I knew that it was not humanely possible to wear only a single sweater in this kind of sub zero temperature and still live to tell the tale. I tried calling and checking up on him but he had switched it off for some reason.

The outside started to become engulfed in the darkness of the night after a while. I felt a bit scared now thinking about that prospect so I closed the door to my room, tucked myself inside my bed safely under the sheets and promised myself that no force on Earth or the spirit world would succeed in waking me up from sleep before it was time for either snacks or dinner.

But as it turned out, I had to wake up much earlier to open the front door and let Mrs. Majumdar in.