Heading to Darjeeling: Share Jeeps Suck, I Like Taxidermy

The Darjeeling style aesthetic in a nutshell. Raj, baby, raj.

Today was the day I headed for Darjeeling, that Indian hill-station with the fabulous tea, the one in that indie movie I refuse to see, you've doubtless heard of it.

I was going to do this by means of a share jeep, which is how everyone gets around in Sikkim. Sikkim's incredibly rough terrain, lack of infrastructure, and remarkably vertical nature mean that a good-sized SUV with the ability to traverse a bit of water if need be is a necessity. Really clingy tires also help (as I was very soon to find out).

I woke up early and had breakfast at the same small restaurant again - I remain amazed by how the trek suddenly and entirely converted me to enjoying eating eggs, which I had previously found repulsive. I had scrambled eggs and talked more with Suman, who was also there and waiting for a ride somewhere or another, the manager of the Yuksom Residency. The two Dutch boys I had met on the way down from Dzongri were there too, also waiting on their ride to Darjeeling, and we conversed in a half-asleep way, and waited.

The trip would take about six hours, Suman mentioned. I would have to switch jeeps in Jorethang, a small city located in the bed of the river Teesta. He seemed remarkably positive about all this. It was raining outside, but everyone was used to this. The art on the walls of the restaurants, as it is everywhere in the Himalaya, was of the Swiss Alps, which I presume have attained some platonic ideal of mountainhood denied to their taller brothers.

The jeep arrived ten minutes late - not so bad - and I jockedyed for a window seat (fool) and then off we went. Sort of. We stopped every mile or so to pick up someone from their house or what have you, in the secret code of Asian shared vehicle rides, and then finally we had managed to fit 12 people into one jeep (snugly, sitting on laps), and off we went. The terrain was verdant and green and steep, and we dropped rather deeply towards the river, which was full of snow-melt and looked excellent for white-water rafting. (As previously mentioned, you used to be able to do this in Sikkim, but then a lot of tourists died, but you can probably do it again, as per the fluid motion of Indian law).

Some sadist had decided it was all right to blast the same three Black Eyed Peas songs out of her cell phone over and over again at a tinny volume. But at least there was the view. We passed by tiny stupas that clinged to the side of cliffs and overlooked the water, and quarries and hydroelectric projects (part of the Indian government's efforts at convincing the Sikkimese to stay happy and not become malcontent like those OTHER Northeastern states) and many people standing along the side of the road, craning their necks with mild interest as we went by. And pretty little Sikkimese style houses, too, stuck right on the edge of a yawning precipice and colored in blues and whites, usually with a number of porch chairs with someone old propped up in them. This was nice.

We got to Jorethang. It was terrifically hot. After Yuksom and the trek, this was somewhat of a shock to my system, but I endured: we waited in a small shopping-arcade thing (of Jorethang's variety, which was limited) and I felt a bit bad because the Dutch boys wouldn't talk to me. I suppose they were only friendly under the influence of chang. I felt bad as well because I had two bags with me, which no Real Backpacker would ever do, and was wearing a pair of slightly high heeled sandals, which I had also been forced to wear because my toenail was still threatening to fall off. I wondered if they were judging me. I wanted to collar them and say "I HAVE ALL THESE THINGS BECAUSE I AM MOVING TO CAMBODIA, AND MY TOENAIL IS FALLING OFF, AND WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE IT WIGGLE? THIS IS WHY I LOOK LIKE SUCH AN IDIOT." But I didn't. I didn't want them to think I was crazy.

We got back in the jeep. This jeep was fancy and had assigned seats and tickets. I still had a window. From Jorethan, we climbed out of the Teesta river valley. We stopped at the Sikkim/West Bengal border to have our passports checked. I did not have my inner-line pass (needed for Sikkim) as the Yuksom trekking office had somehow lost it, and I was concerned, except I figured I was leaving the country, and I doubted they would make me stay, marry me off to a Sikkimese man, and make me take up a life of porting.

They didn't.

We kept on going up. Up and up and up and up. We had entered the realm of the tea plantation, the real burra-sahib area, where the British of the olden days kept their massive estates and their stables of High Spirited horses and their massive contingents of pretty-much-slaves, all of them picking tea for them. We had also entered Gorkhaland, which is how the healthy majority of the natives would prefer you think of it rather then West Bengal. The Gorkhas are people of Nepali descent, who, through the tender ministrations of surveyors, found themselves part of India: this does not please them. This would be an issue of fairly minor import to India as a whole if they were NOT Gorkhas, who happen to be renowened world-wide for their fighting spirit, bravery, and their love carrying around immense and sharp curved knives. (Or, as the former chief of staff of the British Indian Army, Sam Manekshaw said: "If a man says he is not afraid of dying, he is either lying or is a Gorkha.” You can see where this is going.


The proposed map of Gorkhaland.

The Gorkhas and the Dooar people want to seperate from India and form their own state, Gorkhaland, which becomes glaringly obvious as soon as you cross into Bengal and see Gorkhaland signs fluttering from every house. (I have been told that business or houses who do NOT put up Gorkhaland flags are often threatened, but, who knows).

It is worth mentioning that this entire region, including Darjeeling, was once part of the domain of Sikkim's Chogyal, who was constantly (and usually unsuccessfully) at war with the Gorkhas, who had taken most of this region by force by the start of the 19th century. The British arrived, won the Anglo-Gorkha war, and by means of two suceeding treaties, gave Sikkim back the land and reinstated the Chogyal. All sounded good until Sikkim somewhat suspiciously "gave" the British Darjeeling, while Bhutan handed Kalimpong over to the Brits as well. Still, the Gorkhas still wanted the region and considered it their ancestral home, and once Britain cut out, there was bond to be trouble.

The Gorkhas got violent in the 1980s, with the creation of the Gorkha National Liberation Front, and fought tooth-and-nail until 1988 when the Darjeeling Hill Accord was signed, instating the Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council, a semi autonmous body of governance. It's gone on like this, with a passle of controversy and a lot of argument, until today, but the Gorkha's still want their own state and they are busily engaged in figuring out how to get it.

A rally for Mamata Banarjee I stumbled across my first day in Darjeeling. This affair featured a singer, uncomfortable looking children in shiny costumes performing a song n' dance routine, a lot of pro-Gorkhaland fist pumping, and a horse. I enjoyed it a lot.

That got a little technical, but anything involving attempting to explain Indian politics quickly turns into a Borges-like exploration of an endless series of labyrinths populated by corrupt and corpulent officials, and so you see the problem I face. (Another interesting political figure in West Bengal is the singularly fearsome Mamata Banarjee, if you're into that kind of thing).

The fact of the matter is, this is technically India, but don't go throwing around the word too much. Darjeeling is a strange little entity, and has been so since its inception. More on that.

As for the jeep ride, as we gained in elevation and began to be able to see down down down into the hills and plains below us, I began to grow a little concerned. As the road got narrower and even more rocky and pot-hole ridden then before, I got more concerned, and I got really really concerned when another jeep, bearing 12 people, decided it needed to pass us.

Our jeep driver, listening to his iPod and squashed up against the left side of the car, obligingly backed our vehicle as far to the side as it could possibly go and let the other guy pass. I looked out the window. I looked down. "Down" was an absolutely vertical drop into oblivion. There might have been a cloud. I looked away as quickly as possible. I considered getting out of the jeep and walking.

(You might consider me a big-fat-wuss, but it happens that these jeeps go over the edge of cliffs all the damn time in the Himalaya. A cursory google of "jeep accident" and "Himalaya" reveals a constant litany of accidents and deaths ending in flaming wreckage and screaming and falling for way longer then anyone could or should possibly fall while in a big heavy vehicle. Here, a horrible jeep accident is dust considered one of those Things that Happens, like malaria and occasional wild dog attack, and what can you do about it, really? So maybe I was not overreacting after all).

We passed through tiny and precarious looking hill planters towns, full of brightly colored and almost Caribbean looking houses, and exceptionally scrawny chickens, and a bunch of bored looking kids. Women - almost all women - were bringing in the tea on their heads, wearing exceptionally colorful prints and waving at us when we went by. We passed by the massive headquarters of the tea conglomerates, which seemed to have retained to some extent the kingships of old - they had hospitals, and rule boards, and dormitories, and educational centers, and God knows what else, and everywhere horrifyingly steep and well cultivated hillsides full of pert little tea plants.

The Dutchmen were, I could tell, growing annoyed by my tendency to murmur OH MY FUCKING GOD OH FUCK whenever we had to pass another car or were forced to squeeze through a small gap just a tiny bit smaller then our actual car, but they were sitting in the middle. They could Not See What I Saw. (And can never unsee. The nightmares still, occasionally, come.)

I attempted to read one of the Dutchmen's Murakami book over his shoulder because for some reason this was less scary then reading my own book. I believe it was a story involving a unicorn skull. I don't think he appreciated this very much.

Hours passed. It got very cloudy, but the road got better, which was encouraging. The driver ground to a halt and everyone began getting out. "Is this...Darjeeling?" I said, looking around at the desolate side-of-the-world we had stopped at.

"No, there has been a landslide. So we switch jeeps," a woman cheerfully informed me. Apparantly we had to do this quickly.

Swearing, I collected my two extremely heavy bags (Why HAD I bought all those fucking books?), arranged them around my shoulders, and teetered on my completely impractical girly shoes about half a mile uphill to the other jeep, all the time praying my toenail wouldn't fall off. (It hung on. Mostly).

Kiran did this same trip at night and told me that no one bothered to inform him that it was a massive, sheer drop off to the right and that he might want to avoid it. He also said he did not bother to turn on his headlamp, being unaware, and no one else had lights either. They Lose More People That Way.

The view from the Planter's Club. It's foggy. A lot.

We got to Darjeeling.

It was lunchtime and I wasn't really sure where my hotel was, and the entire city was, perhaps not surprisingly, built on a hill and seemingly in the process of falling OFF that hill. Darjeeling is in a state of truly impressive disrepair, a hill-station falling into ever-more dramatic entropy. It's all jammed together so tightly and has been so since the 1800's that it's pretty much impossible to build anything new - there's little land to work with and gravity is a constant enemy, and most buildings sort of sag.

The old British buildings are covered in a thick coat of grime and on occasion lichen, and the constant mist that blows through town keeps the air cool and everything slightly dampish - the Seattle of India, in its way. Like in Mussorie, there are a bunch of high class private schools here and a bunch of kids wearing English style school uniforms slouching through the streets looking for whatever trouble Darjeeling can accord them, which probably isn't much. (Everything shuts down by 8:00 pm. EVERYTHING. Well, pretty much).

I will warn all women now that there are roughly three actual bathrooms in Darjeeling. This will come up later.

I was staying at the Darjeeling Planters Club, mainly because I'd read about it in my guidebook to Sikkim (the only one we could find anywhere, far as we knew) and it sounded....interesting. The Planter's Club was (and theoretically still is, although all the members may be dead) the old HQ of the raj-era tea planting industry, positioned on top of a hill with a reasonably commanding view of the city below. It was definitely majestic sixty years ago, that's for sure. Maybe longer. The club, after all, was first formed in 1892 and it shows. The decor is themed in "majestic wildlife that used to be abundant here but now no longer is, for reasons directly related to British dudes with muskets." It's a decor scheme I happen to love, though keeping moths out of resplendent tiger pelts is more difficult then perhaps the Brits had anticipated.

More Wildlife That Once Was Common and Now Isn't, Heavens Knows Why.

The Planter's Club is now a rather moldy wreck like most things in Darjeeling, and a fascinating wreck it is - though not exactly the most pleasant place to actually stay. The room was large all right, but had curtains that didn't entirely close, a rather warped floor, a bed composed of two beds shoved together that creaked a lot, and a TV that didn't actually work. The corridor itself was long, misty, and was almost certainly haunted by the ghost of Mallory. I'm not exactly a supernatural believer but this was the kind of place that would make you INTO one.

There was a guestbook on the side-table with a lot of comments regarding mold, pervasive chill, and the woeful lack of updating. Like so many things in India, if someone would sink a spot of cash and care into this place, it would be an incredible and historical lodging (and they could probably jack the prices way up, too). I'd buy it and do it myself if I had any money. I don't.

I had not eaten actual meat in about two weeks, give or take, and the idea of devouring a tandoori chicken was veering on the semi-transcendental for me. I immediately headed for Glenary's on Nehru Road, which is Darjeeling's grande-dame of English style restaurants, and also contains a bakery/coffee shop, a basement and vaguely "rock and roll" bar, and an upstairs restaurant with a full complement of Indian and Western dishes. (And a working bathroom.) Whatever one's opinion on Glenary's, you'll probably end up coming in here a lot if you're in Darjeeling, mostly because it has an internet cafe and it's in a curiously central location, so you're always walking by anyway.

The tandoori chicken was excellent, and so was the vegetable curry I ordered to go with, and I ate myself into a minor stupor. I looked like hell and had not had time to take a shower - and wasn't really looking forward to it, judging by the Shining-like state of the Planter's Club bathroom - but at least I had food. I tried to pretend the well-turned out Indian families having lunch around me didn't notice that I looked exactly like someone who had just ridden in a jeep all the way from Sikkim that day.

I went to an Internet cafe - the only one, really - at Glenary's, to assure my family I was alive. While I was there, I made a new friend. Which I will discuss in the next post, since this one is getting exceptionally long.

The Landour Cemetery

I love old cemeteries. And an abandoned cemetery set among pine trees and swirling, ghostly mists? Even better. This is the Landour Cemetery. It's on the road around the hill. You pass by the Four Shops and keep on walking left until you see it below you. Reasonably easy. The gate is locked up with wire, but that's no real impediment.



Walk along the old brick walls on the right, there's a crumbled spot where it's easy to scramble through. I hope I don't have to add that if you choose to do this, you'd best be respectful.



Everyone in Landour knows the cemetery, but there is remarkably little written about it. Well, at least on the Internet. Most of the graves here are of British soldiers. They came up here to take the cure in the cool mountain air, after contracting various tropical diseases in the lowlands. Some of them didn't make it.



Ah, here we go! The Internet Archive contains a very old document, complete with inscriptions from the headstones here. You can barely read them, these days.

1828— BOLTON, G., Captain. Inscription :—Sacred to the
memory of Captain George Bolton, H. C.'s 2nd European Regiment,
who after some months of painful suffering departed this life on the
13th of June in the year of the Lord 1828, aged 40 His virtuous
and amiable disposition rendered him generally beloved in life and
lamented in death This memorial is expected by his afflicted widow
as the last earthly tribute of affection and respect to an indulgent
and affectionate husband. Appointed as a lieutenant in 1804, a captain
in 1818. He was born at Dinapore in 1788 and served in Java.

1830— GRAHAM, J. R., Captain. Lueriptinn. Sacred to the
memory of John Richard Graham, Esq., late a Captain of the 5th
Regiment of Bengal Light Cavalry. This monument is erected by
his brother officers as a mark of their esteem and regard for the
character of one universally beloved for his many good and amiable
qualities. He died on the 30th day of May A. D. 1830, aged 29 years.

He was appointed cadet in 1817, lieutenant in 1819, captain in 1829. He
was the son of J. Graham of Barrock Loige, born 1800, and a relative of Sir J.
Graham. Bart.



Sacred to the memory of Major William Blundell, XI Dragoons, who was killed by falling with his horse on the south side of the Landour Hill, on the 12th November 1834, aged 54 years.

"It is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation that Jesus Christ came into the world to save us. In Him alone is our hope of salvation for this our dear brother, whose kind and affectionate heart endeared him as a son and as a brother, and whose departure hence is severely felt, and deeply mourned by his family and by many friends."



And how did William Blundell die?


"... A house called Newlands, which has been struck and burnt three
times by fire. The hill is said to contain a quantity of iron which attracts the
electric fluid.... A short time ago as Major Blundell was going to that very
house, Newlands, by some accident, his guuth (hill-pony) fell over the precipice,
and they were both dashed to pieces." This tomb is not now traceable and is
reproduced from Fiihrer's List. In the B. 0. it reads " falling with his Gkoont."
The 11th Dragoons are the present 11th (Prince Albert's Own) Hussars, who
were in India from 1819 to 1838.

(Reference: Wanderings of a Pilgrim: In Search of the Picturesque. (?)

Wanderings of a Pilgrim being a fascinating looking book by one Fanny Parkes, who spent twenty four years wandering the far East and writing about it.

However, although the Archive list of inscriptions says this is the reference, I can find nothing of the sort in the text Still worth a read. So, the mystery remains - who first reported on the unfortunate accident of Major Blundell's passing?



1835- RAISES, S. M.. Mrs. Sacred to the memory of Sophia Mary Raikes, the fondly beloved wife of Charles Raikes of the Bengal Civil Service. She departed this life on the 16th of April 1835, in the 19th year of her age.



Sad stuff, for sure. But, as final resting places go - this isn't bad, not at all. It's hard to express how happy I am that I found these inscription and now know who some of these people were. I have a habit at graveyards of looking at headstones and thinking, "I am very sorry, and I am thinking about you, and although you have been dead for a hundred and fifty years, give or take, well, I am sorry still."

They may have been awful people. But I do not know that.

I picked up some biscuit wrappers, found my umbrella, and continued my walk.

Welcome to Mussorie: Hill Stations, Panthers

When you say Mussorie in the USA, people usually assume you're talking about Missouri, and then you begin mentioning himalayan mountains and panther attacks and lots of Nepali people with donkeys, and everyone gets really confused.

But this is Mussorie, the charismatic Himalaya hill station about six hours north of Delhi. That Mussorie.

Mussorie, unlike most places tourists give's a rat's ass about in India, is not very old. None of the hill stations are, really. It was founded by the British in the earlyish 1800's, slated to be the headquarters of the remarkably ambitious (and Great Game spurred) British Survey of Indian. Sir George Everest - sound familiar? - settled and worked here. Mussorie soon became a place where the British went to escape the horrifying heat of the Indian plains. Women and children would often spend most of their time in the cool and less malarial hill-stations, leaving their hardy menfolk behind to do administrative stuff and drink tons of gin and tonic, though they'd come up occasionally to blow away panthers and smoke cigars.

This separation of families led, naturally, to all manner of scandal, Mussorie becoming something of a sin city for Raj-era ladies and gentlemen of loose morals. A good old story relates that, at the iconic (and sadly closed) Savoy Hotel, a bell was rung around 4:00 AM so everyone could scurry to their own beds. Just imagine all these Victorian slut-bags of both genders, gathering up their bloomers and doing the lady-like scurry of shame down the corridors, the Guwhati staff sniggering to themselves somewhere in the shadows. It is delightful.


It's sorta high up.

The Nehru family used to spend a lot of time here - Nehru's father, Motilal, willfully flouting the "No Dogs or Indians" sign that used to stand on the Mall on a daily basis - and the town has attracted an entirely outsized number of well-known Indians, mostly of an intellectual bent. After Independence in 1947, Mussorie shifted slowly but inexorably into the hands of wealthy Indian families, who promptly turned it into their own resort mountain town. The miracle is that it remains an entirely charming and very low-key place despite its popularity and natural beauty. Maybe it's the horrifying and technicolor vomit inducing drive up from Dehradun. Maybe enough people fall off the cliff to keep visitor numbers down, I can't tell you.


Local veg stand. Mmm, I see bitter melon.

Mussorie's another place that's sort of been in the family. Sheila was born in Mussorie and went to the famous Woodstock American school there - she's a child of the hill stations, spent her early years more accustomed to mist and woolen sweaters then the heat and sweat we usually associate with Madre India. They bought a place here from a semi crazy Austrian Jewish lady psychologist back in the 70's , and have been spending most of their free time in Mussorie ever since. Their house has a rose garden - roses go like gangbusters here - and a fantastic view of the Snows when the weather is good. It's hard to ask for more.

Of course, Mussorie proper refers to the main town, the touristy bit, the one with the big main drag and the Swensens and all the convenient ATMS. Where Sheila lives, where Ruskin Bond the famous writer lives, where the English School is - that's all up in Landour. Landour's a little village that was probably at one point separate from Mussorie proper, but is now more of a province. It's not hard to find: you just keep on going up. And up. And up.


Lovely old church on the Camel Back road. The man in the picture is wearing the Old Dude in a Hill Station uniform which may be legally required after the age of 65.

Landour is a vortex. No other word for it. Something attracts some of India's more fascinating specimens up here, up to the Four Shops that form the social nucleus of the area. It's the combination of the Language School, the writerly population, the Woodstock school crowd, the locals who have been here forever - something about the mix generates fantastic conversation. I spent a few days in Mussorie just sitting at the Tip Top Tea Shop, drinking buckets of chai and talking to everyone who would talk to me. Turned out to be pretty much everyone.


The Mussorie Mall: so cosmopolitan that it has an honest-to-god revolving restaurant. It's probably operated by indentured child servants with hand cranks somewhere in the bowels of the establishment. I mean, this is India.

But that's where Sheila has her place, that's where I spent all my time last time I was up here, back in 2008. I only spent two days but I immediately fell in love. The height of the place, the air, the cool and mossy scent to it, the people. Indian hill stations and their particular breed of Indian. A resilient people who like smoking pipes and wearing woolens, leading their donkeys up vertical hills, muttering to themselves about that really bad winter 15 years ago and what's going to be on television tonight if they properly adjust their satellite dish. Everyone's got one stashed away somewhere.

I stayed at the Padmini Nivas hotel for the simple reason that people thought it was pretty swell on TripAdvisor. (TripAdvisor controls and dictates great swaths of my life). Turned out to be a truly lovely hotel right off the Mussorie Mall Road. It's cleverly located directly below the road - you can walk up the stairs and spend five minutes and be at the local Barista outlet, but you can't hear traffic up above. Why people feel the need to constantly honk their goddamn horns every 2.5 seconds in Mussorie, a teeny little hill station with approximately 5 and a half cars, is a total mystery. The place was an old British home wit the trappings you might imagine, and is run by a nice Gujarati family. The view from the front porch, with its twee wicker furniture, is something you will never forget, at least on a clear day when the mist has gone out. The Mall's all right I suppose, if you're into commerce, but Landour, that's usually where I point myself. A good bit of cardiovascular exercise and especially fascinating when it rains. A far lower aggressive beggar to frightened foreigner ratio here then in most regions of India too, which makes pedestrianism that much more rewarding!


India has the absolute best surrealist public art. Always decorated with dogs.

I got into the Padmini at around 3:00 and hadnt had lunch. The kitchen was truncated, and I settled for cheese toast. The cheese toast turned out to be remarkably delicious, featuring what was, a rarity in India, actual cheese and not simulated nightmare dairy product. (When in Mussorie? Order the cheese toast. Everywhere they make it the same and everywhere it is inordinately good. Something in the water, whatever. Don't question it, eat it). I was sitting there eating my cheese toast with a copious amount of ketchup, and fending off a mutant bee as big as a low-level fruit bat, when I noticed a group of foreigners sitting at the table next to me.

So, I started talking to them. It's what I do. I'm a clever and observant journalist, man. Or soul crushingly lonely, somewhere in between. Turned out they were (mostly) a group of teachers from the Delhi International School on a brief weekend jaunt, and they were very friendly, and they were actually willing to talk to me. So I glommed onto them into the amoeba like fashion I have perfected in my time traveling alone. They were fascinating people and I learned a lot from them - they'd all lived in a wide variety of different and strange countries before. Had done what I was doing (so help me God) and had succeeded at it and lived what appeared to be quite happy lives, far away from whatever they grew up doing and knowing. One of their number just so happened to be a foreign journalist - married to one of the teachers - and I very much enjoyed hearing him talk about his life and what he'd done. Somewhat intimidated - oh dear god I picked this, what have I done? - but not really in a bad way.



"Want to go for a walk with us?" one of the teachers, named Peter, asked. Of course I did. Forget my plans of shutting myself up in my little hill-station room and writing such brilliant shit that no one would actually have to read it to deem me Auto-Genius. We ambled up the hill and talked, and I asked them a lot of irritating young whelp type questions about ex-pat life. It was a glorious evening with the clouds coming off the hill, and we ambled up the Camel Back path. There were chocolate stores and places selling hand-crafted woolens (what a souvenir from India). A guy on the corner trying to convince us to take rides on his tiny and weedy looking horses (no thanks, I'll pass on the ringworm, sir). We all paused at a bend in the hill, looking at the endless ridges below us, the terraced fields clinging to the sides of hills. Little villages full of houses, people I'll never meet or know a damn thing about, but can look right into their backyards anyway. "Green stuff," Laura said (I think). "We don't have anything like that in Delhi." Laura from Galicia. Delightful woman. Had taught in Charleston for a while. Viewed from the perspective of a non-Southerner with no understanding of the region's bizarre tribal culture and elaborate social structure, that must have been exotic indeed.



A couple of the Teacher Mafia's friends were staying at a hotel right up the hill, the Kasmanda Palace (which may be owned by the same people as the Nivas, I can't be sure, the website looks the same and confuses me). The hotel was a time capsule, a virtual reality machine. You walk in the door and there's a musty scent, there's a tiger skin with glass eyes and mange up on the wall, there's lots of carpeting in bordello colors and a player piano, and stuff made out of deer antlers and chintzy miniature paintings - welcome to the Raj, chap, we've been a-waiting for you. The place began life as part of a Christ Church complex and then became the summer home of the royal Kasmanda family - Raja included - and man, you can tell. Indians can always, if they so desire, be about fifteen times more English then the actual English, any day, any time, let's rumble on the basis of weak tea, mentally challenged hunting dogs, and a curious inability to frankly discuss sex.

We hung out in their room and drank beer mostly. We got into a discussion regarding weird dreams, sleep walking, and my own affliction, SCREAMING NOCTURNAL NIGHT TERRORS, and that was all good and fun.

Eric told a magnificent story which I will share with the world. Ahem.

"My sister was traveling to a conference somewhere, for work. She had to share a room with a woman she barely knew. Anyhow, that first night, they both shut off the lights and go to bed, early start tomorrow. My sister wakes up in the middle of night to go pee, usual stuff. As she's peeing, she realizes: "Hey, the toilet is kind of jiggly." The toilet is so jiggly that she falls right off it, and the jolt makes her come out of it. She wakes up. She realizes that she has in fact been peeing on the luggage stacked up in the closet.

She walks out of the closet laughing and laughing, and she tells the woman (who has woken up by now, frightened), "Hahah, whaddya know? I accidentally pissed on our luggage." Putting a positive spin on it.

The other woman did not find this even slightly funny and refused to make eye contact with her at the rest of the conference. But it made a good story."

Did it ever.

The skies opened up somewhere in there, and we slid down the concrete road back to the Padmini Nivas in the rain, the lights of Dehradun spread out with incredibly clarity below us. I might slip and fall down the track and break my neck in the most ignominious and stupid of ways, but what a view I would have while doing it. No panthers ate us either. I was happy. Meant more cheese toast in my life, tomorrow morning.

Delhi: The Ridge, The Golf Club, The Mutiny

Raan al Sikander. It's a beautiful thing. Named after Alexander the Great of course. (Sikander himself!)

One afternoon in Delhi, Sheila had a friend over for lunch. He's a history professor at St. Stephen's College in Delhi, one of the city's predominant educational institutions, and taught Rajeev when he was a student there. He was from Australia at one point, (Fremantle, to be exact) but he's been in India for more then 50 years and has taken up Indian citizenship, has almost entirely repatriated himself. Most importantly: when Rajeev fell ill, he was there. Even when he had his schizophrenic breaks, he came to the house and talked to him, kept him company. Although he's pushing 86, he still works as a residence advisor at the university. And he still comes to see Rajeev and Sheila, once or twice a month.She vacillated some on inviting me. "He's terribly old, you see," she said. "He's very old and he might bore you."

(The probable worry: that I might bore him).

"But I have specially ordered raan al sikander, of course, and I know you do like that." She thought. "So perhaps you could put yourself out. Come over for lunch."

And I did. Raan al sikander is, of course, Indian style leg of lamb. Absolutely divine, and Sheila's Guwhati cook does a bang-up job of it. Tender and delicately spiced meat. Served with bhindi masala, just the way I like it.

"Well, I've got something to show you two, and Rajeev," he said, as we sat back in our chairs, in a state of post-feast recuperation. One of his students had prepared a video on the Ridge.

The Delhi Mutiny was India's first great surge against British rule, an immense outpouring of popular anger and outrage. It all started in 1857, when the sepoys - Indian soldiers in the pay of the British - exploded into action against their employers, who had been under the cheery impression that the Indians were perfectly happy with the invasion of their country. The reason cited for the explosion of violence was a religious one; a rumor spread that the bullet cartridges the army was issued - the wrappings of which had to be bitten off to be used - were greased with cow and pig fat. As this was abhorrent to both Hindus and Muslims, the Sepoys revolted in various areas across British India, with action occurring from Meerut to Peshawar. It was a close fight for a while there, and the Indian rebels were only decisively put down with the fall of Gwailor in late 1858. It was the first indication to the previously blissfully ignorant British that India was not willing to humbly submit to the Crown forever - a conflict that would, a few generations later, come to a head under the leadership of Gandhi.

Delhi was the scene of one of the most savage and protracted battles of the Mutiny, and it was the Ridge that served as the East India Company's base during the infamous 1857 siege. The sepoys had, as a nationalist play, decided to attempt to restore the Mughal Empire to its pre-British eminence: they flocked to Delhi to attend the aged (and deeply unenthusiastic) Emperor Bahadur Shah. The rebel forces managed to violently push the British forces and their families out of the city, with a copious amount of bloodshed - much of it civilian - on both sides. British troops were either scattered or unavailable. The future of Britain's ascendency over India lay very much in doubt. As may perhaps be obvious, the British did defeat the Indian rebels. The Last Mughal, Bahadurr Shah - forced to be an unwilling nationalist symbol for the mutineer forces - was captured and taken into British custody. His three sons were captured the next day at Humayun's tomb by East India Company official William Hodson, whose clemency only extended to their father. He stripped them naked, forced them to kneel and shot all three of them dead at the Khooni Darwaza (Bloody Gate). Their heads were, thoughtfully, presented to their father after the fact. The unfortunate Bahadur II died in exile in Burma.

Today, Delhi University and St. Stephen's both abut it the Ridge. The former battleground has become an enormous green space in the center of the city,much of it a biodiversity park that has been allowed to exist in a fairly untouched state. Hordes of large and deeply terrifying monkeys roam the area, as well as Delhi University students looking for a good place to canoodle (as occurs everywhere). The professor's student decided to focus on the Flagstaff Tower in her video, a small building of British origin that served as a refuge for the scattered and mostly civilian British survivors of the May fighting. It's on the Ridge, and very near to the University. But it hasn't been kept up, and almost no one knows what the Flagstaff Tower is, or why it was (at one point) important as a place of a refuge and an important icon of the Delhi Mutiny.

"You have to conclude," the Professor says in the video, sitting in front of the Tower on a hot day. "You have to conclude that Delhites don't care about their history. Even though they've got so much of it around them.

The video couldn't quite play all the way. Even I, the 21st century representative, couldn't repair it. "Ah, well, then," the professor said. "That's that."

"Well, I think I'll have to go to the Ridge, then," I said. "The video makes it look quite interesting."

The professor either could not pick up about 98% of what I said at any given time (which wasn't much - I knew my place) or simply found it irrelevant. "I guess you can, if you'd like," he shrugged. "Why not."

Sheila gently but firmly forced him to take a nap, in the way she forced everyone to bend to her will. I headed back to the International Center by way of Lodhi Gardens, thinking of the past. The professor was not in any way shape or form of this era, had committed himself to history, to drawing rooms in Delhi. I'd asked him about Australia. He'd shuddered. "Ugh. That horrible place. It's so awfully new. No respect for history. No history at all, and no culture either."

"I thought it was all right," I said, a bit chastened.

"You did," he said. A subtle judgement on my character.

I dutifully set off for the Ridge the next day. I corralled an exceedingly proud Sikh driver outside Khan market (but all Sikhs are, aren't they?). I looked at the map he had in the backseat as we drove off. "You have no need for any other cab driver in Delhi, madame," he said.
"Oh?" I said, looking out the window at the Gandhi monument. I keep on not visiting it.
"For I am Mister Delhi," he said.


Here's a photo of a goddamn monkey. I hate monkeys.

"Oh," I said. Forty minutes later, we were at the Ridge. I began walking up the hill. It's a beautiful place, totally unexpected in the middle of the occasionally horrific urban jumble that is Delhi. It feels like a real jungle, full of monkeys and mysterious bird calls.



Populated by a healthy number of my beloved giant mutant snails, as evidenced here.



As expected, the building is not spectacular. St. Stephen's uses it as a storehouse for athletic equipment. There isn't any signage - you have to know what it is you're looking at. Still, you can imagine what did happen here, if you squint a little.



Here's how the Flagstaff Tower looked right after the Mutiny. I suppose the Ridge was massively defoliated by the conflict, but I'm not really sure. The photo was taken by the enigmatic and fascinating photographer Felice Beato, one of history's first war photographers. His eery and stark photos of the Indian Mutiny are incredible and well worth a look if you've any interest at all in the history of the era.


Sheila, Rajeev, and I went off to have dinner at the Delhi Golf Club. This entailed getting dressed up. The Golf Club is society.

One has to wonder what the enraged sepoys of the Mutiny would have made of the Club. There is no sport, no pursuit, more British then golf after all, no recreational activity so obtusely luxurious. A golf course requires an incredible amount of space to build, after all, and then it also requires an incredible amount of effort to maintain.

But then, look at the clientele. All Indian. They've entirely inhabited the Golf Club, and so the club is an entirely Indian institution. It's not like India hasn't put up some of the world's very finest golfers. This is perhaps the end-game of the British colonization. The British left an inordinate amount of things behind, but Indians took them up, tweaked them a bit, and made them entirely their own. (The English language is perhaps the paramount example of this - Indian English having become a very separate but entirely relevant offshoot of the King's own tongue).

The food at the golf club is quite good. A step up over limp burgers, fries, and beer at most American golf clubs. The bar upstairs is convivial in that British Indian way, and you can sit at little glass tables and watch the football (soccer) game and argue over things, over tandoor items and whatever else pleases you. So we did.



They have a servicable fish tikka...



And very nice roomali roti...



And a damn good bhindi masala. God, I love bhindi masala. Why can't anyone make it right outside India? (Well. Other then me).



Like we did two years ago, Sheila and I took out our drinks, our glasses of whiskey, and looked out over the golf course in the night time. An abandoned and lovely red Lodhi tomb sits on the first hole, and spotlights bathe the greens in a rather ethereal, moonlit light. I remember what she told me last time we were here. "There's cobras on the golf course," she said. "It's a bit of an obstacle."

"What's the rules say about cobras?"

"If your ball comes to rest on one - don't ever pick it up."

Duly noted.