Memories are like box of sweets…. You must have heard of this filmy dialogue in recent bollywood movie YJHD. But let me tell you good memories are like the aroma of a mug of hot coffee during a rainy day… or may be the smell of unknown flowers when you walk through a dense green jungle to find the most colorful butterflies…
So this is how I started walking through the memory lane and found the beautiful trip photo album and revisited it all over again.
Yes… it was the Gang of our frolleagues (Colleagues who become friends :-p). We had been looking forward to an outing for at least 4-5 months since we had crazily busy time at work. Then I used to work for an event agency and we had work even during Durga Puja, Diwali, Christmas, New Year and My Birthday…. Can you imagine !!
Well that's how it goes; we are event managers.
I enjoyed every bit of the excitement during these crazy events. Learnt a lot of things, made new friends, understood a lot about patience and a lot more. Anyways after all these back to back event there was a little breather in the month of May and finally our HQ asked us to plan for a trip to Gangtok. It started from collecting the ID proofs for railway ticket reservation to booking hotel and planning detailed trip. 6 -8 from our branch were to go but finally count was 5. So it was our boss and 4 of us from branch. Me, KD, Bis and Niv. We were to travel and spend next 5 days together first time without work.
The journey began at Sealdah station in the city of joy. We were to board the train in evening Kanchanjunga Express. We were going crazy photos, selfies and unlimited silly jokes. It was almost dinner time and we were counting hours to reach the destination. Most of the time we don't realize that more that reaching the destination the journey becomes most memorable. We had stocked up a lot of munching snack, cold drink (only soft drink) and smokes. We were as if reliving college days during the journey; we played antakshari, ludo, cards and a lot of gossip. We then plan to sleep for few hours and in some time we reached New Jalpaiguri station. Unlike any metro city this was slow, calm and welcomed us with lovely rains there.
Bengalis just cannot do without tea so without breaking the trend we were also looking for a local tea stall and had our morning tea there. Our next travel was by road so the vehicle reached there to pick up. Now another beautiful journey started…. We were all feeling tired and thought of taking nap in the car. But when we left the station and took to road to Gangtok we just could not sleep. Mesmerising greenery, unknown birds’ chirping and clean roads via NH 10 we crossed local bus stops, unknown beautiful villages, the beautiful Teesta river, mountains …. Seemed like a wonderland.
We reached the hotel by afternoon and we checked in. Amazing weather welcomed us here as well. It was little cold but we decided to take a quick shower and lunch before going for sight seeing. The water was so chilling that even to gargle we went mad.
Then we finished our food and left for the sightseeing. Started with a park, then to monastery and local shopping. The plan was bigger for next day so we all came back to hotel after our short sight seeing. Now comes the time for party, although we all had plans to leave for Nathula pass but we all wanted to have a break free party that night. We played music, danced, boozed and smoked till midnight. The view from the window was just black, only thing we could hear is rain. The rooms were very big in the hotel and we were partying at Bis‘s room. It so dark outside, and so damn quiet that we were shit scared to go to our rooms to sleep. The next morning 6 o’clock the cab was to report and we all girls slept in the same room.
Journey started next morning… nature’s beauty is like a bliss and were experiencing it live. There were waterfalls one after the other, mountains, snow and a lot of thrill. One side of the of road were tall mountains and the other side death traps. We were driving through the narrow roads to the Nathula Pass. the closer we were to the hills the more it was getting beautiful. Snow and mountain ranges were looking like crushed Oreo biscuits. We stopped at a spot where we hired jackets and shoes to beat the chilling wind and snow. I was experiencing snow for the first time there. It is just not possible to explain the thrill the adrenaline rush that we were probably enjoying then. We played in the snow like little kids. The driver kept calling us to go back but still we kept playing there for an hour or so. It was very cold, there was no village, no greenery …. nothing. Only the camps of army who are there to protect us. On the way back we all were tired, mesmerized and speechless at the beauty of the place and the sacrifice of the soldiers. Although there are so many difficulties for survival but the local people were so warm, lively and cheerful that we enjoyed every bit of the trip.
Now it was time for some shopping for friends, family from M G Road in Gangtok. This is such a lovely cute market that I still plan to go there again.
We may not probably keep in touch with our friends regularly by talking over a call or email but such photo albums hiding in our D or E drive as magic lamps. We just need to do click click to bring back the moments of love, life …. and laughter.
