By Anand Gurung
All through our stay there it was cold in Darjeeling. The sun was always short lived and this gave the place a monochromatic look most of the time. Sometimes it rained and it was colder and gray and afterwards the mist covered the whole of the high streets in the ridges.
During our stay my friend and I used to loaf around the town from afternoon till late in the evening. Mingling with the crowds we would walk around the colorful markets of hill cart road looking at the people going about their businesses and stopped to eat at a restaurant where they made very fine hot and steamy momos. Afterwards we would shun the turmoil of the markets and continue along the streets that rose from it. Then past the town hall with its moss covered clock tower, past some derelict looking houses and onto the Mall.
Although crowded most of the time with the residents and Indian holidaymakers, the Mall still had a relaxed ambience that made it charming to stroll there during nights when it dazzled with the yellow lights from the windows of shops and restaurants facing the street. If you got a little tired with all the walking you could always lounge at the benches of Chowrasta at the crest of the hill where the statue of the celebrated poet Bhanubhakta Acharya stands tall. The Darjeeling residents often came over to this place because it had a feel of a park. Young men seeming to find little to amuse themselves with in the town also gathered over here for a little animated gossip around the benches, while all the time rolling their eyes at the passing girls.
Other snapshots were of convivial Indian tourists with their children and the local families flocking together to share some Kodak moments or having a time out sitting at the benches after a long shopping spree in the gaudy bazaars below. In many ways Chowrasta occupied the centrestage of Darjeeling people daily life.
One afternoon, while stopping in at a hotel just a little away from the Mall, I ran into actress Sunny Rauniyar. After having much difficulty in finding an Internet café in the town, I was finally pointed towards the direction of the Hotel Red Rose in Laden La road. The café was inside the hotel, just beside the lobby and finding only Sunny Rauniyar there, I asked her if I could use the Internet. She looked up at me and told me very modestly that I can help myself with any computer. The connection was way slow and I got a little annoyed with it.
And across from me at another table Sunny Rauniyar was busy typing something, looking fresh and lovely with the pink high neck sweaters and matching trousers, the faint light of the screen reflecting on her face making it glow and I thought she was very beautiful. I had read about her marriage to a Darjeeling guy in a Kathmandu newspaper but had not expected that I would be seeing her here.
The other bit of a surprise came when I found out that the hotel belonged to her husband. It was not what you called a plush hotel, but it sure looked all right and was nicely tucked away from the noise and grime of the lower bazaars. I initiated the talking with her on the hotel being nice. She looked at me and asked whether I was new here. I said yes and explained that I was here on a holiday. Then I abruptly said that she had a really charming onscreen persona and that I liked her work in the film ‘Prempinda’. She smiled.
We talked about the situation of the Nepali film industry and Sunny Rauniyar seemed really concerned about its flagging appeal and the deteriorating condition that it was reeling under. Then I went on to say that it’s been some time that I hadn’t seen her on the big screen. Was she thinking about quitting the film industry altogether?
Her face bore a different expression. “Well, at the moment I have not decided what I would do,” she said, “I still have a great deal of offers from film directors. You know my fans say they admire me and want me back in films. I like working in films but for the time being it seems impossible that I would be seen doing one since I have settled down here in Darjeeling.” She said that she didn’t know when will that be but she would definitely return to the Nepali film industry and said that movies were her passion and can never just about cut it out from her life.
She felt glad to have settled down in Darjeeling and said that she was now helping her husband with the hotel. But she didn’t believe that she would only stick to it. She said she would venture into movie production and seemed extremely serious about it and for this she was dividing her time between Darjeeling and Kathmandu. I again turned the conversation and asked if it was hard to make a living in Nepal as a film artist.
She said of course it was like that. How? Because the industry has not flourished so as to let artists earn a good lifestyle of their own. So how did she like living in Darjeeling? She told me that it was a fine place to be but only just a little bit cold. “There is some political turmoil that plagues this place and other minor squabbles but outside of that,” she said, “it’s a nice place to live a quiet life, but there are times when the town seems to doze off and it is very boring then.” And what about me, what did I think about Darjeeling? I told her that Darjeeling is much the same since I had last been here, only a little crowded and dirty. She agreed with me and said that perhaps the snow would fall soon this year, as the November month was unusually cold, and the winter country would look lovelier covered in drapes of snow.
The next couple of days went on like that and it became increasingly cold the longer we stayed and it rained couple of days also but that didn’t brought any snows. And all through those long two weeks of our stay there I wished and fancied for the snowfall and did not think anything particular. The time I spent there were my Eden. Therefore, even four years later, I remember it as if I had made this journey yesterday. (end)