One winter morning my friend telephoned to ask if I would like to accompany him on a journey to Darjeeling. It was a cold winter in Katmandu that year and going to Darjeeling meant bracing up for more cold. I hung up on him saying that you don't want to be there in winter and that it was not a pleasant idea. I had last been there way back in the late winter of 1985 and since had formed a view that although it was a charming place to be, but during winters the country had less of the sun making the place very cold and being there was very depressing. .
But the thoughts were returning there. I could make out clearly was the house of an old friend of my grandfather where we had stayed as guests. The house was near North point and quiet steep trails led you down to it. It was a very modest timbered house; simple yet well maintained with assortment of flowers lined neatly in its balconies. I remembered it overlooked a deep gorge which was always over shrouded with mist, except in sunny days when it was tea plantation and green hills and the cable car slowly making its way up the steep sided vale. .
I could not remember much about the town only that it was all dripping; squelchy and cold with winter rain most of our stay and dark. The dull narrow streets with old, tatty houses standing beside them, the secluded residences amidst tall trees, the town all foggy and walking around it was as if like stirring in the midst of the clouds. I began to wonder how it was like now. During these past years I had heard a lot about this place and many of it was very sad. But I was sure that it had retracted from those hard times of Gorkhaland agitation. As I reflected upon all this the feeling of revisiting this place grew on me in a subtle way, after some moment I realized that it was a longing, as one wishes to return to old haunts. I willed myself somewhat hesitantly to phone that friend and said you know Darjeeling sounds great'.