Kalimpong Calling

Selling Mountains

The ninth essay from my 2002 book Kalimpong Calling.

People in our town have long observed that no matter what the political regime in place, Kalimpong has always been short-changed as far as the economic policies of the government are concerned. There seems to be a different set of priorities on either side of the Teesta, hence that simmering animosity between the peoples across the divide.

Darjeeling with its snobs, wheeler-dealers, and dalals; and Kalimpong with its poor, hardworking, simple, and ever-willing folk. Well, that is the perception many hold — and maybe not without reason. As a friend often says, “We have no mountains to sell.” In the absence of a broker-driven economy there are fewer profitable enterprises, so perhaps that’s why we are content with our weather, our Town Hall, and our two cinemas. (Although a fellow passenger in a local taxi told me recently that only two people had turned up for a show at the Novelty.)

Darjeeling, on the other hand, would rather remodel the Gorkha Rangamanch into something grossly gothic — a French opera house, whatever that is — and pull down Rink Cinema to build a multiplex. Too bad they can do nothing about the weather, which insiders say is deteriorating day by day, freak snowfalls notwithstanding. That perverse streak in Darjeeling makes sanctimonious Kalimpong folk cringe.

The swanky shops at Nehru Road, the hotels flaunting stars, public schools, pool houses and pubs, even cellular-phone-enabled sex workers — all make Darjeeling seem a world away, though it is but a short groaning jeep ride uphill. Deep down, of course, we know Darjeeling is irreversibly ruined. Its old colonial charm — cultivated so carefully by the British — is gone. The legacy of pampered hill-station beauty has been squandered. Its vulgar competition to build taller terraces is like a mountain destroying itself with its own gift, or a whore undone by her profligacy.

Perhaps the one lesson to be learned from all this is that too much of a good thing isn’t so good after all. Kalimpong — forgotten by trade and traffic and suffering from its quota of inferiority complex — can still take solace from the fact that our value system remains intact. When spring comes, it cheers not only the romantic but also the worldly-wise, the shopkeeper, and the driver who rejoice at the start of the season. How fitting that good Kalimpong derives much of its sustenance from the noble venture of educating young people, and not — as my friend succinctly put it — by selling mountains.