Monsoons in Gangtok : Life in Northeast India

Gangtok City | Monsoons in Gangtok | Travel to Sikkim | Stories from Sikkim | Stories from Gangtok | Moody Story | Fictional Writing | Fictional story | Story Telling | M.G. marg Gangtok | Sikkim in July | Life of Northeast India

A gloomy evening in Gangtok

“Catch a boat to England baby..

May be to Spain…

Wherever I have gone..

The blues run the game..”

 by Jackson C. Frank was playing in Megha’s living room until the ‘Char – Par’ sound of ‘Fing’ thrown in the sizzling Wok silenced it out. A song she learnt from her architecture office and was listening to it on a loop since afternoon. She returned to the living room to sip her wine & turn up the volume. In the apartment cum lodge, opposite to her, the dogs were barking frantically on the new bunch of rather excited Bengali tourists, who were unloading their luggage late this evening, loudly.

She sat back on the sofa laced with the typical Tibetan Carpet with pink & purple orchid patterns, and resumed savouring the view through the window. Those tall tree silhouettes were dancing with the wind, rustling in the streets of Kazi road. The cityscape was as clouded as her thoughts about the unseen future that lay ahead away from home.

Gangtok City by the evening

Megha was seduced by the deafening, massive waterfalls and enchanted forests of Sikkim the minute she read about the state in a travel magazine while flying back home to Rajasthan, as a fresh graduate. There is a romantic breeze dancing with the paddy fields always - the pictures from the article told her, made her believe that, this is the place she wants to be, to live & start anew.

She was now, 2 years old in Gangtok, living in the heart of the city - M.G. Marg - which was right below the narrow staircase branching inside & upwards into a completely different world which she called her home. These shortcuts were the veins of the city and for her, a time travel machine leading to her nest, leaving the hustle of the city behind. She loved the pace of Gangtok. She moved with the lights, the people, and the changing directions of rain. She was working 3 jobs a day to explore freedom in this new Himalayan abode she chose to live in. The city and its people fit in her puzzle of life perfectly though apiece still remained missing.

Misty city scape of Sikkim during monsoons

After dinner, she sat cross-legged on the bed, resumed reading what she left last night. She looked towards her phone longingly, for a notification or perhaps a message from someone, until she was left distracted by the loud thunder in the valley.

Finally, It poured violently!

The barking dogs eased on their rattling nerves and fell silent. Bengali music at the Bengali lodge opposite, to entertain the Bengali tourists, was muted by the downpour roar. The hustle bustle of the taxis withdrawing from their days wandering on the highways suddenly stopped on Kazi road. The trees stood struck in their place holding the pricking weight on their shoulders.

After two days of sultry July sunshine, the sound of heavy droplets hitting the tina-roof studded cityscape of Gangtok, lasted for as long as half an hour, muting the city makers. As all energies rested, hearing the melancholy, the rain too slowed its pace to a blissful shower. It started to drizzle and left her neighbourhood chilly & empty..

Drama in the valley after rainfall

The coming morning, Megha wore her trainer suit and walked down the slope to M.G. Marg to take her morning shift at the fitness studio. The streets were in solitude. She looked around. All beings had rescued themselves to shelter last evening, including the sun. The ‘chia’ wala wasn’t standing where she picked her morning tea from. The flowers at the divider had just woken up into full bloom. The roofs were washed anew still reeked of the rainwater. The green-carpeted walls shimmered of moss and looked even heavier. The buildings were washed to their original colour. And all the smells were lost to Petrichor. The clouds left their designated place up in the sky and were running through the streets and into windows of buildings, playfully, and caressing the trees.

The city looked like a young girl who cried all night missing her lover and woke up next morning having washed her blues away.

Megha, kept her phone in her pocket and walked ahead into the day.

Beginning of a clear day in Gangtok