NJP

By Tushar Shekhar

Since my childhood days I wanted to be a travel blogger but my parents were both bank employee so I have a huge pressure of working in service industry , also a Delhi guy rarely get chance to visit some other places because all best schools colleges and everything are already available in the national capital, I completed my graduation and was applying for different competitive examination and getting all online and offline center in or near Delhi itself except one day when I applied for North Eastern development corporation and I got to know that its exam centres are either in north east state or west Bengal, Finally I received the admit card where I got to know that my centre was Siliguri. I was very excited for this trip and in order to explore and know different cities of UP and Bihar before reaching Siliguri I took reservation in a very old train of India “the Awadh Assam Express”, this time I was ready with my iPhone camera to capture at least some memories for me, because in spite of several request I did not get the money to purchase DSLR or gopro cameras. The train started at approx. 8:00 AM and after crossing through cities like Moradabad, Bareilly, Lucknow, Gorakhpur, Muzaffarpur and Katihar it reached NJP, the major station of Siliguri district one hour late at 7:00 PM the very next day. I was very much tired so from station I booked ola and went to my hotel “The royal Sarovar premiere” for rest. I rose the very next day at 6:00 AM went to exam centre gave my exam till 11:30 AM and was then free for one and half day because my departure train was at next day evening, while returning from the centre I took a local auto and noticed that the city does not have big apartments and offices like Delhi but still is quite big enough, moreover girls and woman sit near driver on the first seat of auto which we rarely see elsewhere, people there were of mixed culture, majority were Indians but some were bhutani and nepali, almost all of them were speaking in Bengali but they were able to know and understand Hindi too so I did not faced any problem, In my route I saw two big malls one was ambuja neotia city centre and one was vegas mall, city centre was just like select city walk of saket in Delhi, I ate my lunch at a Jain restaurant and was very much satisfied with it and then went to Hong Kong market to purchase

something for myself, the market was spread in huge area and I loved people there, as they very friendly and very supportive, as I was new to that place they told me which items are available where and how to reach those spots, I had somewhere heard that Bengali girls are very beautiful but after coming here I believed that the blend of Bengali girl and mountain girls are making beauty in the sky, after that I went to monastery and the famous science city of north Bengal, and before coming to hotel ate my dinner at the famous rail restaurant of the town. At the hotel when I was about to sleep that day, I remembered that I have only one day left before departure so tomorrow would be an important day for me, I wake up in the early morning and left my hotel and moved to Darjeeling more, since it was impossible to explore Darjeeling in a day, I choose two other beautiful place “Kurseong and Mirik”. Finally at 7:00 am I got a sumo and with 10 person in it we went for kurseong, the driver seemed to be so expert that he was driving the vehicle with black goggles and one hand on an extreme turning road, but the scenes were amazing, I have never been to such height before, after one hour at 8:00 we reached our place, it was 4864 feet above and is famous for its orchids, I spent almost 3 hours there wondering over the mountains, tea gardens and markets, there I found one thing very amazing, I went to a restaurant and they were offering unlimited food in only 120 INR, at approx. 11:00 AM I left kurseong and went for mirik, the route of mirik was extremely dangerous, from my vehicle window I was not able to see anything due to foggish and cloudy weather and still the driver was driving at a good speed, may be he is comfortable with the route, finally after the scary trip we arrive mirik which is famous for its apple garden, it was severe cold there so I purchased a jacket ate some Maggie to make myself warm and left soon at 2:00 PM as I had a train to catch at 8:00 in the evening. Whole journey I tried to understand what people were talking but was unable to do so because of language problem, finally at one place we found toy train and our driver stopped there for sometime for the tourist to take photo. Finally with all the adventures we arrived at Tenzing Norway bus stand of Siliguri at 6:00 in the evening, I had only two hour left here in this city but my mind was still not able to move away from it. I took my dinner in the very famous hill cart road, and went to NJP station for my last move. My train was being announced at the station but I was still looking at the city from staircase, finally my train North East express departed from the station, I went to the door and looked out of it, and asked myself was these two days’ worth enough, was I able to express my feelings out in these days, will it be remembered for a long time, will I be able to come here once again, and with this the train left the last board of NJP, and took off its speed towards Delhi.

By Tushar Shekhar