Somu, who is a top executive of a multinational firm at Kolkata mumbles the above dialogue to his better half Sunayana, nickname Su. She resists “since you have not taken me for honeymoon after marriage, you try to find escape route. People who are delinquent, they only preach all types of excuses.”
Somu is workaholic and also pernickety. Every strategical decision of his sales department needs to be verified by him where he is working. His early morning leaving and late evening coming to house induces Su’s anger management. She is enraged, till today, to miss the honeymoon when they planned for the same to visit Darjeeling. Because of tremendous work pressure, Sonu had to reluctantly cancel the said trip at the last moment. Even after eight years of her marriage, she is unable to erase that feeling from her mind. Further, she becomes dreary when she is fed with the information of her bosom friend’s marriage and enjoying honeymoon immediately thereafter. It is not that she is avaricious for this particular ceremony, but she being a graduate in Philosophy, confers tremendous weightage for every work at its own time. Otherwise also, she is very methodical and stickler because of her born and brought up in the environment of United Kingdom. She is a tremendous believer of disciplined life of British and she send her only child of six years to her parents over there for study purpose.
Contrarily, Somu is extrovert, vivacious and somewhat materialistic. At this age of 40, he possesses posh flat at an up market place at Kolkata with an imported car. His main criterion is to earn money considerably so as to maintain the same standard of life even after retirement. He has seen the hardship of his parents and uncles and so he does not want to spoil time for trivial issues even at the cost of worriment of Su. But, now Somu realizes and wants to be benignant to take Su for a sight seeing visit to Darjeeling under the wrapper of belated honeymoon.
His surreptitious plan is licked to Su by one of his close colleagues. Su does not belief only to say “when I will board the flight, then only I will accept this as a fact.” Somu takes leaves for the entire week and both of them board a flight to Bagdogra. From there, they take a car to reach to Darjeeling. The car passes through greeneries, mountainous pass, and sharp bends. They enjoy the beauty of tea gardens at both the sides of the hilly roads. Seeing the depth of these valleys from the top, Su screams, “oh my god, if something happens to the car, what will be the outcome?”
“The graves will be yawning in the midst of this 6000 feet below to kiss both you and me.”, Somu replied.
After a drive of nearly 3 hours covering a distance of 90 Kms. they reach to Darjeeling to abode in a star hotel “Sinclairs Resort”. As soon as Su ushers in the room, she gets excited with the enchanting beauty of the city of Darjeeling at one side and the mountain Kanchanjhanga at the other side. Somu tries to coax and hug her but she just snubs him with a squint for his effrontery because the hotel bell boy follows them to dump the luggage in their room. After arranging the luggage sequentially in the cupboard, Su makes herself comfortable in evening attire and orders for a special Darjeeling pot tea. As per regular habit, Somu finishes his evening bath and then enjoys the warmth of hot tea. It is not as per the reputed world class flavour of Darjeeling tea. Su also advocates the same opinion.
“If we do not get the quality flavoured tea in Darjeeling, world class quality chocolates in Switzerland, what is the use of tasting those particular things in that particular place”, Su cried.
“This is the eternal truth and bliss of life, Madam.”
Su starts enjoying the scenic beauty of this place from the balcony of the hotel room without much fiddling. Suddenly, her face is hovered with cloud since the weather gets beclouded. The thick blackish all over the sky pours water in her enjoyment of taking the ambrosia of the Kanchanjhanga Mountain from the hotel room itself. Seeing her gloomy face, Somu cajoles her by planting a kiss on her forehead and force her to come out from the confinement of the room. From the outside, the hotel looks to be more as an ancient building encapsulated with architectural work and greeneries. The ambience of this hotel is appealing and so as their staff members who seem to be very deferential types. The only drawback which is observed by Somu that the hotel though belongs to three star category has not ameliorated enough to attract high profile overseas tourists. Moreover, the location of the hotel is in cul-de-sac so that unless you know, you may not be in a position to locate so easily.
Somu ambulates towards the main road leads to mall followed by Su. After a long stroll, both of them become little tired because they are not accustomed to walk through hilly roads. By the time, they decide to back to the hotel, drizzling starts and suddenly strong wind and thunder shower amazedly surrounds them. They run towards the direction of the hotel but fail to save them and get drenched completely.
Seeing the water clogged sari draped over her vivacious body, Somu’s excitement increases and he coddles her and this time Su accepts with mirth and hugs him. They enjoy the situational advantage because here no one is entering in their privacy.
After freshen up, they proceed to the dinning hall for a buffet dinner. They eat non-vegetarian dishes mainly fish fries because of their superb quality. In fact, they devour fish fry and then taste the mutton biryani to their satisfaction.
After a luscious dinner, they laze in the adjoining garden of the restaurant and enjoy the night of Darjeeling. By the time, the sky is again clear. After sometimes, they start yawning and they go to the room and fall asleep. Next day, they get up early. Su as usual start looking to the mountainous beauty of Darjeeling from the balcony. In the meantime, Somu finishes his morning rituals and makes a phone call to the room service for special tea. Without any utterances, they keep watching the evolving sun slowly like an effulgent round metallic dish, from their balcony.
Sue cries “what an eternal beauty! Is it possible to enjoy such beauty from our home at Kolkata?”
Somu replies “It is possible, but not so distinctly, because now, you are watching the sun from an elevated place of nearly 5000 feet.”
“I don’t understand all this logic, but these beauties have definitely enamoured me.”
Thereafter, they drink special tea and somehow the quality is not that bad like yesterday. Within another one hour, they usher into a car to visit five different places for sight seeing. They visit first to a ropeway only to find the same is under repairing because of recent land slide. Darjeeling city is placed in zigzag fashion and the toy train line is criss crossed in the same way. To their bad luck, they are not able to see the train in motion because of disruption of their services, again because of land slide.
Then they visit a tea garden / tea estate. All round the tea state, short heighted tea plants are only visible. From the top, if one looks, he will feel like standing on a green rock to watch green path. Su shows her extra courage to slide down a bit on the narrow make shift road in the tea estate. But, local supervisor admonished not to venture, because it is a risky proposition. Thereafter both they enquire about some nitty-gritty of tea producing, its manufacturing process, drying, blending and then forwarding the same to wholesalers to merchandize. Finishing this spot, they further move to the zoological park and the Himalaya Mountain Training Institute. The beauty of this zoo is that it is situated at an elevation of nearly 6000 feet.
Su arouses a bore by clapping her hands which the animal does not like. It changes its posture and flatly lies down fall asleep. They observe some different types of birds, leopards and dears. From there, they proceed to the mountain training institute. Basically, it is a museum. It shows various kinds of accessories, implements which are generally used to climb rocks and mountains. The institute also depicts the pictures of Tenging Norgaw, Sir Edmond Hillary who are all famous to conquer the irresistible Mount Everest.
Then they visit the mall for the second consecutive day to watch the qualities of cloths and other goods namely electronic gadgets. As usual, Su starts dickering after selecting some woolen cloths. From a distant place, Somu enjoys the haggling between Su and the seller. Ultimately, the shopkeeper surrenders uttering some unpleasant dialects in her own language which is beyond Su’s reach. But, she feels happy because she wins in the bargain.
“Why are you laughing”, Su enquires staring to Somu.
“Nothing”
“You male fools are damn weak in bargaining,” she murmurs. From mall, hotel is at a walking distance and so they bid adieu to the driver only to inform him to visit next day for further sight seeing.
At 4.00 A.M. in the morning, they make themselves ready to watch the rising sun from the peak of Tiger Hill. When they reach there, the place is already crowded. Somehow, Su manages to stand in the front now. The beauty of Kanchanjhanga is far away but distinctly clear from the height of 8000 feet. The sky is clear and the last phase of the night disappears and the sun start evolves. At 5 A.M., it appears slightly. Slowly and slowly, it becomes glowing and at 5.30 A.M. it emerges like a bright yellow round metallic dish. From all round the corner, only “click” sounds erupt. Somu is also busy in capturing all these scenic beauties in his Sony digital camera. Su is enchanted and speechless for a while.
From there, they visit Batasia loop, a circular toy train garden, of course the engine is standing silently. The narrow railways lines are surrounded by flowers, small trees and the place has its own beauty. Then they visit a Tibetian monastery to watch minutely how the Buddhist performs their daily religious activities. Many teenagers are found to take instructions from their seniors about the teachings of Buddhism.
After reaching to the hotel, Su feels discomfort and feverish. With a cup of tea, she manages to regain her vigour but not much of use. Somu suggests for calling a doctor but Su declines. They retire to bed with a plan to rise early in the next day morning to visit the Tiger Hills once again to observe vivacious beauty of diamond ring of the Sun. But, because of indisposition of Su, the sight seeing visit of the next day is postponed. Su is just confined to the bed throughout the day. Somu passes the day by scribbling his various thoughts and studying some scientific Journals.
Next day, that is fifth day of the trip, Su tries to come out from the shackles of indisposition but her procrastination does not yield any result. Somu calls now hotel reception and advises to send a doctor. After thorough examination, doctor suspects cold influenza fever but cautions not to venture out from hotel. By taking full rest supplemented by medicines, Su is all right on the sixth day and visits only to the mall just to get rid of four walls obtrusive environment of the hotel room. When they return after two hours of evening stroll, Su seems to be again agile and energetic. Then, they start discussing about the plan of return journey.
Somu questions, “Su, how do you like this belated honeymoon?”
“No comments”.
“Why?”
Seeing her reluctance, Somu further advocates, “I feel if we were coming before eight years just after the nuptial stage, we would have not been able to share the thoughts in current scenarios, because now we are more matured.”
“I am not able to digest.” Su retorts.
“Simple, after a passage of eight years of our lives, we are more seasoned and experienced of happiness and distress. Today, we are much more capable to visualize with our experience of conjugal life of past eight years. Was it possible at that time?” Somu further narrates.
“I know your volubility and I am also aware that once you start, you are indomitable, but ensure that it does not create my prolix”, Su answers.
“Neither I am giving any formidable array of alibis nor do I confute about your belief that every ceremony must be time oriented but I only like to emphasize that all these are human’s creation. One can very well enjoy the eternal and spiritual beauties and devotions at any time provided there is a strong desire to do so.” Somu stares to Su for her opinion.
“But, Su does not reply only to laugh.”
Seeing the mood, Somu tries to canoodle and embrace her and strongly put his lips on her and fondle each other as if they enjoy their honeymoon. Nearly one hour, they devour each other and Somu guzzles each and every organ of Su’s body. After sometime, they lay awake, savour their throbbing energy only to comprehend the fantasies of their wedding day.
Su starts to organize the suitcases and bags for their return journey and then proceed to dining hall. After a light dinner, they retire to bed so that they can get up early on the next day.
On the last day of the journey, they complete their morning rituals, finish breakfast and then usher in the waiting car to be dropped to the airport to catch the flight to Kolkata. After a journey of total three hours, they are back to their home with a sigh from Su’s mouth “yes, belated honeymoon is joyous provided the original one is in its place.”
Someone says correctly that “woman’s mind is the most mystic and imponderable”, Somu slouches into the bathroom gleefully.
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