Flickering lights by night

There’s something ‘bout those flickering lights

That hug the hillside slope,

Those little huts of hillside men

Filled with pain and hope

 

Pain for all the daily strife,

For the highland life is tough,

Yet hope from all the simplicity

Where little is enough

 

Their struggles in the mountain air,

In seasons hot and cold,

A river dammed, a slip, a flood

And many a tale untold

 

And sons and brothers far away

To send some pennies few,

In the army here, some factory there,

A story that’s not new

 

Yet, every face harbours a smile,

In each a glowing sun,

Is it the wisdom in the mountain air,

That we city-folks can’t learn?

 

Then at night, when darkness falls,

That sun keeps glowing still,

A little lamp in a little hut,

And lit is every hill!

 

I stare upon those flickering lights,

Those distant hamlets stare,

Mongpu, Sittong, Tinchuley,

Layer after mountain layer

 

Some sparkling from the tea estates,

Some from the cinchona farms,

So much life from the little lights

That the shadows have no qualms

 

And I stare at them, night after night

For I long to touch them all,

The wanderlust that heeds the hills

And the magic mountains’ call

 

But more so for I also wish

I could be like them plain,

To accept life in its simple hues

With room for no disdain

 

To return, at least, with a dewdrop change

Back to the smoke and bluff,

A bit of hope and simplicity

That little is enough…

 

4^th Feb’ 2023

 

I have always been fascinated by the shimmering lights that come alive every dusk on the slopes of the Himalaya, making an attempt to reflect the shimmering stars on the hills. Besides being able to see at night, the faraway expanse that humans have reached in those hills, they seem to reflect the energy and the life that defines the hardy spirit of the rustic hillside folks. The above lines were inspired when I was staying in the hills of Takdah and Sukhiapokhri in the Darjeeling district when I was enamoured, yet again, of the shimmering lights coming from the tea bustees of far and near.

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