The call of Kanchenjunga

 

Do you recollect any particular moment, that was so captivating, that you feel that life has dramatically changed therein? Every moment thereafter in the spool of time exists but keeps going back to that one supernovan moment that has changed the flow and ebb of time.   

I would love to create a name for it, and call these ‘big-bang’ moments – instances so enthralling that like a supernova, the fabric of space and time explodes, and gets to recreate, such that you keep going back psychedelically to that same moment again and again. For those spiritually inclined, who believe that life itself is a grand simulation of the senses, these moments then become core hotspots that drive the simulation itself. But, enough of these Vedic philosophies – let’s get back to the romanticism of these instances.

All of us would have faced ‘big-bang moments’ somewhere on our journeys. Perhaps we may not have realised the ‘aha’ of these moments, but we have all had them, at least once. The realisations that came therein, their epiphanies, would have changed us, consciously or subconsciously. Break-ups, separations, deaths are causes on the darker side. On the brighter side are realisations of love, euphoria of the Almighty or even the first step on a journey that forever alters the direction of life. Take a moment, look back - do you spot those big-bang moments, when time stops, cracks, bends and distorts to take a new shape?

One such moment – as you may have guessed already – was the first time I saw the Kanchenjunga range, and as its immediate precursor, the first time I saw the immensity that was the Himalayas. It was in the picturesque outskirts of Kalimpong, one of the jewels of North Bengal, and it was the first time in many years that I, like a Sam Gamgee, had ventured outside my Shire of university, exams, and educational aspirations. After years, you may say, the cage was opened, and outside shone the snow-clad massif of the Sleeping Buddha range, including at its helm, the Kanchenjunga. That evening, I stared at a golden sunset, and entered a dream-like state of enigma, where the realisation of young fold mountains, collapsing tectonic plates, and the incredible creation of the Himalaya, submerging the Tethys Sea, mesmerised me. The grandeur of the mountains took a different meaning altogether, That night< I went to sleep, swirling in the realisation of Winfred Garrison’s poetry - “Oh God, thy sea is so great and my boat is so small.”

But how was this a big-bang moment, you may wonder? In many ways – first, Kalimpong kindled in me the sleeping wanderlust. The exhilaration of travel, the resfeber of a journey, and the anticipation of seeing the world crackled into life, and began my love to see the wonders of the planet, even the miniscule one buzzing in your own backyard! It gave renewed vigour in the  eyes and a yearning in the heart – to want to see more, thus sparking the sojourn of the seven seas. It was also this moment that made me an orophile, a lover of mountains. Especially the Himalaya. I have realised the grandness they inspire, and perhaps some of the many reasons why many get deranged in the beauty of these snow-clad peaks. That was the start of the tryst with Kanchenjunga, pulling me back to itself countless times, to smell the pine-crushed freshness of the mountain air, and to stare in disbelief at its incandescent whiteness.

The call of Kanchenjunga has taken me back to the lofty heights of the Himalaya, on multiple occasions. You may even humour yourself by thinking that it is the same call that comes to life when I see any snow -clad peak, even outside the Himalaya. Be it Aoraki, a photo of Raini

er, or even a billowing lot of early morning clouds that vaguely resemble the Kanchenjunga and its somnolent kin.

Some of these emotions have been captured in this anthology, dedicated to who else but the mighty Kanchenjunga. But the poems go beyond, all the way up north, where many mountain ranges meet, with some of my poetry based on real-life experiences of places I have been to, and the rest on destinations I yearn to visit – tiny villages, borderland hamlets, lofty meadows, alpine bugyals, and countless sinuous rivers illustrating like thin brush lines, magic on the canvas of the Himalayas. Then comes the people, the flora, the fauna, the faiths, the beliefs, the Puranic stories, and in them all, a culmination that takes us closer to God.

And to think of it, all of these strands of infinity came from a singular point – of seeing the grandness of the Kanchenjunga, rising like a sentinel in alabaster, inspiring us mortals to keep rising, striving, attempting to climb higher and higher still, in echoes that resound from the call of the Kanchenjunga. I hope the lines ahead trigger a flash of emotions in you as well, setting off perhaps a long chain of pilgrimages in the mountains, in days to come, where you too can look back some day and trace the origin of it all, in the call of the mighty Kanchenjunga…

28^th June 2025

(Introduction to my latest anthology - the Call of Kanchenjunga)