The False Sunset of the East

  

After the rampage of monsoon,

Ah! The beauty of a mottled sky

Torn fragments of clouds

Ablaze in sunset fury

 

At my rooftop, I exclaim,

‘What can be better than

This sunset of the west?’

My neighbour overhears

 

The old man smiles,

‘Beyond the city,

Far in the hills, have you heard,

Of the false sunset of the east!?’

 

I stare at him,

He who has seen much more smiles,

‘At Darjeeling, the mountains will enchant

And you will be mesmerised.’

 

If you are lucky enough

To find her skies clear

If you are pilgrim enough

To wake up before dawn

 

Then you will see

The darkness splintered

By a rich orange blessing,

Upon the peaks of Kanchenjunga

 

Blessings from the sun

That has not even raised itself

From the horizon –

While the valleys are still asleep in darkness

 

That first light

So radiant, so reddish

It will feel like an orange sunset

That false sunset of the east.

 

‘The Sleeping Buddha continues to sleep

It is us who will awaken

Ahead of the sun

Ahead of the day’

 

The sun has set,

Here the day has closed

But somewhere a sun still shines

An orange blessing on sunset spires…

 

23rd August 2026

 

The expression “false sunset of the east” was used by British observers to describe the extraordinary glow that can appear on the Himalayan peaks before sunrise. Naturalist Joseph Dalton Hooker, who travelled through the Himalayas in the 1840s, recorded unusual “false sunset and sunrise” effects in his Himalayan Journals; later explorer Douglas Freshfield, writing about Kangchenjunga, also described a glow above the mountains resembling sunset even though the sun had not yet risen.

The phenomenon helped make Kanchenjunga at dawn one of Darjeeling's great spectacles. Today, the tradition lives on at Tiger Hill, where visitors routinely leave Darjeeling in the darkness—often around 3–4 a.m.—to watch the first sunlight strike the peaks of Kanchenjunga, turning them briefly pink, orange and gold. Tiger Hill has become internationally renowned for this sunrise experience.