At times when life and work fog the brain and life seem to be a huge chore, a brief break works wonders. It was thus that the travel agents chalked out a Darjeeling trip for us and chose the Windamere Heritage Hotel in Darjeeling, famed for their ‘colonial legacy’, for us to nestle in for a week. Like other brief holidays indulged in earlier, I was prepared for a good time but was not really prepared to find this the best. In fact, the fact that due to low pressure, the weather had decided to pout and grouse for some two days showed us the other wondrous side of this place, so soothing, with memories of the British Raj legacy up there amidst the neighbourhood of the Himalayas. Seated before a glowing coal fire in the huge dining hall, with soft, gentle music pouring in from the more than a hundred-year-old piano from Daisy’s Music Room, we felt cuddled with a gentle feel of warmth and a mellow feel of happiness. The Colonial Dining Hall (in fact, there are two big halls) is as legendary for the aura it holds. English food is as much here as is the service of the Indian dishes for the culinary tastes of the Orient. Everyone is special, and they are served likewise a full five-course meal: orthodox tea and wine, pink gins, spirits and the single malts.

The way I always do, I had carried with me my father’s poetry collection, Musafirkhana, to translate if time and opportunity afforded. Such snatches of creativity have always helped me to advance with my work and not waste a minute. However, I found the staff at Windamere so warm and polite, hospitable with a brimful of smiles about them, and welcoming too. It was such that the Mirik trip, which we had to forego due to bad weather, didn’t upset us in the least. The rooms here were big and airy, and the look of the outside world from each window was green and held nature’s wonderful beauty. How Wordsworth would have loved staying here! Room service was nice and prompt. The aura, elegance, feel and presence were telling of care and conscious effort of warmth.

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This place, which goes by the name of Windamere, was right at the onset known as Ada Villa in 1841 and was then, at that point in time, an English boarding house. Mrs Gertrude Bearpark had her suite there as she ran the place with a steadfast determination for order and assiduity. It became the Windamere Hotel only in the year 1939. Thus, the place has their separate houses, each apart, and yet together, bonded by that colonial feel that exists everywhere as well as snatches of the local people’s touching feel…in the woven tea cosy, the traycloth, the smiles and the photo hangings. And indeed, I was very lucky to have Shiva Limbu, a prized staff member of the place, approach us so very courteously on one of our mornings after breakfast, eager to know how we were feeling about the place. It was he who, to my good luck, agreed to show me around the place. He took me to the very first house, Ada Villa, as it was just happenstance that I had asked him a few curious questions. Mr Limbu was so pleased to take me up that small hillock and show me around each room. Each door had a special name (The Begum Aga Khan, Yvette Labrousse, Princess of Sian, Chogyal of Sikkim, Prince Peter of Greece and Denmark, Alexander David Neel, Viscount Knebworth 1931, etc.), which again merited looking into a past history. Years have passed since colonial times, and yet the place stands with its abundance of love and care…and romance! The touch of British times, with European furnishings, floral hangings, furniture, exclusive sanitary wares (dated), the texture of time, letters, pictures, wispy from time and a serene feel…holding on to the silence of the nineteenth century…that filled the yawning space of centuries and silence! It was here in this particular house that time slept in every nook and corner, preserving the heritage and yet playing at hide and seek. My eyes and mind remained riveted back to that ancient period of time, not hopscotching back. There’s the anteroom, a wondrous living room, a right royal lady’s dressing room (not one which we nowadays share with the family), and a marvellous toilet space. One has to see it to believe it. With not a word, our colonial history awaits in these royal suites. Then there’s Annandale House, Betty Tumilty, The Snuggery (the area bought from the Maharajah of Cooch Behar in 1950), Tinkerbell’s Cottage, Miss Twentymen (that have rooms dwelling wondrously on the months of the year as they face the direction of the natural world that best brings out their attributes). That was a real wonder, to have a room to stay in that dwells on a particular month.

The Windamere Heritage Hotel up there in the Himalayas has the footprints of the times. The names on the doors again need one to know the story behind each separate tag. There was a huge room where the Governor of Bengal and other dignitaries stayed. The letters of famous personages are framed on the wall, pictures of the toy train, and yes, you will be so happy to know that Rabindranath Tagore, our genius of a poet and writer, too, has his letter framed and put up there on the wall, with so much love and reverence!

I will not dwell on the surrounding trees and plants and romantic bamboo groves that space the place with ivies and moon-drop creepers. There are rhododendrons, musandas and marigolds jostling all over the place. Let’s pace ahead to that sip of connoisseurs delight with its unique flavour. Yeah, a cup of orange pekoe tea, Earl Grey or Darjeeling tea! We all know the history behind that cup of tea we have every morning and through the day. And yet the special feel is reserved for one who understands what flavour and the aroma of a cup of tea stand for. Tea plants that were the priority of the Chinese arrived at the portals of India and turned to a special cup, all appealing with every sip! It not only drains out the common man’s fatigue and brings an energetic frame of mind, but here in Darjeeling the very service afforded by the staff brought a special appeal. And Assam too will be glad, for they have not left out their very own Maniram Dewan in that context. Mr Limbu sent up a special tray of tea as we sat watching not just a video or pics, but past times all recorded. Yes, it was all about Windamere, where people gathered about the ascent of Mount Everest; about the Baldwin Locomotive Works; the British Expedition to reach the highest mountain peak within 40 miles of Mount Everest; about the supply of materials for the expedition over the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway way back in time; about the locomotive built then under individual specifications of the Railway Company to withstand the severest of strains…like tents, rucksacks, climbing boots, magazine rifles, lightweight tents, Barr and Stroud binoculars, climbing boots, etc. There were videos of Teddy Young, the British tea planter’s contribution to the improvement of the local people; about tea gardens, and even about the unique ways of the Lama’s lifestyle; about the monasteries, the advancement of dances, masks, and banners. Then there was the Ghoom Monastery, the Jalapahar, where St Paul’s School is. (My son had studied there.) There was Janey Anita Carter, and Captain Yongda (who ran an academy where the ambience of prayers, learning, and training in the arts was advanced); there was also Evelyn Shah. The efforts of the government to advance tourism were also seen at that early date from Toronto, Canada, as a very necessary first step. So much attention!

Darjeeling is a wonderful holiday point. Here, the local people are very nice and energetic. All around you, you will find the tall, stately pines; the sublime, nude beauty of a waterfall or a cataract; the riddle spelt out by the mists sitting aloft the treetops; and the delicate embrace of the moss! The Toy Train (DHR Club) is zooming past! It is a testament to Windamere’s MD, who helped in the preservation of the little toy train from extinction. From the late 1990s, the little train is now on the UNESCO World Heritage list.

I am so full of the merit of my time spent at Windamere that the rhythm goes frog marching like an ancient poem within me. Sitting for breakfast, how I had looked up at those hills and the sky that came down to touch the Himalayas! There was a wondrous mystery all around: the Lama’s chants, that Buddhist cave, and the boisterous schoolchildren with scrubbed, shining faces walking past. Yes…there’s beauty, knowledge and listening…there are also the whispers of love for the majestic ranges of the Himalayas, as they stand looking down at your face since time and eternity joined hands. Which face is wonderstruck? Visit the place to be moonstruck, and remember, you must have eyes to see!

The writer is an academic, poet, editor, translator, author and reviewer based in Kolkata