Hello dear readers :) I hope you had a great 2014 and are buckled up for a more joyous 2015!The last week of the year represents celebrations, hope, excitement; for some it brings closure to issues that aren't worth being dragged on to a new season of 365 episodes. After all the Christmas plans and feasts, it is time to celebrate a new beginning! Today's post is associated with all of it - New Year's Eve, Christmas, fun, contentment. Hope you will enjoy it. Wish you all a very happy and prosperous new year! ~~~ So I really wanted to visit an orphanage this Christmas and spread some joy but my plan somehow got ruined and I ended up spending the day meeting an old friend. The plan didn’t take shape even over the next three days so I finally called it quits and chose to go on a little adventure with Rhea -one of the wackiest people I’ve known all my life and a great friend of mine. Her family had gone camping at Relli River, half an hour away from her place in the countryside (12th mile) and thus we decided to join them.Relli khola is a small river that flows from Sikkim, through Kalimpong , and later joins the Teesta river. It is a common picnic spot for the locals, but the last time I was there was sometime in 2004. An opportunity to be there again was naturally exciting.After I reached Rhea’s place, we got a ride downhill in a truck.
We had to walk a little way after getting off the big vehicle to get to the camp. Atleast that’s what we thought until her friend, Robin, came to show us the way to the spot. We ended up hiking for more than an hour in the midday heat, walking across the flowing water and climbing huge rocks until we finally got there.
It was a different kind of peaceful there. Not a single bird was in sight (which is oh so peaceful for me since I’m terrified of birds), the air was pure and fresh and the view, awesome. One could indeed feel fully alive in this location.~ ‘The place was free, and isn’t every free minute a short story with a happy ending? '
“Every year on the first week of January, my parents would organize a picnic to Relli with some of their colleagues and their family. There was this one time when the spot had to be changed at the last moment due to some problems. I don’t clearly remember what exactly happened since I was pretty small but as I sat, everybody started making a lot of noise and getting back into the vehicle. My mother pulled me inside too. Then we journeyed for some time with loud folk music playing through the stereo. The plan had been back on and we had reached Relli. That was the year I found a small dead crab by the river and buried it with utmost respect beneath a huge rock. I had marked the tiny grave by building a miniature fence around it using small sticks. Even for four years after that, I would try to locate that place each time we went there for a picnic.”- Priyanka, 21“Once, I filled water in an empty liquor bottle lying on the white sand. Then I collected tadpoles and small fish and put them in the bottle and brought it home. I insisted on keeping it in the drawing room so that I could show it off. Then my grandmother told me the story about the woodcutter and his axe which fell into the river and a ‘water god’ emerged from it. I was intrigued by the story. She then slipped in subtle words saying that the water god exists and is very angry with me for trapping his children. It worked on me just the way she wanted and I ran off to empty the bottle in a nearby stream.”-Aditya, 15“I went to Relli with a group of friends last week to celebrate a reunion. We got totally drunk and danced under the sky like there’s no tomorrow. It was too cold to swim but it would be incomplete without getting in the water. It was a great stress reliever. I think everybody needs to do it once in a while.”- Keshav, 26
Our dear Relli Khola has numerous stories etched on its stones and carved on its banks that neither the waves nor time can erase. Some stories have been shared, passed down to younger people in the family; yet many remain untold. I guess the river deserves to keep some tales to itself! :)
(By the way, Rhea has a horse! Perks of living in the countryside, I tell you :p)
Happy 2015!
