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Two Pillion Riders of Gyalshing

Two Pillion Riders of Gyalshing

Trinity Rai
Two Pillion Riders of Gyalshing

We share this fictional tale of Dr. Rajesh Chettri, a young doctor in 1970s Gyalshing, Sikkim, whose life is a blend of professional dedication and personal transformation. Through saving lives, challenging cultural norms, and experiencing profound love, Dr. Chettri navigates the complexities of faith and duty.

Doctor Rajesh Chettri rushed down to Gyalshing Hospital in a state of ‘spiritual elevation’. “A doctor’s life is never meant to be enjoyed at his or her own leisure, so Hippocratic Oath, here I come!” he muttered as he entered the Emergency Room.

There had been other doctors around, yet the patient’s husband had specifically asked for the young, good-looking doctor  in his late twenties. Doctor Chettri had always been a hit with the patients at the Gyalshing Hospital, the only one in the entire West Sikkim district in those days.

Padam Bahadur Rai, an eminent member of Gyalshing society, was a stubborn man. But that apart, he was at heart simple and really humble, with no airs about his immense wealth that saw him heading the district Rotary Club. So naturally, one just had to deal with him with kid gloves, and Dr Chettri had managed to do just that.

Not that he had made an extra effort to win Rai’s heart. The amiable and charming doctor had these innate qualities. Naturally, the stubborn Rotarian would hear nothing about any other doctor dealing with his wife. He wanted only this young, bespectacled, and charming man for the job.

***

It was a difficult pregnancy, made more complex by the fact that the patient was well over 48 years old. But Rai had a steadfast belief in Papa Parohang and Mama Sumnima, the Sky God and the Mother Earth of the Rai faithful across the state.

Dr Chettri was a confirmed atheist. And the young gynecologist had at one point dreaded that he might lose the mother as well as the child in such a tricky surgical intervention. So when indeed they both came out winners in that critical race for survival, the doctor could not avoid feeling that Mama Sumnima, the Rais’ Supreme Deity, had perhaps eroded his haughty atheism somewhat.

***

Padam Rai’s social and financial standing in Gyalshing society meant that the word soon got around how his wife and son were saved. “He is our God.” He made no bone in making in his own circles, which was heard pretty much by all in the town. So in the mid-1970s, Gyalshing had its own new addition to the pantheon.

The doctor was a laid-back youth, broad-minded, and almost too modern for his time. The kind who care little for themselves. His parents had tried their level best to keep their only son back home in Kurseong, in the Darjeeling district of  Sikkim’s neighbouring state of West Bengal, but I guess it was his fate that took him to the valley of rice.

Or maybe ‘fate’ is the wrong word for him, which, like God, did not exist in his lexicon. All his classmates at the North Bengal Medical College had thought that the gold medallist from the Darjeeling hills would surely head towards the City of Joy for a career, but that he chose a place like Sikkim was something that confounded them.

But Raj, as his Bengali classmates used to call him, had never wanted to mint money off his profession. And the reason was that as a young House Intern, he had been deeply influenced by the Marxist-Leninist movement, or the Naxal movement, which had gripped Bengal since his MBBS years.

Partly, that was also something that lay behind his atheism. For he had read Dialectical Materialism, which says: “Life is matter in motion, and no man bathes in the same river twice. Neither is he the same man nor is the river the same.”

Influenced by the Naxal movement, Raj had always wanted to serve the needy, to bring a change. Calcutta – he told himself, already had many good doctors, and he felt Sikkim was the place he needed to head out to, so he had a smile in his heart and his parents’ reluctant blessings.

In Sikkim too, he could have opted for Gangtok, the state capital, but he argued to himself that Gyalshing was still a bit backward, but the people there were really rooted in their customs, religion, and community. So Gyalshing was not where he was ‘posted’ but his workplace of choice.

***

He even experienced that some members of some communities were a tad more conservative in their beliefs, and that had led to some clashes at his workplace too.

But from the beginning, he had been a hit with the people, much to the annoyance of some local doctors. And the fact that he was very popular among the nurses and womenfolk added salt to their injuries.

A certain Doctor Gyatso had even passed snide comments on him, but he had let the barking dogs lie. Gyatso was his senior and he didn’t want to mess with the Bhutia community, and he had his own personal reason behind that.

***

That personal reason was in the form of a young female teacher working at the Pelling Girl’s School. Kesang Diki Shangderpa was a paragon of beauty indeed. He still remembered the first time he had laid eyes on her. And it was all of a sudden.

That was the day when Kesang was late for school and to top it, all the buses she took daily to commute to school left her behind. It was to be the first day of the school’s half-yearly exams, and she could now be in deep trouble with her demanding Principal.

Then at a distance, she had caught the sight of an olive-coloured Royal Enfield bike booming towards her. She reckoned that this could be her only choiceif she didn’t get a ride from this chappy, she would be dead meat.

She screamed at the top of her voice and nearly collided with the bike. It was a typical Bollywood “Jab we met” kind of thing but in real life. Doctor Raj took off his helmet and was immediately smitten by her dark hair cut into the latest bob fashion, her pink hanju and black bakhu that revealed her slim waist, and her proud breasts bobbing up and down in her desperate shouting to stop him.

Her sharp nose, those big brown eyes, and beautiful lipsfor a couple of seconds Raj went into a trance, and came to his senses only when Kesang politely asked him to give her a ride to the school. “Oh sure, please hop over,” Raj managed to say.

As his bike glided down the road, he passed by the tiny Shiv Temple and nodded his head to acknowledge his fortune to the Hindu God. It was completely involuntary, for that day he felt like doing so.

“Does this mean you really exist?” he asked silently to Shiva. Since his eyes were on the road, he did not realise that at that very moment, Kesang – a staunch devotee of the Buddhist Guru Padmasambhava  almost regretted taking that ride. For she thought the man was bonkers.

After that Kesang kept on bumping into him surprisingly frequently, oblivious to the fact that Raj had been keeping an eye on her every possible day.

Kesang saw that as a matter of frequent accidental meets, for despite being a true beauty, she had never even believed that someone could be besotted by her. For she herself never gave a thought to her own sterling beauty.

But yes, her younger brother, Karma used to get a lot of sweets from the agyas and dajus (elder brothers) from both Gyalshing and Pelling in exchange for little bits of information regarding her whereabouts.

Naturally, Kesang was amazed when her brother Karma finally spilled the beans about how a certain good-looking jyagha (outsider) doctor had been taking him out for rides and offering small treats in exchange for any news on her, and he even admitted to liking him from the rest of her suitors.

Mad with rage and embarrassment, she had stormed into the hospital with a good mind to ask for an explanation: “Are you stalking me?” she had been determined to ask the young doctor.

But once inside the hospital, she found him taking delicate care of a little boy who had just been injured in a car accident.  This is no ordinary man, she had thought, and as the doctor finally caught her staring at him from a distance, she felt her cheeks burning again, but this time there was no anger that fired them.

***

Soon enough, those “accidental” meetings were no longer accidental, but “by appointment”. But Kesang has started realising the prying eyes of some and from then, they made every appointment look like a happy accident… “Hi, Raj.. what a surprise finding you here…” and all that kind of stuff.

But the day Kesang and Raj had lunch together at the Roshni Bar & Restaurant just to the left side of the square where the weekly Sunday market would assemble opposite the longest Mendang in the world, that tongues really started wagging.

Kesang’s amala and pala (mother and father) were livid to find out that their eldest daughter was “being taken for a ride” by someone outside their community, and this was simply not up to their liking at all.

They tried, first persuading, then scolding, and every other method, but Kesang was stubborn and held her ground till her pala went on a hunger strike.

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It was the Sunday after they’d had lunch at Roshni’s and her father refused breakfast, then lunch, and then dinner too at home. No way his ‘dainty’ daughter would marry a rank ‘outsider, he said and went off to sleep without a morsel of food in his tummy.

Kesang was heartbroken, as she was forced to choose between the two men she loved the most, but in the end, she had to make a decision.

***

18th September 1977, It was a stormy day., It was one of the post-monsoon days when more clouds and thunder shook the world than the retreating monsoon days.

The dark clouds and the rumbling of the lightning matched Raj’s heart which was then split wide open. He left Gyalshing for good.  And Sikkim lost a skilled doctor, who had become God to a lot of them!

***

Eventually, his parents got what they had desired: their son back to them, working with the Darjeeling & Dooars Medical Association (DDMA) Hospital at Kurseong. He did just what his Naxal exposure had taught him to do: be with his patients and win their hearts with his skills and his smiles.

The only thing that had changed was his specs: round, robust, and kinder than he ever looked. When he was not at the hospital, he was reading. He was an avid reader. But something nudged at his soulwhywhywhy?

But he was finally healed when he heard from his former colleagues at Gyalshing that Kesang had married Dr Gyatso, and he wished them both happiness and he sincerely meant that.

***

Early that morning, Dr. Raj was on his way to Kurseong for a medical conference, and his old Enfield was still his faithful companion and taking him past St Mary’s when he was stopped by a white kurta-clad, young woman, her skin the colour of monumental alabaster.

Malai Kharsang samman lagidinu… hunay…aju mero kaam ko pahilo din ani mo ta late chu aju” (This is the first day on my job, and I am late… you see, the bus left too early… could you give me a lift, please?).

Now he saw her small but dazzling, light brown eyes, her long jet-black hair, and shapely lips, her rather tight salwar-kameez, her wisping slim waist, and from beneath her blouse, there bobbed up and down her rather comely breastsbut it was so different, for she had a red teeka on her forehead, and when she smiled, he felt his heart pound.

“Hi, I am Dr Chettri. I am a doctor. You are a teacher. And I am much pleased to serve the shapers of our future citizens,” he quipped. Hunchabasnu hawas nasangeyi. (Let’s go together).

She giggled, delicately sat on the pillion, catching the side rim of the bike without so much as touching Rajbut off they rode together into the morning light in his olive Royal Enfield, even as the Heritage Toy Train setting off from Kharsang station whistled from the greasy railroad junction, crossing under the cloud-shrouded Kurseong station moving up to Darjeeling.

“Weeeee”, comes the whistle from the train, its steam engine chugging out the desire to move on…. and it repeated the whistle thrice…“Weeeee”, “Weeeee”, “Weeeee”, and chugged off to the hills.

“Dialectical Materialism”: he thought to himself and smiled, even as he felt her warm breath gracing his firm, muscular shoulders. Her delicate palm now and then rested on his right shoulder whenever he came to take the sharp, hairpin bends on the Pankhabari Road beyond Makaibari Tea Estates.

Life is matter in motion, and no man bathes in the same river twice. Neither is he the same man nor is the river the same river that it was a while ago.”

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