www.kalimpong.info

Fiction by Prabin Moktan.

The Watch
The moon loosened itself from the clouds and a soft light shone down on Min.A scar very precise and geometric ran underneath his left eye to disappear into a cross-stitch of other smaller scars that were concealed by a mop of jet-black hair.

Min and his two friends were on a mission. The three of them quiet, confident and almost feline stole into the darkness and positioned themselves below the broad leaves of the banana trees that flanked the dirt road leading to the cluster of huts. Slowly they began to work at the trunk of one of the trees, laboriously sawing away the wet tissues with a khukri. They worked quietly; the only sound was the muffled noise of the sawing and the patter of the waters of the dhara falling on the flat stones below. It wasn’t long before the upper half of the trunk was almost severed, held precariously by a few strands of stubborn fibre. They stopped and waited for the heavy drunken footfalls of Kaka to come dragging down the dark road. Presently the stooping figure of Kaka drunk as usual staggered along, swaying from one end of that narrow road to another. He had barely reached the dhara when Min and his friends let go of that unstable plant to make it fall at Kaka’s feet with a giant thud that disturbed the night and sent all the dogs of the hamlet nearby into a medley of very terrified barks. Kaka jumped out of his drunken stupor and in that sudden burst of uncoordinated, uncontrolled movement landed right into the slime pool with its cold sticky mess of soap water and mosquito larvae. Min and his friends jumped out of the darkness desperately trying to control their laughter. They pulled Kaka out of the mess and put him under the dhara to give that reluctant individual now reduced to a complaining bundle of flailing arms and gibberish, a swift and very undignified bath. They then carried that soft white naked mass of puffy flesh to his house and deposited it in his room so that he could regain both composure and dignity in the familiarity of his piss-stained double bed. (more…)

New fiction by Prabin Moktan…

AMALA AND THE WORM
Nabin Limbu lead as normal an existence as any 23 year old freelance DTP professional who dreamed of landing a government job before he crossed the age limit for such luxury. He did not smoke but occasionally hung out with his friends to binge-drink with them at the neighbourhood chaang joint run by amala, a middle-aged Tibetan hag who had come to Kalimpong during the early sixties.

This woman had one daughter who was majoring in American studies from a university in the US and a son somewhere in Dharamsala with His Holiness’s government in exile. Both were acutely embarrassed by their mother’s present vocation but they could do little to convince Tshering Nima to take up an alternative career. Her daughter a pragmatic girl who valued the entrepreneurial skills of her people suggested that she sell noodles while her son would rather have her live a quiet religious life spent counting her 108-beaded rosary. But Tshering Nima would have none of it. She had struggled all her life and she would not suffer these upstarts to tell her what to do. So she religiously got up at five every morning to visit the beef stalls to fetch her daily quota of ox-tail bones, lungs and a general assortment of other bovine appendages from which she could conjure up a tasty side dish for Nabin Limbu and company. (more…)

Another essay (#2) from Prabin Moktan’s Kpg Calling.

Our Winter of Content - Prabin Moktan
The most perfect thing about Kalimpong is its weather. This is not what you can say for Darjeeling where it becomes a kind of a necessity to invent poetic excuses for the inconsistency of the weather gods. In Kalimpong, there is perfection about the way the blue skies spread their benevolent tents above us in the winter. The dryness is almost benign. The grasses have to dry; the skin has to give away to the winter cracking that can only be cured by the perfumed antiseptic-ness of Boroline. Boroline – that white petroleum jelly so redolent of the winter memories that it makes one almost pine for those nights of deep sleep under the warm security of freshly fluffed cotton and the smell of the good liniment whose aroma symbolizes an entire season. (more…)

The first essay from Prabin Moktan’s collection, Kpg Calling. If anyone is interested in a copy of the book, please contact the author at prabinkpg @ sify.com or the administrator at admin @ kalimpong.info.

A Toast for Teesta - Prabin Moktan

Just as India, in a cartographic sense can boast of its own private ocean, Kalimpong’s pride is the Teesta. I have been fascinated by this green river ever since I can remember. Perhaps you too may have looked at it as you traveled on the road that runs parallel to its bank and wondered about the many secrets locked up in its sandy bed. The portion below the bridge may perhaps contain a wealth of coins thrown in by diverse breeds of devout individuals all with their own separate agendas for the divine to pay attention to. Perhaps one of them may belong to that over zealous coin thrower, who in the process of pursuing a blessing actually tossed herself out of the speeding jeep along with her rupee, to miraculously escape with just a minor bruising from the Gammon concrete. (more…)