DARJEELING IS THE NICEST PLACE on the face of the earth when complemented by some generosity from the sun. However, the weather today is abysmal and uninspiring. In the game of hide and seek with the low laying clouds, the sun is doing more of the hiding than otherwise. A flock of haze has overwhelmed Kunchenjunga* adding to the murkiness of the town. Everything is gloomy and obscure, and it doesn't seem long before the clouds burst in to a gush of downpours.

On a typical Darjeeling morning like this, most people would prefer dreaming in their cosy beds than venturing outside, but 74-years-old Ama Yangchen. The weather rarely deters her from tracing the trail leading to the cliff on Wednesday mornings. In the duel between her devotion and the forces on the land of the living, more often than not the former is expected to emerge victorious, and so it again has today. One could unfailingly spot her vague figure trudging through the deserted Chor-Rasta* almost every third dawn of the week. Today she is accompanied by her eight-year-old, and the youngest of all grandsons, Tashi.

Ama Yangchen is five feet nothing, and her chubby criss-crossed face is rapturous with life and stimulates affection. Her seventy-four years are evident in her slouching back, myopic eyes and plaited hair of no distinct colour. She has the traditional bag for incense, juniper twigs and other mysterious stuffs hanging loosely down her shoulders. Her left hand harbours her trademark brown rosary, which is seldom kept idle. In her right, she clutches a long black umbrella belonging to her late husband, which also comes in handy as a cane. This wrinkly woman from Tenkey Dzong, Tsang is the only one in her family who could tell stories about Tibet to the young ones with a certain degree of precision. She is the only mortal link between the old home and the new one.

“Grandma, I'm tired,” Tashi complaints. The prospect of seeing monkeys swinging from one tree to another at the hilltop might have appeared fascinating minutes ago, but the poor child is not really enjoying the long ascending trek.

“We are almost there, Tashi.” She assures spreading her hand over Sonam's head. “You know when your father was of your age, he single-handedly used to herd Yaks and Dris we had back in Tibet , and he never felt tired. He was only eight back then. Aren't you the one like him?”

 Tashi promptly responds in affirmative. The bonny little lads like him have an extraordinary desire to grow up quickly, and being addressed as a man is a rare honour to them. As for Ama Yangchen, she surely knows how to keep children enthusiastic- no doubt for she has raised an equivalent of a football team by herself.

The steep slopes and narrow bends are not at all new to this old lady. Approximately forty years ago at the height of the Cultural Revolution she and her husband braved some of the world's highest mountains with three young boys and an infant girl. It was one long tiring journey from the barley fields of Tenkey to the terraced tea gardens of Darjeeling . After nearly four decades, she looks back to that colossal trip with an assorted feeling of agony and achievement. She has never undertaken an odyssey of such magnitude since then, but that one trek does make her weekly visit to the hill somewhat insignificant.

“Do we have monkeys in Tibet , Grandma?” Tashi questions with a childlike innocence.

“Yes we do. We have monkeys, antelopes, wolves, bears and a bunch of other wild creatures. But they are not as gruesome as the monkeys you see at the hill. We have an understanding- they don't harm us and we don't make life difficult for them.” Ama Yangchen elaborates, occasionally gasping for breath. She is full of fond memories and influencing nostalgia, and is happy to see that her grandson is spellbound by her country. If granted a wish, Tashi's second emphasis would definitely be on a visit to his Grandma's mystical land; first one, of course, on being a Tibetan Spiderman.

After negotiating an uphill path, they finally reach the summit. The prayer flags hanging in thousands from the trees, the aroma of juniper and cedar from the ovens, and the serenity of the location provide a divine look to it. Tashi instantly mingles with the surroundings and Ama Yangchen allows him to play a spectator to the monkeys and their hullabaloos as she busies herself praying.