Darjeeling is the queen of hills and rhododendrons are the shining crown of this queen

Photo curtesy: Pixabay

It was nearly sundown on a balmy March evening when I reached Darjeeling - the queen of hills. The soft orange glow of the setting sun bathed the majestic Himalayas. As the car meandered through the serpentine mountain road, I forgot my motion sickness and couldn't help but marvel at the vast expanse of tea gardens, ever-rising pine trees, and twinkling lights from the houses like stars have descended on the earth.

While I reveled at the picturesque beauty laid out in front of me what caught my eye rapturously was a tree laden with bloody red flowers - inciting and enchanting. I just couldn't take my eyes off them dotting the road on either side welcoming you in its magnificent embrace. Have you ever felt like that? Mesmerized and oblivious to anything but that one thing that crept on you unknowingly and kept tugging your heart incessantly? 

This is how you feel when you lay your eyes on a guras tree for the first time. Its sinuous branches bursting seductively with copious red blooms tease your senses and the visual encounter leaves you awestruck. For a wandering heart, it is the beginning of a lifetime of romance with the mountains and their treasured secrets hidden within their embrace.

Locals call them guras and I had to say it a couple of times before it rolled off my tongue easily. A quick online search introduced them as mighty rhododendrons - a protected flowering tree in the Himalayas that I never had a chance to see before. No Himalayan folklore is complete without the love story of guras with the locals and travelers alike. There are many stories, that the locals revel in narrating.

The highlight of my very short trip to Darjeeling wasn’t the early morning trip to the Tiger Hill, the idyllic Batashiya circle, the toy train, the Mall Road, the Rock Garden, the Glenary’s Bakery (though the experience at the Glenary’s deserves another article), or even the mighty Kanchenjunga like mentioned in all travel guides that I devoured before venturing to the hills.

It was the non-descript meeting with these lofty flowering trees that winked at me through pine trees from every hairpin turn and kissed my feet while I ambled through the wilderness. As if they knew my coming and were waiting to wrap me in their arms, tidying over my worries and filling me with inner peace and happiness. Blooming profusely in March, rhododendrons are a sight to behold. The Himalayas won’t be the Himalayas without these proud trees. If Darjeeling is the queen of hills, then definitely the rhododendrons are the shining crown of this queen.

I visited the queen of hills after the pandemic so it wasn't very surprising to learn not only are those flowers a beauty to behold but have many medicinal properties. My taxi driver told me they made a brew of laal guras flowers to fight the symptoms of Covid-19. You will find them planted in pots in humble abodes taking pride in their garden or perched high on the Himalayas rising tall and high inviting you to marvel at its exquisiteness.

On your sojourn to the Himalayas pay homage to this rapturous beauty that has caught the fancy of humankind since time immemorial for its beauty and utility alike, and has resided in the hearts of poets, locals, botanists, and travelers from near and far.

At the current rate of urbanization, who knows, if we may be able to experience the mountains as they should be. Rapid construction and deforestation coupled with the problems arising from urbanization rose like a sore thumb and couldn’t be ignored, which made me wonder what will happen if we kept robbing our mother nature mindlessly, which is the true currency of our existence.

I won’t digress from the topic further but these thoughts kept haunting me when the car sped downhill from Darjeeling to Siliguri for a toy train as a company on one side and lofty rhododendrons on the other, smiling down on me, looking scrupulously, inviting me to come back soon.

I hope they will be waiting in abundance when I go back.