Reflections

 (This  was written last year in July)   The monsoon has set in over the past week. It has rained off and on this week and when we leave home the clouds are heavy, threatening to rain at any time. Our first destination today is the Chanta River. According to information available on the internet, it originates in the Mahananda sanctuary, but a Google Earth search suggests that it can be traced up to the Dahukuria area somewhere in the Dagapur region. We turn off from the main road to Shiv Mandir to a smallish road. Initially the road is crowded, small houses and a few apartment buildings. Slowly it becomes a little less crowded and the Chamta River can be seen flowing beside the road. The river is small but there is a good flow. The recent rains have helped to fill the river right up to its banks. A little more rain and it might overflow. Houses have spring up here and there and the river winds around and behind them and there are swampy areas which are more water t...

  The Darjeeling terai is part of the larger Terai region that extends across the southern foothills of the Himalayas, encompassing parts of northern India and southern Nepal. It is the area lying between the Teesta and Mechi Rivers. It is characterized by the Himalayan foothills, scrub savannah, sal forests, and clay-rich swamps. The region is crossed by several rivers, some of which are perennial and the rest seasonal. This region with all its huge diversity of plants and animals are very accessible to anybody living in Siliguri. However, one needs to have a guide. Those who have lived all their lives in Siliguri are familiar with most of these landscapes but for us Johnny come lately’s it is useful to have someone familiar with the tea gardens and rivers and forests of the region with us. Last year, the monsoon was delayed. In fact, there was practically no rain right from October 2022 until almost the end of June 2023, unlike this year where the rain gods have been kinder. Th...

When in India, I saw (via You Tube) Jean Renoir’s The River. Jean was the son of the famous Impressionist painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir and wrote a marvelous memoir about his father. He was a well known film maker and though I do not agree with some overenthusiastic fans who feel he is one of the greatest ever, he did make some lovely films. His career started in the thirties of the last century when he directed several silent movies before he moved into the world of sound as many others did. He fled to the USA at the outbreak of the Second World War and the first movie that he made after the war was “The River” which he shot in and around Calcutta in the late forties. This movie is important for another reason. One of his assistant directors was a certain Satyajit Ray who was influenced by him to take up a career in cinema. Several others who became famous in their own right such as Bansi Chandragupta and Subrata Mitra also worked in this film. The movie is based on a novel by Rumer G...