The evening is almost upon Gangtok. Though instead of darkness, a strange dusky pale haze descends on the street below my window where excited children play games with nothing, and almost everything. As I look across the street to the distant hills of Bhushuk on the opposite ridge and at the matchbox-sized houses dotting the green carpet from where faint swirls of smoke from the evening hearths are rising, it suddenly strikes me that how quickly these four years have flown by, giving much, hurting a little and transforming me into a Himalaya addict for life. Every trip that I have made, every landscape that I have traversed, trekked or even crawled through has been special and very different in its own way. Every trip promised much more than I could gather with my limited receptive ability within the limited time frame, and though I have not been able to keep my own promise and re-visit many of these areas, HE had kept his promise in the one area where I did visit again and again, winter, summer and monsoon.
Another Barsey interlude, again going back to the jammin' sessions with LT. Though when I was making my first exploration trip in the Hilley-Barsey route, he had not joined me yet. My head bursting with excitement, heart almost pumping at the prospect of going into the depth of this amazing forest, I had made that trip quite early in the chilly and misty morning. As expected, I was expecting to see a red panda sitting on tree tops around every bend, a fleeting barking deer in every bush ans possibly even a clouded leopard jumping across thetrail. What I obviously found soon enough was that sighting anything apart from oaks and Rhododendrons in this landscape was a whole different ball game from what I had expected. Strange shapes with exotic colours were flying across the trails, strange calls were heard from the dense bamboo clumps, but I could make out absolutely nothing. The shapes vanished even before I could focus my vision to them and the owner of the calls never showed up. I soon felt very dejected wondering how many of Sikkim's 550 species of birds will ever give up its secrets to me.
Turning a corner from a dense patch of Hemlocks, I was completing another bend with dense bamboo on both sides when some movement on my left suddenly halted me in my track. There was something small, quick and very bright hopping around in between the bamboo clump on my left. I crouched low, ceased making any further movements and strained my eye muscles for the eventual revelation. However, 5 minutes and the movements suddenly vanished and the bird melted away somewhere. Utterly frustrated once again, I was about to get up when suddenly a loud, clear chirp came from the same area. I immediately crouched again and there he was! Dark slaty blue, with a distinct white eyebrow, the male whote-browed shortwing was looking at me with the same amount of curiosity and posing as if displaying inside an amphitheater. There was a brief magical interval when neither of us moved. Though I was motionless, inside I was jumping with joy and excitement. Though not the rarest bird in the world, shortwings are curious little plump and largely ground-dwelling birds which are extremely shy and skulking, preferring moist forests with dense undergrowth of bamboo and nearby water sources. It was a rather unusual bird adapted for a special kind of habitats and it was definitely my first encounter. Suddenly the bird slipped away deeper in the bamboos and vanished as quickly as it had done previously. I still stood spellbound for a shortwhile and then started the return journey to the basecamp, a happy and elated soul. I did not want to see red pandas any more, at least for that day.
More than three years pass in between with many more fascinating birds eventually rewarding my patience in many more fascinating forests. The shortwing, however, was forever etched in my memory and whenever I had to come even near to Barsey, or made hurried trips inside it, it seemed like it was there, waiting for me take a careful look.
Finally there was the chance!! I got some free days from my chair-bound schedule and joined my colleagues for a ten day trip inside Barsey when the skies were deep azure and the mornings were full of ground frost! It was December! After reaching the barrack on ridgetop and settling in, next afternoon found us going down to Hilley to explore a new area to install our camera traps. I was walking ahead of the group and walking quite briskly when suddenly turning a bend I had a strange feeling.
There was nobody or nothing else there on the trail and the air was also very still. I looked around to the area I had just left behind and saw the patch of ancient Hemlocks. I looked ahead and saw dense bamboo all around. It finally sunk in. I was standing at the exact bend where the shortwing and I had our first meeting. The whole atmosphere was expecting something and a strange silence descended on the forest. I did not quite know what to make of it but then I did not have to.
As if on queue, came the exact clear, loud chirp which I had heard three years back. This is too good to be true!! Though this was the predominant thought rushing in my head, I was hoping otherwise. And surely, my little friend did not disappoint. There it was, sitting in a familiar posture inside familiar bamboo clumps. I stood transfixed, amazed and overall transformed at the coincidence. May be it was a simple co-incidence.May be this was the stretch where shortwings nested. Quite possibly (and confidently) this might not have been the same bird which had showed up in 2007.
However, I wanted none of those logical conclusions. To me and my still awestruck mind (The bird slipped away very soon like it always did), it was the most magical co-incidence possible, even if it was a co-incidence. As many things have changed in these four years and keep on changing, I felt a very comforting assurance in the shortwing's presence.
He was there and he had kept his promise, even after three and a half years. I knew immediately then whatever boulder life hurls at me in the coming three years, everything will be all right.
